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In psychoanalytic theory, the id, ego, and superego are three distinct, interacting agents in the psychic apparatus, outlined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche. The three agents are theoretical constructs that Freud employed to describe the basic structure of mental life as it was encountered in psychoanalytic practice. Freud himself used the German language terms das Es, Ich, and Über-Ich, which literally translate as "the it", "I", and "over-I". The Latin terms id, ego and superego were chosen by his original translators and have remained in use.
The structural model was introduced in Freud's essay Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920) and further refined and formalised in later essays such as The Ego and the Id (1923). Freud developed the model in response to the perceived ambiguity of the terms "conscious" and "unconscious" in his earlier topographical model. The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought, Third Edition (1999) Allan Bullock and Stephen Trombley, Eds. pp. 256–257.
Broadly speaking, the id is the organism's unconscious array of uncoordinated needs, impulses and desires; the superego is the part of the psyche that has internalized social rules and norms, largely in response to parental demands and prohibitions in childhood; the ego is the integrative agent that directs activity based on mediation between the id's energies, the demands of external reality, and the moral and critical constraints of the superego. Freud compared the ego, in its relation to the id, to a man on horseback: the rider must harness and direct the superior energy of his mount, and at times allow for a practicable satisfaction of its urges. The ego is thus "in the habit of transforming the id's will into action, as if it were its own."
Freud described the id as "the dark, inaccessible part of our personality". Understanding of it is limited to analysis of dreams and neurotic symptoms, and it can only be described in terms of its contrast with the ego. It has no organisation and no collective will: it is concerned only with satisfaction of drives in accordance with the pleasure principle.Sigmund Freud (1933), New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. pp. 105–6. It is oblivious to reason and the presumptions of ordinary conscious life: "contrary impulses exist side by side, without cancelling each other. . . There is nothing in the id that could be compared with negation. . . nothing in the id which corresponds to the idea of time."Sigmund Freud (1933). p. 106. The id "knows no judgements of value: no good and evil, no morality. ...Instinctual cathexis seeking discharge—that, in our view, is all there is in the id."Sigmund Freud (1933). p. 107.
Developmentally, the id precedes the ego. The id consists of the basic instinctual drives that are present at birth, inherent in the somatic organization, and governed only by the pleasure principle. (2025). 9780080961804 ISBN 9780080961804Chapter of Freud, An Outline of Psycho-analysis (1940) The psychic apparatus begins as an undifferentiated id, part of which then develops into a structured "ego", a concept of self as an integrated unity that takes the principle of reality into account.
Freud describes the id as "the great reservoir of libido",Sigmund Freud, The Ego and the Id, On Metapsychology (Penguin Freud Library 11) p. 369. the energy of desire, usually conceived as sexual in nature, the life instincts that are constantly seeking a renewal of life. He later also postulated a death drive, which seeks "to lead organic life back into the inanimate state."Freud, On Metapsychology p. 380. For Freud, "the death instinct would thus seem to express itself—though probably only in part—as an instinct of destruction directed against the external world and other organisms"Freud, On Metapsychology p. 381. through aggression. Since the id includes all instinctual impulses, the destructive instinct, as well as eros or the life instincts, is considered to be part of the id.Sigmund Freud (1933). p. 138.
Originally, Freud used the word ego to mean the sense of self, but later expanded it to include psychic functions such as judgment, tolerance, reality testing, control, planning, defense, synthesis of information, intellectual functioning, and memory. The ego is the organizing principle upon which thoughts and interpretations of the world are based.
According to Freud, "the ego is that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world ... The ego represents what may be called reason and common sense, in contrast to the id, which contains the passions. ... it is like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse; with this difference, that the rider tries to do so with his own strength while the ego uses borrowed forces."Freud, The Ego and the Id, On Metapsychology pp. 363–4. In fact, the ego is required to serve "three severe masters...the external world, the superego and the id." It seeks to find a balance between the natural drives of the id, the limitations imposed by reality, and the strictures of the superego. It is concerned with self-preservation: it strives to keep the id's instinctive needs within limits, adapted to reality and submissive to the superego.
Thus "driven by the id, confined by the superego, repulsed by reality" the ego struggles to bring about harmony among the competing forces. Consequently, it can easily be subject to "realistic anxiety regarding the external world, moral anxiety regarding the superego, and neurotic anxiety regarding the strength of the passions in the id."Sigmund Freud (1933). pp. 110–11. The ego may wish to serve the id, trying to gloss over the finer details of reality to minimize conflicts, while pretending to have a regard for reality. But the superego is constantly watching every one of the ego's moves and punishes it with feelings of guilt, anxiety, and inferiority.
To overcome this the ego employs defense mechanisms. Defense mechanisms reduce the tension and anxiety by disguising or transforming the impulses that are perceived as threatening. Denial, displacement, intellectualization, fantasy, compensation, projection, rationalization, reaction formation, regression, repression, and sublimation were the defense mechanisms Freud identified. His daughter Anna Freud identified the concepts of undoing, suppression, dissociation, idealization, identification, introjection, inversion, somatisation, splitting, and substitution.
, 1923)]]In a diagram of the Structural and Topographical Models of Mind, the ego is depicted as being half in the conscious, a quarter in the preconscious, and the other quarter in the Unconscious mind.
The superego aims for perfection. It is the part of the personality structure (mainly but not entirely unconscious) that includes the individual's ego ideals, spiritual goals, and the psychic agency, commonly called "conscience", that criticizes and prohibits the expression of drives, fantasies, feelings, and actions. Thus the superego works in contradiction to the id. It is an internalized mechanism that operates to confine the ego to socially acceptable behaviour, whereas the id merely seeks instant self-gratification.
The superego and the ego are the product of two key factors: the state of helplessness of the child and the Oedipus complex. In the case of the little boy, it forms during the dissolution of the Oedipus complex, through a process of identification with the father figure, following the failure to retain possession of the mother as a love-object out of fear of castration. Freud described the superego and its relationship to the father figure and Oedipus complex thus:
In The Ego and the Id, Freud presents "the general character of harshness and cruelty exhibited by the ego ideal — its dictatorial Thou shalt". The earlier in the child's development, the greater the estimate of parental power.
Thus when the child is in rivalry with the parental imago it feels the dictatorial Thou shalt—the manifest power that the imago represents—on four levels: (i) the auto-erotic, (ii) the narcissistic, (iii) the anal, and (iv) the phallic. Those different levels of mental development, and their relations to parental imagos, correspond to specific id forms of aggression and affection.
The concept of the Oedipus complex internalised in the superego - anchored by Freud in the hypothetical murder of the forefather of the Darwinian horde by his sons - has been criticised for its supposed sexism. Women, who cannot develop a fear of castration due to their different genital make-up, do not identify with the father. Therefore, ‘their superego is never as implacable, as impersonal, as independent of its emotional origins as we demand of men...they are often more influenced in their judgements by feelings of affection or hostility.’ - not by fear of castration, as was the case with ‘Little Hans’ in his conflict with his father over his wife and mother.Sigmund Freud, On Sexuality (Penguin Freud Library 7) p. 342. However, Freud went on to modify his position to the effect "that the majority of men are also far behind the masculine ideal and that all human individuals, as a result of their human identity, combine in themselves both masculine and feminine characteristics, otherwise known as human characteristics."Freud, On Sexuality p. 342.
Modern technology has made possible to observe the bioelectrical activity of neurones in the living brain. This led to the realisation in which area of the brain the needs for food, skin desire etc. begin to show themselves neuronally; where the highest performances of consciously thinking ego take place (s. frontal lobe); and that other parts of the brain are specialised in storing memories: one of the main function of the superego.
Decisive for this view was Freud's Project for a Scientific Psychology. Written in 1895, it develops the thesis that experiences are stored into the neuronal network through "a permanent change after an event". Freud soon abandoned this attempt and left it unpublished.Freud, Sigmund. 1966 1895. " Project for a Scientific Psychology." Pp. 347–445 in Standard Editions 3, edited by James Strachey. London: Hogarth Press. Insights into the neuronal processes that permanently store experiences in the brain – like engraving the proverbial tabula rasa with some code – belongs to the Physiology branch of science and lead in a different direction of research than the psychological question of what the differences between consciousness and unconsciousness are. Freud's point of view was that consciousness is directly given – cannot be explained by insights into physiological details. Essentially, two things were known about the living soul: The brain with its nervous system extending over the entire organism and the acts of consciousness. According to Freud, therefore haphazard phenomena can be integrated between " both endpoints of our knowledge" (findings of modern neurology just as well as the position of our planet in the universe, for example), but this only contribute to the spatial " localisation of the acts of consciousness", not to their understanding.
Freud conceptualised the structural model because it allowed for a greater degree of precision and diversification. While the need contents of the id are initially unconscious (can become unconscious again as a result of an act of repression), the contents of the ego (such as thinking, perception) and the superego (memory; imprinting) can be both conscious and unconscious. Freud argued that his new model included the option of scientifically describing the structure and functions of the mentally healthy living being and therefore represented an effective diagnostic tool for clarifying the causes of mental disorders:
The three newly presented entities, however, remained closely connected to their previous conceptions, including those that went under different names – the systematic unconscious for the id, and the conscience/ego ideal for the superego.Angela Richards, "Editor's Introduction" in On Metapsychology p. 345. Freud never abandoned the topographical division of conscious, preconscious, and unconscious, though he noted that "the three qualities of consciousness and the three provinces of the mental apparatus do not fall together into three peaceful couples...we had no right to expect any such smooth arrangement."Sigmund Freud (1933). pp. 104–5.
The iceberg image is a visual metaphor, proposed by G. Stanley Hall, depicting the relationship between the ego, id and superego agencies (structural model) and the conscious and unconscious psychic systems (topographic model). In the iceberg metaphor the entire id and part of both the superego and the ego are submerged in the underwater portion representing the unconscious region of the psyche. The remaining portions of the ego and superego are displayed above water in the conscious region.
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