Freud's ego is huge!!

To follow last weeks lecture i thought it would be nice to look into Freud and his ideas for the psychoanalytic theory for personality. It was a breakthrough to look into the human psyche at such a deep level and to look into the way that humans present themselves in and out of their own bodies.

A humans personality, according to Freud is made up of three different functions. The ID, Ego and Super-ego. Each one has their own role in determining persona and creating complicated behaviour.

1) ID

You could say that ID is the animal instinct that lives in it regardless of what we do. ID is present from birth and in it exists the most basic of needs. If we were to look at ourselves as an animal we need the basic things to survive. Primitive behaviour is what the ID is and encompasses the Pleasure Principal. Basically, we strive for our needs, our desires and what we want. If these needs are not or cannot be met, it creates anxiety.

For example, A new born baby is hungry. He cannot talk yet so the mother does not know until the ID of the baby makes it cry to get its needs.

You cannot live on this principal alone, if had a craving for something you may find yourself stealing from someone or killing them alltogether to satisfy your ID.

Freud sudgested that the ID resolves some of this tension throught the Primary Process where the ID forms a mental image to keep us happy.

2)EGO

Ego deals with reality. Freud states the EGO is conjured from the ID and that the EGO can fullfill the needs of the ID through simple acceptable manners. The EGO functions in all states of mind; concious, preconcious and unconcious.

The reality principal gives itself to the ID and supresses its desire through socially acceptable ways. It measures the pros and cons of an action before acting or ignoring. Some the ID can be happy through Delayed Gratification where the EGO will let the ID do what it likes in the right situation.

Also, through Secondary Process, the EGO can get rid of the ID's tension by finding an object that is similar to the mental projection created by the primary process.

3) SUPER-EGO

This is our morals and ideology that we gain from our parents and society. Right and Wrong. It helps us to make judgements and starts to play a larger part after about 5 years of age. The EGO IDEAL is a concept that controls the rules for acceptable behaviour, those which are aproved by parents or authoritative figures. These give us a sense of pride and fullfillment. On the other hand the Consience hold all things that a viewed as bad by parents and society. Most are not allowed and can lead to worse things. Often the Consience leads to guilt.

The SUPER-EGO stops all our ID's bad urges to make the EGO act upon standards rather than principal and is present in all states of mind.

Freud had the idea of EGO STRENGTH. Those of you with good EGO STRENGTH can manage the pressures of the ID. Those of you with too much or too little can become very disruptive.

Which one are you???