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In 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
self was divided into three parts: the Ego,
the Superego and the Id.
The general claim that the mind is not a monolithic or homogeneous thing continues to have an enormous influence on people
outside of psychology.
The ancient Greeks also 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 also the
article forms of state.)
The Id
The Id (Latin, "it" in English, "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 is organized around
primitive instinctual urges of sexuality, aggression and the desire for instant
gratification or release .
The Superego
The Superego ("Über-ich" in the original German, roughly "over-me"
in English) represented our conscience and counteracted the Id with a primitive
and unconscious sense of morality . This primitive morality is to be distinguished from an ethical sense, which is an egoic
property, since ethics relies requires an eligibility for deliberation on matters of fairness or justice.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 a primitive or child based knowledge of right
and wrong, it maintains the taboos specific to a child's internalization of parental culture.
Freud considered the Oedipus Complex to be a formative stage in
the development of the superego.
The Ego
In Freud's view the Ego stands in between the Id and the Superego to balance our primitive needs and our moral beliefs and
taboos. ("Ego" means "I" in Latin; the original German word Freud coined was "Ich".) He stated that the Ego consists of our
conscious sense of self and world and a highly structured set of unconscious defenses that are central in defining both
individual differences in character or personality and the symptoms and inhibitions that define the neuroses. 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.
Carl Jung's views on the Ego
Carl Jung saw the Ego (which Freud wrote about in the literal German as "the
I", that is, one's conscious experience of what one is) as the center of the conscious part of the psyche. In Jungian psychology,
Ego has four functions: sensation, feeling, thinking and intuition. Combining the dominance of some of functions with the
extraversion-introversion polarity, Jung had developed his version of
psychological typology. 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:
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