Id, Ego, and Super Ego
Breaking down Freud's personality theory, to bring a better understand of our inner landscape
Bom Dia my beloveds-
Today I will explore with you the Id, Ego and Super Ego-what this is and why a basic understanding of Freud's personality theory is important in understanding yourself, healing yourself and part of my Roadmap to Freedom and Joy.
It is important to note that Freud's personality theory is quite complex and so to make it accessible to you I will break it down to its most essential and elemental aspects in order to illustrate the developmental hurdles we all must navigate between the ages of 0-5 years old and how this sets the stage for healthy emotional development or something else. Most of my patients are dealing with the 'something else'.
Freud’s personality theory (1923) saw the psyche structured into three parts- the id, ego, and super-ego, all developing at different stages in our lives. These are systems, not parts of the brain, or in any way physical, but rather hypothetical conceptualizations of important mental functions.
According to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, the id is the primitive and instinctual part of the mind that contains sexual and aggressive drives and hidden memories, the super-ego operates as a moral conscience, and the ego is the realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego.
The id remains infantile in its function throughout a person’s life and does not change with time or experience, as it is not in touch with the external world.
The id is not affected by reality, logic, or the everyday world, as it operates within the unconscious part of the mind.
The Id- or primitive (instinctual) drive is the concept that 'I want what I want because I want it'. The energy of the Id contains sexual and aggressive drives. It is the first or primary expression of the young child who, prior to the development of Ego, has no frustration tolerance. The terrible 2's are known as terrible in part because the child is unable to manage frustration and has no frustration tolerance or the capacity to manage frustration or the thwarting of its desire. It is therefore unrealistic for parents/caregivers to expect the 2 year old child to manage its frustration because it literally does not have the developmental capacity to do so. When a parent tells a 2 year old who is melting down in the middle of Trader Joe's -to "stop crying' or to "control yourself"-the parental expectation is wildly unrealistic for the 2 year old because they are all Id-primitive drive-meaning I want what I want because I want it. Anything that does not satisfying this immediate desire feels to the 2 year old like it is going to explode and die. The internal pressure and tension felt at this kind of frustration is overwhelming for the 2 year old and so rather than the parent shaming and blaming the child for failing to meet what is an unrealistic expectation on the part of the parent-setting the child up to feel shame and failure, the parent needs to help the child manage its emotion. This is best done by the parent who says to the child- 'this is really hard for you-it's Ok, I will help you and we will get through it'. In other words- the parent is in essence loaning the child its fully developed ego until the child is able to have an ego of its own. In this scenario the parent is validating the child's struggle because in fact-it is really hard for the 2 year old. All too often the parent does not know to do this-to help the child tolerate what feels intolerable and instead will judge or punish the child for not being able to do what it actually cannot do. The child then feels ashamed for its failure to meet the parental expectations, but both parent and child do not realize that the problem is the expectation itself-not the child's failure to manage its feelings of utter overwhelm.
According to Freud- our Ego develops around 3-3.5 years old. This is important for a variety of reasons, a primarily important one is that Ego development tends to dovetail with toilet training-the very first experience any of us have at body mastery and developmental success. The Ego, in short, is our sense of self- it is the 'I am". With toilet training, the child has the sense of successful self-"look what I can do"..."I got the poopy in the potty". The Ego then is the part of our personality that deals with reality-the Ego operates on the 'reality principal' which attempts to satisfy the desires of the Id-primitive drive-in realistic and socially appropriate ways by weighing the costs and benefits of an action before acting upon or abandoning our impulses. This means that we begin to think through our actions. Our Ego is a positive thing in that it is the part of our personality that modulates the Id and the Super Ego. If you have a strong Ego this is a good thing as it means that you have a strong sense of self awareness. Our Ego in other words is our sense of self-it is a part of our personality but in and of itself, it is not the sum total of our personality. So to be successful in toilet training means that we, the child, feel success and a positive sense of self when we can master getting the poopy in the potty; it means we are successful and begin to develop a healthy Egoic sense of self-'I am a person who is successful'.
Our Super Ego, according to Freud, develops around the age of 5. This is after we have navigated the Id- our primitive drive, the Ego- our sense of self- the I am- and now we examine our Superego or our morality-our internalized ideas of right and wrong. It is our superego that keeps us within the lines of socially appropriate and acceptable behaviors. Our superego is comprised of 2 parts: 1-our conscience-recognizing behaviors seen as "bad" by parents and society which can lead to negative consequences, punishments and feelings of guilt/shame/remorse and 2-our ego ideal-the rules and standards our ego aspires to. We can understand that our superego attempts to civilize our behavior. It tends to suppress the impulsive and unacceptable urges of our Id and attempts to make the ego act upon idealistic standards rather than on realistic principles.
For healthy, appropriately adaptive and successful functioning of the individual, the Id, Ego and Superego have to be integrated into a whole and healthy self. This means that the Ego is able to moderate between the demands of reality, our impulses and our morality. According to Freud -an imbalance between these 3 developmental aspects of the self lead to a maladaptive personality.
I share this with you today to help you understand how and what form the actual foundation of the developing self. For so many of us, at varying developmental transits and challenges, things can go array. This then can lead to what Freud calls maladaptive behaviors such as overly impulsive behaviors not successfully checked by our ego-grounded in reality and overly rigid and moralistic behaviors not checked by our superego. Unrealistic and unsupportive parental expectations can also derail the developing child, causing a variety of anxiety driven behaviors in addition to feelings of guilt and shame that can be experienced as Traumatic and carried throughout a lifetime if not properly addressed and healed.
So-it is important to understand the psychological minefield in early childhood development that is full of challenges for each of us. Understanding how hard it is for us-the developing child- allows us to recognize our early successes, despite the obstacles of parental failure. Recognizing there was a time for all of us when we did not know how to tie our shoe or poop in the potty or button and unbutton our shirts, allows us to celebrate and integrate our successes as an egoic self- understanding the 'I am' sense of success.
It is my hope that today, my beloveds, you can have a window into your own early childhood development in order to further understand that you are valuable, lovable and worthy and this is simply so.
With courage and a my most humble respect for those of you reading this and striving for your own healing, health and wholeness
Much love-
Sophia
Ps please take a look at my youtube channel! Here is this week's video related to this topic: