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Id vs ego vs superego
Id vs ego vs superego













Again, he emphasises the role of internalised object relations, but it is not entirely clear to what extent Freud thought that, apart from introjection, projective mechanisms might also play a major role in the formation of the super-ego. 58).įreud resumes the discussion of the different functions of the super ego in the XXXI of his ‘ New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis’ (Freud 1933a) and in ‘ An Outline of Psycho-Analysis’ (Freud 1940a). Similarly, he had already stated in ‘ The Ego and the Id’ that “to the ego (…) living means to be loved – to be loved by the super-ego” (Freud 1923b, p. He adds that this surprising fact “will teach us that we have still to learn a great deal about the super-ego.” (Freud 1927d, p. In his paper on humour he reminds us that in humour the super-ego, whilst often acting as a “severe master”, speaks “such kindly words to the intimidated ego” in order to console it and “protect it from suffering”. Only rarely, however, did Freud return to the loving and protective aspects of the super-ego. He describes different pathological configurations of the super-ego: when there is too much idealisation (narcissism), too much aggression, as in obsessional neurosis or in melancholia where he says that so much destructivity has “entrenched itself” in the super-ego that it acts like “a pure culture of the death instinct” (Freud 1923b, p. Freud mainly understood it in the sense of an introjected paternal authority that sets boundaries to the ego, directing and criticising it, but also providing protection and orientation. Perhaps one could say that the super-ego thus became the first internal object to be explored and studied in detail. It widened the scope for the examination of defence processes such as negation (Freud 1925h) and splitting (Freud 1940e), and provided an insight into complex resistances, like the negative therapeutic reaction (Freud 1923b 1937c). The exploration of the conflicts between the ego, the super-ego and the id in their relation to the demands of external reality provided a new basis for the understanding of neurosis (Freud 1926d), psychosis (Freud 1924b e) and perversion (Freud 1924c 1927e). as a “representative of the internal world” (p. But it also has the function of a critical observer, a source of prohibition and conscience, i.e. Its function is understood as expressing the individual’s longings, highest values and role models. He sees its development as arising from a sub-differentiation within the ego 2, based on the ego’s earliest identifications, in particular those of the Oedipus complex. Freud describes the super-ego now as one core element of the tripartite psychic structure in its relation to the Ego and the Id.

id vs ego vs superego

The concept was fully developed three years later in ‘ The Ego and the Id’ (Freud 1923b). It is remarkable however, that he used the term only after the revision of his drive theory and the introduction of the death instinct (Freud 1920g). Thus, Freud clearly regarded the super-ego as the heir of the Oedipus complex (Freud 1933a, p. The resulting unconscious feelings of guilt are part of a highly organized internal agency, linking the ego ideal with complex identifications arising from the individual’s ambivalent feelings towards both parents including elements of remorse and regret.

id vs ego vs superego

Freud further elaborated the idea of a “separation of the ego from the ego ideal” in Chapter XI of ‘ Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego’ (Freud 1921c).Ĭlinically, the experiences with obsessional neurosis (Freud 1909d 1918b) and melancholia (Freud 1916-1917g) convinced him of the existence of an internal structure that directs and subjugates the ego to its own demands. The origins of conscience, which had already been hypothesised two years earlier in ‘ Totem and Taboo’, lay in the incest taboo, castration anxiety and the identification with a powerful paternal authority as the source of social norms and ethical values (Freud 1912-1913a, p. He assumed that the conscience works in this way as a “watchman” (p. 93), and the existence of a “special psychical agency”, the ego ideal, “which (…) constantly watches the actual ego and measures it by that ideal “(p. Here he postulates the formation of a narcissistic structure, the ideal ego (p. 539-540) and, in particular, to the function of the ego ideal in his paper on narcissism (Freud 1914c). Their traces date back to the function of ‘judgement’ in his ‘ Project of a Scientific Psychology’ (Freud 1950a ) 1, to the ‘critical instance’ of the preconscious in Freud’s first topography (Freud 1900a, p. Although the term ‘super-ego’ does not appear in Freud’s writings until 1923, the precursors of the concept are clearly already detectable much earlier.















Id vs ego vs superego