Review: The Ego and the Id by Sigmund Freud

This short piece “The Ego And The Id” starts off with a basic explanation on the conscious and unconscious, and then moves on to deal with three important structures: the id — the unconscious reservoir of our urges and libidinal energy, the ego — the conscious, narcissistic realist who is worked by the external world and as a result is often referred to as the body ego, and lastly — the super ego — far from consciousness, tied to our morals and ethics, and what is said to be the tormentor (of ego). The ego, though considered to be the strongest of all, is always seen negotiating between the id and the super ego — which contradict each other. These three elements and their mechanisms play an important role in building up a person’s personality and has major effect on her/his subconscious, and an often unhealthy/unbalanced interaction among these three can cause psychic conditions to occur such as melancholia, hysteria, etc.
Since the ego acts as a mental projection of the external world/stimuli, it also answers our self-criticisms, resorting to our superego. The superego, in its severity, creates a sense of guilt and the ego is found being tormented by three factors — the external world, the libido of id and the harshness of the superego. This creates a fight-and-flight response in the ego, developing anxiety and so the ego further resorts to protective cathexes — phobias. This is something I found extremely intriguing because I never thought for these two things — our ego and our phobia — to be connected in any way.
Another Freudian theory that I was introduced to here is the Oedipus complex, an interesting concept that designs a person’s masculinity/femininity and her/his overall sexuality. Freud also introduces this theory in “Interpreting Dreams”, and back then I remember finding it quite taboo. In addition, this time I was able to have a better understanding of the libido in terms of psychoanalysis and its significance in id.

Contrary to my previous go at Sigmund Freud with his “Interpreting Dreams”, which was also my first go at psychoanalysis that consisted of quite a few instances of confusion and disagreements, I approached this piece with an open mind, and this helped me grasp the very essence of “The Ego And The Id”. Honestly, I enjoyed reading this.