The Id, The Ego & The Superego
Freud’s Personality Theory
Sigmund Freud’s personality theory attempts to explain the processes involved in the expression and shaping of a personality, and consists of three parts: the id, the ego and the superego.
In this article we shall explore each of these components of Freud’s theory, and later discuss their relevance in today’s modern world.
The Id (the it)
The id is defined as the psychological expression of biological drives such as hunger and thirst.
The id is present at birth (inborn), and is more or less the same in all of us. Therefore whilst the id is part of our personality, it does not make our personality unique.
According to Freud, the id is first present in infants where it expresses itself by following the pleasure principle.
This basically means the id will cause the infant to satisfy its basic biological drives, such as the need for water to relieve thirst or the need for sleep to relieve tiredness.
The id continues to stay with us our entire life, causing us to continual satisfy our biological drives.
We could therefore summarise the id (the it) by saying that it is a non unique part of our personality, which helps to keep us alive.
All it is interested in is making us fulfil our biological drives, regardless of how inappropriate or appropriate such behaviour would be.
The Ego (I)
The ego is something that develops as a result of the experiences you have in life, and the challenges and frustrations you face in it. The ego develops to cope with the world as it is, not as you wish it to be.
As a result, the ego is said to follow the “reality principle” because it allows us to deal with our current situation, whilst preventing us from acting out on inappropriate urges we may have from the id.
The ego is said to start developing from ages 2-3, and will continue to remain part of our personality throughout our entire life.
We can summarise the ego by saying that it acts as a control mechanism, preventing us from being a slave to our id which is only interested in making us satisfy our biological needs regardless of how inappropriate that may be.
For example, if you see an attractive person your id tells you to go and have sex with them right now. However your ego would say this is inappropriate behaviour, because you are in public so you should find a way to do this later (the ego provides a sensible solution to a problem).
The Superego (Over the I)
The superego develops as a result of the values we acquire from family and society. If we accept these values the superego is said to become “introjected”, which means it becomes an integral part of our personality.
Part of the superego is the conscience, which makes us feel guilt when we do something that goes against the demands of the superego.
The superego is therefore like our moral guide, causing us to conform to the social values we have accepted from society. If we do something to break those values, our conscience makes us feel guilty.
The superego is said to be well established around age seven.
Ego Ideal
The ego ideal is another part of the superego, and is involved in determining what we feel we should do with our life and what responsibilities we should take on.
Because the ego ideal is part of the superego, it usually reflects what our parents want us to do.
We can summarise the ego ideal by saying that it reflects the wishes of our parents for what we should do with our life.
Ego Defence Mechanisms
One of the key concepts of Freud’s personality theory is existence of ego defence mechanisms.
These unconscious processes act like a shield, and protect our ego from being damaged by emotionally painful events so that we can still function and deal with reality.
There are seven different types of ego defence mechanisms that are used to protect the ego:
1 - Denial Of Reality
Denial of reality is most common amongst young children, although it still occurs in adults.
Basically it involves denying the true reality of a situation, and believing in what you want to believe in without this belief being based on any facts.
For example, if you are diagnosed with a certain disease, then you may choose not to believe you are ill but that something else is wrong instead. Or you might simply believe that you are not ill at all.
2 - Repression
Repression occurs when the ego experiences some unpleasant event that is linked to an unpleasant emotion. To protect itself, the ego “represses” these unpleasant feelings and events to an unconscious level.
For example, if you have had a troubled childhood or a very painful breakup, these are things which could be repressed to the unconscious mind.
Freud also believed that certain sexual desires become repressed, as was detailed in his psychosexual theory of development.
3 - Projection
Projection occurs when what you think is happening to someone else, is really happening to you at an unconscious level.
In other words, you are reflecting your unconscious onto another person, so in effect you are looking at yourself.
For example, if you say to someone that they must be very jealous of another person’s success, then it is likely that you are the jealous person.
However because your ego does not want to confront these feelings (i.e. you being jealous at another persons success), you project that jealously onto another person from your unconscious mind.
4 - Identification
Identification occurs when the ego “identifies” itself with desirable attributes. These are usually attributes of another person, such as power, status or some special talent.
For example, if you saw an inspirational movie, then your ego may identify with certain characters causing you to believe that you are like them in some way.
5 - Fantasy
Fantasy occurs when the ego imagines having something which is not obtainable in normal day to day living.
For example, if you spend most of the day dreaming you are in another world, then this would be a form of fantasy.
This fantasy protects the ego from some painful or uncomfortable emotion it does not want to confront (i.e. the true reality of a situation).
6 - Rationalisation
Rationalisation is a process in which the ego provides a rational sounding explanation for a failure.
For example, you did not succeed at something you set out to do, so you blame it on bad luck rather than your lack of preparation.
Rationalisations are usually not based on any facts, although the way they are presented makes them seem like logical explanations.
7 - Reaction Formation
Reaction formations occur as a way of blocking an unconscious desire from manifesting itself at a conscious level.
An example of this was given in an earlier article, where a person deliberately acts hostile towards another person in an effort to repress a forbidden sexual desire they may have.
At the unconscious level they may want to have sexual relations with a member of their family (such as a distant cousin), but because this is socially unacceptable it is repressed at an unconscious level.
In order to prevent them from acting out this forbidden desire, they will be hostile towards their cousin so they do not form a friendship or become close.
As long as they are not close, their forbidden sexual desire will remain repressed in the unconscious mind.
If this person were to become drunk, or be under the influence of a drug, then this reaction formation may break down causing them to “act out” their forbidden desire (i.e. make a pass at their cousin).
Ego Defence Mechanisms
All of these ego defence mechanisms have one thing in common. They protect the ego from the true reality of a situation, because that reality is either too painful or uncomfortable for it to deal with.
As a result, rather than dealing with what is actually happening, people have a natural tendency to delude themselves because this delusion makes them feel good as opposed to feeling bad when thinking about real reality.
The trouble with not wanting to confront reality is that it can often make situations worse, because you do not take effective action to remedy the situation.
So even though denying reality may make a person feel good in the present moment, it is likely that later on they will experience greater pain than if they had chosen to confront their true reality when they were able to.
It is also worth noting that all of these ego defence mechanisms can overlap with each other. For example, identification may overlap with fantasy or rationalisation may overlap with a reaction formation.
So if you are trying to indentify these ego defence mechanisms within yourself, bear in mind that multiple defence mechanism could be at work.
Summary
• The id is only concerned with satisfying our biological drives.
• The ego deals with reality, and stops us inappropriately going along with whatever the id wants us to do.
• The superego is our moral guide, and develops as a result of the values we accept from society.
• The ego ideal determines what we feel we should do in life, and is usually what our parents want of us.
• An ego defence mechanism is something which protects the ego from anything that could harm it. Of which there are 7 types.
• Denial of reality means you don’t accept the true reality of a situation.
• Repression is when something unpleasant is pushed down into the unconscious mind.
• Projection is a reflection of your unconscious mind that you project onto other people.
• Fantasy means living in a dream world, because it is preferable to the real world.
• Rationalisation means making excuses for failure because it makes you feel better.
• A reaction formation is something you do to stop repressed unconscious desires from manifesting themselves.
