How do id, ego and superego, each contribute to Freud's concept of analytical psychology? What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of this framework?
How do id, ego and superego, each contribute to Freud’s concept of analytical psychology? What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of this framework?
In this essay, I will be discussing how the id, ego and superego, each contribute to Freud’s concept of analytical psychology. In order for me to do this, I will start by defining all of the three components of the mind and then talk about how each of them relate to psychoanalysis. I will then discuss the advantages and disadvantages of Freud’s theory on this tripartite model of the mind.
Freud’s most significant contributions to the understanding of human thought was to describe brain activity as occurring on three levels of awareness: conscious, preconscious and unconscious. Later on, Freud developed a more sophisticated view of the brains activity. He categorized the mental process into three components: id, ego, and superego. He saw a person’s behaviour as the outcome of interactions among these three components.
The id is little more than inherited biological drives, the ones that control many of our actions. There are two of these drives: Eros, the sex drive, and Thanatos, the death instinct. The id, according to Freud, operates under the Pleasure Principle: (Hayes. N 1994) "I want what I want and I want it now!" The id demands immediate gratification, and will settle for nothing less. And because the world doesn't always meet the desires of the infant, the id comes pre-packaged with an operative process, the Primary Process. (Hayes N 1994). If the thirsty infant doesn't get mother's milk, he creates a fantasy in which he does receive it (an act of wish-fulfillment ). Because the id is entirely irrational, there is no difference between the fantasy version and the "real" version. The id, in conventional morality, is immoral.
The ego develops as the buffer between the Id and reality, often suppressing the id's urges until an appropriate situation arises. This repression of inappropriate desires and urges represents the greatest strain on, and the most important function of, the mind. The ego often utilizes defence mechanisms to achieve and aid this repression. Where the id may have an urge and form a picture, which satisfies this urge, the ego engages in a strategy to actually fulfil the urge. The thirsty five-year-old now not only identifies water as the satisfaction of his urge, but also forms a plan to obtain water, perhaps by finding a drinking fountain. While the ego is still in the service of the id, it borrows some of its psychic energy in an effort to control the urge until it is feasibly satisfied. The ego's effort at pragmatic satisfaction of urges eventually builds a great number of skills and memories and becomes aware of itself as an entity. With the formation of the ego, the individual becomes a self, instead of an amalgamation of urges and needs. According to Freud, the ego operates under the Reality Principle, (Hayes. N 1994), trying to balance the demands of the unconscious mind with what is practical. It operates with the Secondary Process, the use of reason in an attempt to obtain pleasure. The ego, in conventional morality, is moral (like a good businessman, the ego performs cost-benefit analyses, and thereby profits in pleasures). Freud argues that ‘as the child gets older, it comes into contact with authority’ (Malim.T & Birch.A 1998). Freud, it is important to remember, was developing his theories in Victorian times, when strict disciplines were enforced an virtually all middle-class children, and the father of the family was generally a remote, disciplinarian figure (the lack of a welfare state structure meant that working-class children grew up entirely differently, and their development was not was not really considered in this model). The developing middle-class child’s life, then, became internalised into the personality: rather than the external one, the child developed a kind of internalised, unconscious ‘parent’ at the close of phallic stage, which contained strict ideas of duty, conscience, the sense of right and wrong and obligations. This was known as the superego. While the ego may temporarily repress certain urges of the id in fear of punishment, eventually these external sources of punishment are internalised, and the child will not steal the chocolate, even unwatched, because he has taken punishment, right, and wrong into himself. The superego uses guilt and self-reproach as its primary means of enforcement for these rules. But if a person does something, which is acceptable to the superego, he experiences pride and self-satisfaction.
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Summary The writer started the essay well with a good introduction. They go on to cover Freud's tripartite model in some detail and appear to have a good grasp of this. However, some of the work appears to have been plagiarised and therefore needs to be written in the writer's own words to show that they have an understanding of Freud's model. More time should have been spent on the ego defences such as sublimation, projection, repression, denial, displacement etc. etc. The criticism of Freud's psychoanalytical model was not backed up with evidence and so appeared as if it was only the writer's personal opinion. The writer has to reference their work so that it is clear they have read around the subject. 2 Stars
