
Here we can find our stored information, need of self-love, avoidance of guilt and at the very bottom our fears, selfish needs, and violent urges. Unconscious level – This is by far the deepest point of our mind and home of the Superego and our Id which is at the very bottom of this iceberg we call our mind.Preconscious level – In this level we start to scratch the surface of our Ego and elements such as our memories, morals, values, and ideas tend to fall into place here.Conscious level – This level is just the tip of the iceberg as Freud would have said it and this is where our logic, thoughts, and perception are located.There are three levels of our consciousness: In order for us to understand the Id, Ego, and Superego, first, we need to see in what level of our conscious state are they located and which parts of our brain fall into what category. His daughter, Anna Freud, continued the path of her father and later became of the leading experts in understanding the theory of the Ego. Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis – 1921.
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life – 1904. He gave great importance to human sexuality which later made his theory disputed many times by other psychologists.Īlthough a controversial figure in psychology he definitely influenced some of the rising psychologists back in the day such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav Jung, and they both left Freud’s International Psychoanalytical Association in Vienna and started working on their own fields of study. In the year of 1885, Freud left Vienna and went to Paris where he learned hypnosis from the famous French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot who had a great influence on Freud leading him to start studying the origins of hysteria by using hypnosis.Īs a result, Freud started to do his research on the unconscious and actually became the pioneer of Psychoanalysis. WHO WAS SIGMUND FREUD?īorn on the sixth of May 1856, in Freiberg, Austria, Freud has spent most of his life in Vienna, from when he was 4 years old up until when he turned 82 when he needed to escape Austria because of the Second World War. So without further ado, I will like to welcome you to the beautiful and ingenious mind that is of Sigmund Freud. Then we will explain certain topics related to Ego and why it is important to understand Freud. Our first task is to dwell a little deeper into Freud’s personal life so we can find out more about this well-known but also controversial figure before we dissect his theory of human personality. Understanding Freud is crucial for us to know why people act in a certain way and how we can detect and explain that specific behavior because we are surrounded every day by the people we know and people we don’t know and few of us really sat down and thought to ourselves why really do people act the way they do. Similarly, when we describe someone as having a big ego, we might be referring to their self interest, but according to Freud's theory it might be more correct to describe them as having a big id.In order to understand Sigmund Freud’s psycho-analytic theory we must first enter into the mind of this great and revolutionary psychologist, which is not an easy task to do considering that many of his theories and experiments have paved the way for not only the psychologist on which Freud had great influence but also for modern psychology altogether. Our concept of the ego has changed since Freud's use: when we talk of someone being egotistic or having ego-damage, we are usually referring to their self-esteem, but Freud's definition simply meant the conscious part of our brain. As we get older, our ego develops and is shaped by influences in our environment. It is the part of our brain responsible for criticism and moralising.įreud believed that, as babies, all our behaviour is ruled by the id, because this is where our basic survival instincts are located, and where our desire for pleasure-seeking comes from. The superego is the chariot driver's father, sitting behind him, pointing out his mistakes. DEFINITION ID EGO SUPEREGO DRIVER
It is able to guide the id, but never has full control - just as the driver is aware that if the horse wants to go in a different direction, he is ultimately powerless to stop it. The ego is the "driver" of the chariot, and the rational part of our brain.