Freud- Id, Ego, Superego

In the video we learned about Freud and his ideas about our unconscious mind. He talked about how people wanted to kill their father because they were jealous of them because they really liked their mother. That is kind of gross to think about. Many people of that time agreed and were very disturbed by the thought of his ideas. He came up with the terms id, ego, and superego. Id is the "pleasure" part of our minds and is what we want. Ego is the "reality" part which thinks of the real world and takes into consideration the id perception and tries to figure out if it works. When thinking of reality, it considers the fact that other people have wants too and so you can't be selfish because that hurts others.. Finally, superego is the part that tries to balance the two and considers the moral parts of situations. In the movie, id was sort of seen as the red, and "evil" figure or part of your mind. It was thinking of the person's wants and would set everything else aside to achieve those wants. ID being red could be seen as a devil sort of figure. Ego was seen as the white, angelic character, considers the reality situation and it talks about what the person can do and what will hurt others. Id is selfish while ego is considerate of other and how the person's actions will effect his or hers surroundings. Superego tries to balance both of those. People sometimes think of the superego as your conscience. It tells you what is right or wrong. Consciences tend to hold onto the bad things that you do and they bug you until you fix them. The superego is what tries to balance what you want so you are satisfied but also at the same time making sure that other people are content. These were very obscure and unsettling ideas at the time, and given the father mother situation, still today they may upset people. Here is the video from Youtube that we watched in class if you would live to watch it.

Video

Sites:

http://allpsych.com/psychology101/ego.html

Class on Friday