The Id, The Ego, And The Superego

Transform Your Life With Freud’s Most Powerful Concept

Sigmund Freud was the most influential psychologist of all time. Truth be told, Freud got a lot of things blatantly wrong, but among his many crackpot theories are a few brilliant ideas — ideas that can radically change our understanding of ourselves.

Freud’s most powerful idea is what he called The Id, The Ego, and The Superego. This one concept explains much of human behavior — specifically, why we are so often at war with ourselves.

Mastering this little-known theory of Freud’s can be the key to making the changes you’ve always wanted to make in your life.

The Internal Struggle

If we’re at war with ourselves, most of us aren’t winning:

Psychologist Russ Harris writes, “Today’s middle class lives better than did the royalty of not so long ago, and yet, human misery is everywhere.” Why is it that we still experience so much suffering today, even though we have unlimited access to food, entertainment, and material comfort? Because of the war we wage against ourselves — the different parts of our psyche have contradictory desires that give rise to internal conflict.

We’ve all experienced this inner-tension, one part of our mind wants six-pack abs, but another part wants a six-pack of beer. One part of our mind wants to donate all our money to charity, but another part wants to make it rain. One part of wants to be a faithful husband, but another finds the danger of having an affair to be exciting.

Until we understand the different parts of our psyche and can teach them to live in harmony with each other, we are at risk of causing ourselves unnecessary suffering in the form of self-destructive behavior.

Freud’s model of the Id, The Ego, and The Superego isn’t the end-all, be-all model of the human mind, but it is accurate enough to give us powerful insights as to how our mind works and why we experience so much unnecessary distress in our lives.

In this article, you’re going to learn what the Id, Ego, and Superego are, why they are so often in conflict with each other, and how you can resolve that tension. By the end of this article, you’ll be able to better understand your own mind’s quirks and you’ll have powerful tools for effectively dealing with internal struggle.

The Id

The Id is driven by what Freud called the “pleasure principle.” Put simply, the Id’s agenda is to seek pleasure and avoid pain. The id is instinctual, illogical, and completely amoral. The Id has no scruples about cheating or lying to get what it wants, and it has no concern for the fact that smoking a cigarette will endanger your long-term health.

One of the great shortcomings of the id is that according to Freud, “There is nothing in the id which corresponds to the idea of time.”(1) The id seeks immediate gratification, even if doing so has future consequences. Our most obviously bad decisions can be blamed on the Id. When we eat junk food, do drugs, gamble, or spend 5 hours mindlessly staring at a screen it’s because the Id values instant gratification above all else.

The Id is driven by raw emotion. And, whether we like it or not, emotions have a powerful influence over our behavior. Our intellectual desire to get in shape isn’t always as powerful as our emotional desire to sit on the couch and eat ice cream.

The key to living harmoniously with the id is acknowledging its existence. We often try not to identify with the id because it’s the part of our mind that is the most like an animal — it acts purely on instinct.

So, we delude ourselves into thinking our base desires have on effect on us. We tell ourselves that we’ll never succumb to temptation again. Or, we make goals for our future that would only be possible if we could completely control our id (I.E. to give up all unhealthy foods or to study for 4 hours per day).

When we make decisions, it’s important that we acknowledge that an integral part of our psyche (the id) wants instant gratification more than anything else. To prevent the id from controlling your life, accept that it will have an emotional influence on you, and address this in two ways:

1. Don’t try to make drastic changes to your behavior, make subtle changes that compound over time. The Id hates discomfort, and whenever you make a large commitment to change your life, the Id is going to rebel against that by inundating you with feelings of stress. For example:

a. If you want to exercise more, start small and build it up gradually.

b. If you want to give up smoking, make a rule to only smoke a certain number of cigarettes a day, and reduce the number over the course of several months until you get it to 0.

2. We often get caught up in our emotional desires, but we can learn to gain control over our emotions. To do this, you can practice mindfulness meditation. Scientific research has shown mindfulness strengthens our self-control and helps us make good decisions.

(To learn exactly how to practice mindfulness, check out the apps Calm or Headspace — both include a free trial that teaches you the basics of meditation. For a completely free resource, I recommend Tara Brach.com).

Left unchecked, the Id can lead us to make very unhealthy decisions for our long-term health and well-being. The Id isn’t evil, but it is dangerous. It’s important to acknowledge that we do have an Id, and that if we don’t control it, it controls us. Fortunately, we don’t have to be a slave to our id, we can learn to relate to it healthily.

The Superego

“Woman dressed as an angel with feather wings and a flower crown” by 小胖 车 on Unsplash

If the id is the devil on your left shoulder, the superego is the angel on your right shoulder. The superego is the part of your consciousness that feels morally obligated to behave a certain way. You aren’t born with a superego, it develops over time as you are shaped by your family, your culture, your education, and your religion.

If you’ve ever felt ashamed about your sexuality, that was your superego at work. If you’ve ever felt like you aren’t contributing enough to society, that was your superego at work. The superego is moralistic, it has a sense of right and wrong. The superego rewards us with good emotions when we make decisions that it considers morally just (like giving away our money, or convincing someone to join our church), and it punishes us when we make decisions it considers morally wrong (like stealing, or in certain cultures, having a one-night stand).

The superego is largely dependent on your cultural upbringing. Some cultures teach that polygamy is an ideal lifestyle. If you were raised in such a culture, your superego would feel better the more wives you had.

The most important thing to understand about the superego is that it is subjective. We can fall into the trap that our moral beliefs are the objective truth — because acting against them makes us feel so guilty and acting in alignment with them makes us feel so much pride. But those beliefs are largely based on our upbringing, and in many cases, they are against our better interest.

For example, if you were raised in a family that tells you should be a doctor (because that’s the morally correct choice). Then, you may end up becoming a doctor not because it’s something you’re interested in, but because of the pressure your superego puts on you to live up to its standards.

We often punish ourselves with shame or guilt because we’re not living up to the morals of our superego, but sometimes those standards aren’t worth living up to. When you feel that guilt is influencing you, question whether that guilt is due to your personal values, or the values of the environment you were raised in. If it’s the latter, you may not want to make decisions based on that guilt.

One way to lessen the power our superego has on us is to expose ourselves to alternative perspectives and philosophies. If you were raised to be religious, you could read a few books by famous atheists — and vice versa. Or, if you strongly identify with liberal politics, you could read a few books by prominent conservative thinkers — or vice versa.

Doing this will probably be uncomfortable, but that’s a good sign, it means your superego feels like it’s being challenged. You don’t have to agree with these new perspectives, but by exposing yourself to them, you’re loosening the grip your superego’s belief system has on you.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. — F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Ego

Photo by Lily Banse on Unsplash

The ego operates according to the reality principle. The ego seeks to get pleasure and avoid pain, like the Id, but it attempts to do so in a way that will benefit you in the long-term (3). The Id wants to get immediate pleasure through binge-eating, whereas the ego wants to get long-term pleasure by following a diet.

Our conscious awareness (the voice in our head) resides in the ego; meaning the ego is the part of our psyche we most identify with. The ego is logical: it makes plans and analyzes the potential consequences of your decisions.

The ego is like a person on horseback who must control the horse (the Id). The ego uses willpower to keep the id in check, but it has its limits (5).

Willpower is like a psychological muscle; if you use it to much, it becomes exhausted to the point that the Id takes over. If you deny your emotional desires too much, they become increasingly powerful (the longer you follow a diet, the more appealing a desert at Sonic becomes).

Practically speaking, if you deprive yourself of things like rest or good tasting food, you can wear the ego out to the point where you end up binge eating and watching all 9 seasons of How I Met Your Mother in one sitting.

The ego is a powerful tool for making decisions that are good for your long-term well-being. The ego’s desires oppose the Id’s, but it’s important to respect both. You can strengthen the ego to give it more influence over your behavior by training your willpower. (to learn how to do that, click here).

Conclusion

The id, the ego, and the superego are all important pieces of our psyche. The id’s desires conflict with the ego’s desires, the ego’s desires conflict with the superego’s desires, and so on.

These three components of the mind will always oppose each other to a certain extent, but through acknowledging the id, training your willpower and becoming more self-aware of your superego, you can teach these three components of your psyche to exist in relative harmony.

If you liked this article, and would like to learn more about how you can improve your life with self-awareness, check out my new book, The Power of Self-Awareness on Amazon.

References:

1: Sigmund Freud (1933). p. 106

2. Freud, Sigmund (1978). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. Volume XIX (1923–26) The Ego and the Id and Other Works p. 19

3. Noam, Gil G; Hauser, Stuart T.; Santostefano, Sebastiano; Garrison, William; Jacobson, Alan M.; Powers, Sally I.; Mead, Merrill (February 1984). “Ego Development and Psychopathology: A Study of Hospitalized Adolescents”. 189–194