The Oedipus Complex - Sigmund Freud vs. Jacques Lacan Essay

The epic poem, “The Iliad,” written by the Greek poet Homer, contains many occurrences of the psychologist Freud’s approach of the three systems of Superego, Id, and Ego. Superego, the little angel on one’s shoulder, is considered to be the voice of our moral compass (conscience) that speaks from the unconscious mind on the difference between real and ideal situations. It strives for perfection with tracking what we ought to behave like. Id, opposite to Superego, is the little devil on the other side of one’s shoulder. Its unconscious energy strives to satisfy the basic drives to survive, reproduce, and aggress. To balance these two systems, the Ego becomes the mediator and compromiser to keep both content. One’s Ego focuses on responses to the real world, stemming from the reality principle. It contains our partly conscious perceptions, thoughts, judgements, and memories.

Throughout the years, there have been many interpretations of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus. However, one of the most interesting interpretations of the play would have to be one that uses the theories of Sigmund Freud to analyze the actions of the characters. The use of various aspects of Freudian theory such as the id, ego, superego, and the Oedipus Complex reveals Oedipus and his behaviors throughout the course of the play.

Freud’s theory of personality examined the interplay between the primitive, instinctual urges—the ‘id’; the practical and rational ‘ego’; and the morally attuned ‘superego’; ‘object relations’ refer to the "object" of an instinct”, which is “the agent through which the instinctual aim is achieved”—most often a person and, according to Freud, most often the mother (Ainsworth 1969, p. 1). The psychosexual development theory that Freud launched reduces our behaviour to mechanistic responses to an instinctive need for pleasure fueled by the ‘libido’ and barriers or distortions to the gratification of the libido at various delineated stages of development were responsible for later problems in life (Kail & Zolner 2012, p. 5). Erik Erikson later added depth to the approach by including more humanistic elements to Freud’s stages and including more periods of development (p.

"It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our first hatred and our first murderous wish against our father." - Sigmund Freud(Clark, 122)

The purpose of the ego is to ensure that the impulses of the id should be expressed in an acceptable manner to the rest of society. “For the first time he perceived that if you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself" (Part 3, Chapter 4).

theory of the Superego, the Ego and the Id. The Id is the centre of

Ego was symbolized as a “Man’s self mind or the conceptual faculty of reasoning” (Ayn Rand). The conceptual faculty of reason was what lead to a man's emotions. In seeing one’s own actions it gave motivation and goals to the individual. However, “Egoism should be distinguished from egotism, which means a psychological overvaluation of one’s own importance, or of one’s own activities”(Alexander Moseley).

Freud mostly based his theory from his therapy sessions with his adult patients consisting of many with various psychosomatic disorders. According to Freud’s theory these patients were experiencing physical symptoms because there was a psychosexual stage which they had not fully fulfilled. “He believed that our most basic instinct is to derive pleasure by giving in to our innate aggressive and sexual impulses.” (Mossler, 2011 section 1.5)

However, According to Freud, the super-ego exists as a way to level out the ego, and, in a way, keep it in check. Therefore, the super-ego is responsible for an individual’s conscience, or, their ability to feel guilt. Freud continues his explanation of these concepts by asserting the idea that the super-ego calls our attention to our own failures and misconducts, and attempts to assist us in learning from them in order to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Furthermore, the conscience is the form in which the super-ego controls our actions and thoughts, and creates guilt within us. Therefore, the ego is the decision-making, acting part of an individual, while the super-ego acts as the ego’s voice of authority and control (Freud).

Explain how the ego, id and superego interact. Use an example from your own experience.

 Freud’s theory is difficult to test scientifically as concepts like libido cannot be measured

Freud’s theory was initially based on his own person and experiences and memories, hence, lacking experimental and scientific

I didn't exactly agree with how Freud thought, but I let a lot of it slide because his theories were developed a long time ago before all of that stuff became something we all find to be a perverted way of thinking.

Freud said that the Ego is the mediator between the Id and Superego and the outside world. For the Ego to do its job, it has to delay the desires of the Id until it is socially acceptable to give the Id the needs. So our conscious-driven Ego is a balance of the Id and Superego, evening out our primal needs

From a Freudian perspective human development is based on psychosexual theory. From a psychosexual perspective maturation of the sex drives underlies stages of personality development (Shaffer et al., 2010). Ultimately, Freud believed that sex was the most important instinct and any mental disturbance revolved around sexual conflicts that were suppressed from childhood. Furthermore, Freud believed that parents permitting too much or too little gratification of sexual needs led