Sigmund Freud was a great neurologist from Austria who is the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method to treat the psyche of a patient through dialogue, exchanged between the patient and the psychoanalyst. According to Freud, each and every human being has a fixed amount of psychic energy to satisfy the psychological urges and instincts. From childhood, this psychic energy starts growing and it is divided into the three basic components of the personality of an individual. These three components form a structure which is the soul concern of this discussion. So, let’s look at the structure and its components in detail –
ID
In the year 1923, Freud developed a structural model of the mind which comprises the components like id, ego and superego, which are called ‘the psychic apparatus’ by him. These are not the physical areas within the brain, but the suppositional conceptualizations of important mental functions. Freud describes that id is the instinctual part of the human mind which works at an unconscious level. It is clearly divided into two different instincts, such as Eros and Thanatos. Eros is called the life instinct which helps individual to survive and it directs to the life sustaining activities such as respiration, eating and sexual activity. One the other hand, Thanatos is called the death instinct which is considered as destructive forces present in every human being. When this energy comes out, it is expressed as aggression and violence. He believed that Eros is always stronger than Thanatos which enables us to survive. At the beginning of our lives, the psychic energy revolves around the illogical and irrational instincts or the id.
Ego
There is a rational dimension of our personality which is called the ego. From the infancy our personality develops from the id to the ego which energizes the cognitive process such as perception, learning and problem solving. The goal of the ego is simply to saturate the demands of the id in a secure and socially acceptable way. It follows not the instinct but the reality principle because it works both the conscious and subconscious mind.
Superego
It is the moralistic and judgemental dimension of the human mind which develops from the ego. It starts developing from the age of three to six years through the internalization of moral standards and values which they learn from their parents.
So, these three psychic dimensions work together to form the structure of personality.
