Theories Of The Id, Ego, And Superego

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.

Freud proposed the psychological structure of personality to include three systems called the id, the ego, and the superego. At birth, the id is the original system of personality and is ruled by the pleasure principle. It is driven towards satisfying instinctual needs. The ego can be described as a mediator between ones instincts and their surrounding environment. The ego is ruled by the reality principle, using realistic and logical thinking to formulate action plans for satisfying needs. The superego includes a person’s moral code and strives for perfection, not pleasure. Psychic energy is distributed between these three systems creating dynamics of personality. This psychic energy is what determines behavior (Day, 2008).

Sigmund Freud created the structural model of personality that describes the id, ego, and superego parts of a person. Id is represented as the devil and based on the pleasure and benefiting themselves. Ego is the angel and devil together, where there is balance of good and bad. Lastly, superego is shown as the angel with good behavior and morals. In Golding’s book Lord of the Flies, he uses Jack, Ralph, and Piggy to represent Sigmund Freud’s theory of the three personalities: id, ego, and superego.

Freud primarily subscribed to the idea that there are two energies that drive human behavior. These two energies are sex – the pleasure principle and aggression. The human mind is comprised of the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. Within the realms of the mind, the human personality is controlled by the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is driven by the pleasure principle. The superego is the instinctual moral good, which aims to please the ego ideal, or the magnified moral values. The ego interacts with both the id and the superego and aims to please both components (Connors).

Edgar Allen Poe had once said, "I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched”. Some might say the same, including the infamous Medea. Medea was a married woman and a mother of two who was left alone, heartbroken, and seeking revenge after her husband left her for a woman of higher status. Acting impulsively and irrationally, she executes a murderous plan, leaving her old lover with the funeral plans of both his new princess and their children. At first glance, one might say that she is heartless, evil, and spiteful; however, once analyzed using the psychoanalytic theory, one can quickly change their perspective to understand her better. Sigmund Freud developed the concept that one’s personality is classified

The Ego Centric Problem states that the knowledge we have gained over the period of our lives in entrenched so deep that it prevents us from learning new things. Descartes states that “if we can only be certain of the contents of our consciousness, then how are we ever to gain knowledge of the world that lies beyond our minds. This brings up a good point, if we already have knowledge, does that knowledge have any influence on us that would hinder us to learn new things.

Frankenstein: the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson both show Freud’s ideas of Id, Ego and Superego as well as of innate desire. Frankenstein: the Modern Prometheus shows Freud's stages of psychosexual development. Collectively both novels should be considered Freudian through these ideas. Jekyll and Hyde works as a symbolic portrayal of the goodness and evil that resides in equal measure within the soul of a man. It pre-empted Freudian psychoanalysis by twenty-five years and yet is similar to some of his theories. In Frankenstein both the monster and Victor exemplify Freud’s developmental stages.

     The descriptive claim made by Psychological Egoists is that humans, by nature, are motivated only by self-interest. Any act, no matter how altruistic it may seem on the outside is actually only a disguise for a selfish desire such as recognition, avoiding guilt, reward or sense of personal ‘goodness’ or morality. For example, Mother Teresa is just using the poor for her own long-term spiritual gain. Being a universal claim, it could falter with a single counterexample. And being that I believe this claim to be bunk I will tell you why!

Freud attempted to explain how the unconscious functions by dividing it into three structures, the id, ego, and superego. The id holds our primitive instincts that demand immediate gratification, because it operates on the pleasure principle (McLeod, 2010). Similarly, the ego also seeks pleasure. However, instead of seeking immediate gratification, the ego acts realistically in order to avoid potentially negative consequences that may arise. On the other hand, our superego represents our conscious. It encompasses the morals and values we learn by society and our parents as we go through the stages of

beliefs. Sober uses the example of lightning. He points out that according to the Greeks,

With regard to “Interiors”, I think this movie primarily support Ego, but also Id. The movie was focused on how divorcing someone with a mental health issues can affect that person’s reality. It, also focused on the lives of the children involved, and how their parents’ marriage plays a role in their relationships. However for a person with a mental health disease like clinical depression, I would assume there would be some feeling of being attacked or lack of safety, so this is why I think Id might also play a part. I think Eve also would have felt a sense anxiety with the upcoming divorce, which caused her suicide attempt the first time, and then her actual suicide when she saw the marriage had taken place.

One advantage of Freud’s concept of the ego, id and superego in relation to understanding human development and individual behaviour is that it gives a good overall description of development of the human psyche. It recognises the

The theory of psychological egoism is indeed plausible. The meaning of plausible in the context of this paper refers to the validity or the conceivability of the theory in question, to explain the nature and motivation of human behavior (Hinman, 2007). Human actions are motivated by the satisfaction obtained after completing a task that they are involved in. For example, Mother Teresa was satisfied by her benevolent actions and activities that she spent her life doing. As Hinman (2007) points out, she was likely to reduce in activity if she experienced any dissatisfaction in her endeavors.

The following will analyse the Psychodynamic theory founded by Sigmund Freud. It will focus on the components of the ‘mind’ including the Conscious, the pre-conscious proper and the Unconscious. Examining his structure of Personality with reference to The’ Id’, ‘Ego’ and ‘Super-ego’. It will discuss Freud’s proposal of stages within his ‘psychosexual development’. It will then focus on Carl Rogers Humanistic theory, explaining his concept of the ‘Actualizing tendency’ and incorporating his creations of ‘Self concept’, the ‘Organismic self’ and the ‘Ideal self’. As a contribution to Roger’s work also highlighting Abraham Maslow’s ‘Hierarchy of needs’. Freud and Rogers will then

The first part is an exposition of Sigmund Freud’s aesthetic theory. This discussed the beginning of Freud’s perception of art as an escape to reality. However, of all the works of art, Freud give high regard to literature for it forms some kind of apprehension what exactly it is unlike those of paintings that affirmatively can evoke an effect or a feeling but it does not have the sense of apprehension in it. It is also in this part that Freud’s formulation that a poet is regulated by both the fantasy and reality as he proposes the “first poet” and the “second poet”. In the second part of the part of the chapter, discuss the three-fold personality structure of personality, the id, the ego, and the super-ego. The id is the seat of the unconscious, it comprises of the desires and the wishes that are seeking for fulfillment, and it primarily conforms to the pleasure principle. The ego is the rational conscious part. It acts as the intermediary between the super-ego and the id as well as strive for the fulfillment of the demands of the id, the super-ego, and the reality. Unlike the id the ego is regulated by the reality principle. And the super-ego is developed with the help of the external influences that which is taken from the other people - external authority. It mainly concerns on the operation of man in the society. And on the latter part, it states that an art is produced with the influence of the three-fold personality structure. The id is the source of inspiration, the ego gives an art a unity and the super-ego makes an art to be a form of sublimation. The last part of the second chapter is the two mental functioning. The primary process conforms to the id while, the secondary process serves as a guide to the ego. These two are related to the pleasure and reality principle, respectively. Any work of art is working towards the reconciliation of the pleasure and reality