One can observe an unfoldment of the successive stages of Super-Ego maturity, which occurs in parallel with the unfolding of the different cognitive stages of the Ego. Part of the Ego organisation, however, is in a state of becoming conscious and part remains unconscious. The Ego represents what seems subjectively to be reason and common sense. It is that part of the personality which is experienced as being oneself, that which one recognises as 'I', one's face to the world, at a particular point in time. It is not maintained that the Super-Ego is an accurate replica of the parental figures who have been introjected, since the most significant internalisations are found to occur early in childhood, when the infant endows his mental objects with his own characteristics.
Introjection is both a defense and a normal developmental process, depending on the context.
Introjected parental figures act as guardians of a child until he can understand what to do in the absence of such guidance. The autonomous Ego is free from Super-Ego programs. Each successive Stage is a cognitive transformation of earlier ones, and each level incorporates earlier ones in a hierarchical system of increasing differentiation and integration. Change from one Stage to the next is precipitated by moral conflict involving expectations and reality, with thesis and antithesis giving way to higher synthesis. This theory involves the interaction of the individual and the environment.