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Ego, Superego and Id : EgoFor the game, see IgoIn his theory of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud sought to explain how the unconscious mind operates by proposing that it has a particular structure. He proposed that the unconscious was divided into three parts: the Ego, the Superego and the Id. The general claim that the mind isn't a monolithic or homogeneous thing continues to have an enormous influence on people outside of psychology. Many, however, have questioned or rejected the specific claim that the mind is divided into these three components. The ancient Greeks divided the soul into three parts of their own, with only one part in common. The Greek parts were the desiring part (which is like what we call the id, but without so much implication of suppressed deviant sexuality), the spirited part, and the reasoning part. (See the article forms of state for m
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The Id (Latin, = "it" = "es" in the original German) represented primary process thinking -- our most primitive need gratification type thoughts. The Id, Freud stated, constitutes part of one's unconscious mind. It acts on primitive instinctual[?] urges (sex, hunger, anger etc).
The Superego represented our conscience and counteracted the Id with moral and ethical thoughts. The Superego, Freud stated, is the moral agent that links both our conscious and unconscious minds. The Superego stands in opposition to the desires of the Id. The Superego is itself part of the unconscious mind; it is the internalization of the world view and norms and mores a child absorbs from parents and peers. As the conscience, it is knowledge of right and wrong; as world view it is knowledge of what is real.
The Ego stands in between both to balance our primitive needs and our moral/ethical beliefs. ("Ego" means "I" in Latin). Freud stated that the Ego resides almost entirely in our conscious mind.
In Freud's view the Ego stands in between both to balance our primitive needs and our moral/ethical beliefs. Relying on experience, a healthy Ego provides the ability to adapt to reality and interact with the outside world in a way that accommodates both Id and Superego.
Interestingly, Carl Jung saw the Ego (which Freud wrote about in the literal German as "the I," that is, an one's conscious experience of the stuff one is) as a complex. If the "I" is a complex, what might be the archetype that structures it? Jung, and many Jungians, might say "the hero," that who separates from the community to some extent to ultimately carry the community further.
The "I" or Ego is tremendously important to Jung's clinical work. Jung's theory of etiology of psychopathology could almost be simplified to be stated as a too rigid conscious attitude towards the whole of the psyche.
See also:
In the two preceding lectures I have endeavoured to indicate to you the
and now, having thus acquired some conception of the Past and Present
the great problem which we have set before ourselves;--I mean, the
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Here, on the threshold of the inquiry, an objection meets us. There are
judgments and opinions are entitled to the utmost respect on account of
especially all questions relating to the origin.html">origin of vital phenomena.html">phenomena, are
their very nature, placed out of our reach. They say that all these
the ordinary course of nature, and that therefore they conceive it to
of this kind is not to be shelved upon theoretical or speculative
Diogenes in the most complete and satisfactory manner that he could not
refuted him by simply getting up and walking.html">walking round his tub. So, in the
simply getting up and walking onward, and showing what science.html">science has done
ascertained and systematized under the forms of the great doctrines of
enormous mass.html">mass of facts and laws.html">laws relating to organic beings, which stand
therefore, with this mass of facts and laws before us, therefore, seeing
studied, they have shown themselves capable of yielding to scientific
there as well as in the rest of nature; and the man of science says
walk to a knowledge of the origin of organic nature, in the same way
inorganic world.
But there are objectors who say the same from ignorance and ill-will.
the real.html">real presumption, I may almost say the real blasphemy, in this
phenomena which is the source of all human blessings, and from which
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