Understanding Sigmund Freud’s Id, Ego and Superego (Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi, Nov 9, 2023, Discover)
Exploring the Id
The first part, the id, was both innate and unconscious. Freud saw it as the driving force behind a person’s impulse to satiate their desires. The id wasn’t conceptualized as something that regulated or judged a person’s needs or wants. Rather, the id was the animalistic compulsion to seek pleasure and satisfy impulses.The Development of the Ego
The ego began to develop within the first few years of a child’s life, Freud argued. The ego was the person’s sense of self, and it had to negotiate between the id’s impulses and the superego’s cautious urgings to not act in ways that would be socially unacceptable.Understanding the Superego
Around the age of six, Freud theorized that a person’s superego began to form. Freud saw the superego as a guardian that pressured the ego to resist the id’s impulses in order to fit social norms.
Perhaps best thought of this way: The id is pure desire; the ego is the personal limitation on acting out those desires; and, the supego is the societal limitations. The rest is bunk.