Freud
Sigmund an indispensable analyst in the psychological world dealing with human
sexuality is responsible for this theory whereby he suggested that the human
sexual behavior is characterized by the awareness that a man has in the things
involving the feelings and thoughts that a man knows they have and he referred
to this as consciousness, while the
things that man does without his awareness he referred to them as unconsciousness, which include
unacceptable urges, passions, ideas and feelings that people cannot
acknowledge.[1]
The
unconsciousness was the cornerstone of Freudian theory; for he felt that the
motive hidden in the unconsciousness are often the driving force behind
conscious thoughts and deeds.
Freud
went on describing his theory by three elements which are id, ego and superego.
“It is the dark, inaccessible part of our
personality, what little we know of it we have learnt from our study of the
dream-work and of the construction of neurotic symptoms, and most of this is of
a negative character and can be described only as a contrast to the ego. We all approach the id with analogies: we call it a chaos,
a cauldron full of seething excitations... It is filled with energy reaching it
from the instincts, but it has no organization, produces no collective will,
but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs
subject to the observance of the pleasure principle.”[2]
The id
is responsible for our basic drives such as food, sex, and aggressive impulses.
It is amoral and egocentric, ruled by the pleasure–pain principle; it is
without a sense of time, completely illogical, primarily sexual, infantile in
its emotional development, and will not take "no" for an answer. It
is regarded as the reservoir of the libido or "sexual energy".
Id
is the straight though out of feeling, for example when a secretary enters in
his boss’s office id will direct her to take out the cloths and have sex
immediately with the boss, without a second thought.
“...The ego is that part of the id which has
been modified by the direct influence of the external world ... The ego
represents what may be called reason and common sense, in contrast to the id,
which contains the passions ... in its relation to the id it is like a man on
horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse; with
this difference, that the rider tries to do so with his own strength, while the
ego
uses borrowed forces”[3]
In Freud's theory, the ego mediates among the id, the super-ego
and the external world. Its task is to find a balance between primitive drives
and reality (the Ego devoid of morality at this level) while satisfying the id
and super-ego. Its main concern is with the individual's safety and allows some
of the id's desires to be expressed, but only when consequences of these
actions are marginal. Ego defense mechanisms are often used by the ego when id
behavior conflicts with reality and either society's morals, norms, and taboos
or the individual's expectations as a result of the internalization of these
morals, norms, and their taboos.
When id is a
pleasure drive ego is a principle drive, in the example of the secretary it is
ego which will tell her that this is not the appropriate time for this and
therefore ego will stop her for appropriate time.
The Super-ego
comprises that organized part of the personality structure, mainly but not
entirely unconscious, that includes the individual's ego ideals, spiritual
goals, and the psychic agency (commonly called 'conscience') that criticizes
and prohibits his or her drives, fantasies, feelings, and actions.
Freud's theory
implies that the super-ego is a symbolic internalization of the father figure
and cultural regulations. The super-ego tends to stand in opposition to the
desires of the id because of their conflicting objectives, and its
aggressiveness towards the ego. The super-ego acts as the conscience,
maintaining our sense of morality and proscription from taboos. Its formation
takes place during the dissolution of the Oedipus complex and is formed by
identification with and internalization of the father figure after the little
boy cannot successfully hold the mother as a love-object out of fear of
castration.[4]
However the notion
of unconscious which is the drive to this theory makes it difficult to verify
or disapprove, because the content of the unconscious cannot be investigated
with traditional objectives methods for assessing people’s thoughts and
feelings. It also explains much of ideas and principles which it has no
solution to the sex problem which is the concern of this research to identify
the true purpose and understanding it.
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