id ego superego research paper

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Ego, drives, and the dynamics of internal objects

This paper addresses the relationship between the ego, id, and internal objects. While ego psychology views the ego as autonomous of the drives, a less well-known alternative position views the ego as constituted by the drives. Based on Freud’s ego-instinct account, this position has developed into a school of thought which postulates that the drives act as knowers. Given that there are multiple drives, this position proposes that personality is constituted by multiple knowers. Following on from Freud, the ego is viewed as a composite sub-set of the instinctual drives (ego-drives), whereas those drives cut off from expression form the id. The nature of the “self” is developed in terms of identification and the possibility of multiple personalities is also established. This account is then extended to object-relations and the explanatory value of the ego-drive account is discussed in terms of the addressing the nature of ego-structures and the dynamic nature of internal objects. Finally, the impact of psychological conflict and the significance of repression for understanding the nature of splits within the psyche are also discussed.

The precise relationship between the id, ego, and instinctual drives remains an issue of dispute. The most prominent post-Freudian position proposes that the ego is independent of the instinctual drives (e.g., Hartmann, 1950 , 1958 ). However, an alternative, albeit less-recognized, school of thought proposes instead that it is the instinctual drives as knowers that constitute the ego. The first attempt to clearly articulate this position originates in the writings of Maze (1983 , 1987 , 1993) although antecedents can be seen in the writings of earlier authors (e.g., Passmore, 1935 , p. 282). Following clues from Freud’s writings concerning the “ego-instincts” (e.g., Freud, 1910 ), Maze’s position postulates that the knowing subjects within the individual are the instinctual drives. Furthermore, given that there are multiple instinctual drives, each person then consists of a multiplicity of knowers. Consequently, this position has radical implications for conceptualizing the id, ego, and superego, and personality structures in general.

However, assessing any theory about the ego, id and superego is not straight-forward. While Freud’s position is based upon empirical observation, empirical evaluation of any theory also requires prior theoretical clarification. Accordingly, refining our understanding of psychoanalytic theory and concepts is essential for progress in psychoanalysis. An added obstacle here, though, is that psychoanalytic schools of thought are diverse ( Wallerstein, 2005a , b ), contributing to what is described as “theoretical chaos” ( Green, 2005 , p. 629). One possible common ground, however, is to return to Freud’s theory since a “very minimal version of Freudian theory is accepted by almost all who accept any version of psychoanalytic theory” ( Erwin, 1988 , p. 243). However, as is well-recognized, evaluating the complexity of Freudian theory is itself difficult, partly due to “unresolved contradictions in Freud’s writings” ( Shill, 2004 , p. 125). In fact, anyone systematically reading Freud will likely agree with Madison’s (1956 ) observation that Freud’s writings:

… represent an historical account of an adventurous explorer developing a system of concepts that changed and grew continuously and unevenly over a half-century of creative effort … [subsequently he] left behind a trail of complex ideas unevenly developed and never integrated into a logical, systematic whole (p. 75).

Despite this, the importance of theoretical clarification cannot be over-stated since theory provides the major explanatory foundation for understanding clinical findings and therapeutic success in psychoanalysis. For this reason, both conceptual and theoretical research is an indispensable tool for assessing psychoanalytic claims, both with respect to theoretical clarification and generating theoretical implications for empirical assessment (see Dreher, 2005 ; Leuzinger-Bohleber and Fischmann, 2006 ; Brakel, 2009 , 2013 ; Boag, 2012 ).

Using theoretical and conceptual analysis, the broad aims of this paper are to contribute theoretical clarification and extension to the accounts of the id, ego, and superego and to then provide a synthesis of this account with object relations accounts that postulate multiple ego-structures and dynamic internal objects. More specifically, the paper aims to: (a) develop novel theoretical insights by assessing the logical implications of an ego-drive account, and; (b) synthesize these theoretical findings with object-relation approaches to address the dynamics of internal objects. To achieve this, this paper first discusses the “ego” concept in psychoanalytic thinking and its relationship to the id. After discussing problems with the view that the ego is autonomous of the id, a theory of ego-drive theory is then advanced. On this viewpoint, a sub-set of the instinctual drives directly compose the ego and this sub-set can be further divided to account for the superego (intra-ego conflict). This position is then applied to a general theory of ego-differentiation and ego-structures, as well as justifying the dynamics of internal objects in object-relations approaches.

THE EGO AND THE ID IN FREUDIAN THINKING

The ego ( Ich ) and id ( Es ) first formally appear in 1923 although antecedents are found in both Freud’s Project ( Freud, 1895 ) and his earlier topographic theory (e.g., Freud, 1900 ). It was short-comings of the latter which prompted Freud to revise the conscious-unconscious relationship and postulate a revised model of personality that has come to be known as the “structural” theory. These structures consist of the ego, id and superego and according to Freud the id and ego can be understood in terms of how they differ from one another. For instance, consciousness is attached to the ego whereas the id is unconscious; the ego is that which knows and that which can be known (even if some aspects of ego functioning such as defences are unconscious – Freud, 1923b , pp. 17–18), while the id consists of “the dark, inaccessible part of our personality” ( Freud, 1933 , p. 73). Furthermore, the ego is structured, organized, and possesses a synthetic character which is uncharacteristic of the id: “what distinguishes the ego from the id quite especially is a tendency to synthesis in its contents, to a combination and unification in its mental processes which are totally lacking in the id” ( Freud, 1933 , p. 76). The ego is also an agency that controls and initiates action whereas the id can only act through influencing the ego:

… in each individual there is a coherent organization of mental processes; and we call this his ego . It is to this ego that consciousness is attached; the ego controls the approaches to motility… it is the mental agency which supervises all its own constituent processes….

Freud, 1923b , p. 17, his italics

However, the id is further conceptualized in two (not mutually exclusive) ways: one as the biological unconscious instinctual drives; the other as that which is repressed. With the former, the id is “a cauldron full of seething excitations. We picture it as being open at its end to somatic influences, and as there taking up into itself instinctual needs which find their psychical expression in it” ( Freud, 1933 , p. 73). This id is primarily concerned with gratification, without regard to external constraints or possible consequences and, unlike the ego, is only sensitive to internal stimulation and “has no direct communication with the external world” ( Freud, 1940 , p. 197). The other component of the id is that of the repressed. Freud (1923b) writes that “the repressed merges into the id as well, and is merely a part of it” (p. 24; cf. Freud, 1933 , p. 77). As the repressed, the id consists of all those impulses subjected to repression, which remain unaffected by time and which partake in the particular processes of the biological id ( Freud, 1933 , p. 74).

The processes that the id and ego differ on reflect Freud’s primary Ucs . processes and Cs ./ Pcs. secondary processes distinction, and Gill (1963) writes that “the criteria of Ucs . and Pcs . are the same as those of id and ego” (p. 53; cf. Compton, 1972 , 1981 ; Wiedeman, 1972 ; Wollheim, 1991 ; Brenner, 1994 ; Boesky, 1995 ; Petocz, 1999 ). The id here is described as operating via the primary process pleasure principle whereas the ego is motivated by the reality principle: “Just as the id is directed exclusively to obtaining pleasure, so the ego is governed by considerations of safety. The ego has set itself the task of self-preservation, which the id appears to neglect” ( Freud, 1940 , p. 199; cf. Freud, 1923b , p. 56).

Due to the id’s lack of concern for external reality and safety, the ego assumes the role of an executive agent , attempting to satisfy the id through activity in the world: “As a frontier-creature, the ego tries to mediate between the world and the id, to make the id pliable to the world and, by means of its muscular activity, to make the world fall in with the wishes of the id” ( Freud, 1923b , p. 56; cf. Freud, 1924 , p. 167, Freud, 1933 , p. 75). Accordingly, the ego is viewed as a regulating agent in charge of balancing the demands of the “irrational” id, super-ego, and constraints of the external world ( Freud, 1923b , p. 55; Freud, 1940 , p. 199). The ego functions here via cognitive activity and perception, anticipating danger, and both preparing responses and inhibiting action ( Freud, 1940 , p. 199).

PROBLEMS WITH THE EGO AND THE ID

Freud’s account generally spells out the id and ego in terms of their functions (i.e., what they are said to do). A problem with such functional definitions is that it is not entirely clear what it is that is said to be performing these functions and such definitions lend themselves to reification and circular explanation whereby a set of processes is treated as an entity performing those same processes (and then used to explain those same processes with respect to the concocted entity – see Boag, 2011 ). In this respect the structural theory has been criticized for reifying various activities into entities performing those same activities ( Boesky, 1995 ) along with the further associated problem of describing the id, ego, and superego in anthropomorphic terms. Laplanche and Pontalis (1973) , for instance, note that “[the structural theory] is shot through with anthropomorphism” (p. 452), which entails populating the mind with little people and then explaining the person with reference to persons – a tactic that simply multiplies the number of entities and explanations that need to be accounted for ( Grossman and Simon, 1969 ; Wiedeman, 1972 ; Talvitie, 2012 ).

Furthermore, there are various problems with Freud’s aforementioned lines of demarcation between ego and id which extend the problems with the demarcations within his earlier topographic theory, viz . the supposed peculiar processes can be found across all of the systems (see Petocz, 1999 ). For instance, Brenner (1994) notes that “the ego is by no means as consistent, as integrated, as mature, and as immune from primary process functioning as the ego is supposed to be” (p. 477). On the other hand, the id cannot be ignorant of the external world since any id-impulse or urge can only be conceptualized as an impulse or urge to do, say, X or Y (where X and Y will be some real or imagined state of affairs; i.e., a content-less “urge” or “impulse” is incoherent). Moreover, any such urge or impulse is a propositional attitude ( S desires that X ) and so cannot be less organized or structured compared to any other mental act. In fact, Freud’s distinction between the ego and the id also generates problems for understanding the nature of the repressed since, as Beres (1962) notes, an “organized repressed content” must somehow then belong to the ego rather than the id:

If we assume that the fantasy which is unconscious retains its organization, to whatever degree, we must grant the continued activity of ego functions. “The ego is an organization,” Freud has said, “and the id is not.” An “id fantasy,” then, is by definition a contradiction in terms, and to speak of a fantasy being “repressed into the id” is, in my opinion, a complex of logical fallacies.

Beres, 1962 , p. 324; cf. Slap and Saykin, 1984 , p. 110

Furthermore, the id is clearly an agent like the ego (i.e., can initiate muscular activity) since id-impulses find their way into behavior as parapraxes and other compromise formations (e.g., Freud, 1935 ). The further supposed distinction contrasting the pleasure-seeking id with the self-preservative ego simply ignores the well-recognized fact that self-preservation and reality-orientation (which is only ever more or less) is itself a means of gratification and frustration avoidance (see Maze, 1983 ; Maze and Henry, 1996 ; Petocz, 1999 ; Newbery, 2011 ; Boag, 2012 ). As Maze and Henry (1996) note, the pleasure principle is the regulating guide or underlying motivational law of the mental apparatus for both the ego and the id. For that matter, the “reality principle,” too, is but a modified version of the pleasure principle since, as Freud notes, the ego “is able only to modify the pleasure principle but not to nullify it” ( Freud, 1940 , p. 198; cf. Freud, 1911b , 1925a ). Accordingly, the reality principle is simply an elaboration of the pleasure principle and all mental activity is concerned with obtaining some sort of self-gratification even if appearing selfless or self-defeating.

While the problems of demarcation above have led some authors to reject the structural theory altogether (e.g., Brenner, 1994 ), none of this is to say that the ego and id cannot be differentiated by other means. Here at least one line of demarcation between ego and (repressed) id emerges in relation to the social context which is hostile toward certain means of gratification. Socially proscribed impulses become repressed and the resulting ego assumes a dominating position within the personality ( Freud, 1900 , pp. 594–595; Freud, 1905a , p. 85; Freud, 1907 , p. 58). Nonetheless, given the problems of demarcation outlined above, the relationship between the ego and id requires clarification. Furthermore, the relationship between the ego and instinctual drives also requires further consideration.

THE EGO AND THE DRIVES

The distinction between the ego and the id above led Freud to contrast the ego and the id in terms of motivational sources. More specifically, the id is motivated by the drives whereas the ego manages them: “For the ego, perception plays the part which in the id falls to instinct. The ego represents what may be called reason and common senses, in contrast to the id, which contains the passions” ( Freud, 1923b , p. 25; cf. Freud, 1933 , p. 76). Similarly, Freud (1923b) also writes that “[t]he ego develops from perceiving instincts to controlling them, obeying instincts to inhibiting them” (pp. 55–56). This disconnect between the ego and the drives leads to the distinction of the “irrational” id with the rational executive ego, analogous to a horse and rider:

The ego’s relation to the id might be compared with that of a rider to his horse. The horse supplies the locomotive energy, while the rider has the privilege of deciding on the goal and of guiding the powerful animal’s movements.

Freud, 1933 , p. 77; cf. Freud, 1923b , p. 25

Maze (1987) notes that this distinction paved the way for the development of ego psychology whereby the ego is autonomous from the drives and consists of a set of functions including controlling motility, perceptual processes, synthetic functions, and an inhibitory capacity ( Hartmann, 1950 , 1958 ; Rapaport, 1951 ). While Hartmann (1950) initially believed that the “id and ego are originally one” developing “out of the matrix of animal instinct” (p. 79; cf. Freud, 1968 , p. 59), he nevertheless conceptualized the developed ego as functionally distinct from the id. Later Hartmann (1958) discusses “inborn ego apparatuses” (p. 103) as well as “functions of the ego which cannot be derived from the instinctual drives” (p. 101), leading to the view of strict ego autonomy. The ego’s autonomy from the drives has subsequently become orthodox ego psychology [for a discussion of the history of ego psychology see Marcus (1999) ]. Recently Lettieri (2005) , for instance, refers to the “ego’s fundamentally autonomous, self-generating nature” (p. 377) and Gillett (1997) even distinguishes two autonomous egos: the “conscious ego” “similar to that of a central executive” and an “unconscious ego,” “also a central executive with functions limited to those required for the regulation of defense” (p. 482).

A general problem, however, with postulating an “irrational” id and “rational” ego is that this essentially paves the way for reinstating the Cartesian “rational faculty.” Here humans are divorced from the rest of the animal kingdom by virtue of “ego functions” which aim to manage, yet are independent of, the instinctual drives. Beres (1962) , for instance, claims that “[h]uman psychic activity differs from that of animals, including, so far as we know, even the higher primates, by the mediation of ego functions between the instinctual drive stimulus, the need, and its gratification or inhibition” (p. 317). More recently Tauber (2010) has developed this implication to claim that the Freudian ego has free will and thus attributing to Freud a position he would find as antithetical to his favored deterministic position.

The more specific problem here with dissociating the ego from the drives is accounting for the ego’s motivation ( Maze, 1983 , 1987 , 1993 ). Since the ego is said to arbitrate between different desires and demands (e.g., between the id, super-ego and external world – Freud, 1923b , p. 56), then some account of the ego’s motivational policy must be provided (why, for instance, does the ego choose to do X rather than Y ?). Hartmann’s (1958 ) attempt to explain the ego’s motivation in terms of adaptation falls prey to an implicit moralism because adaptation is relative to different subjects’ points of view (see Maze, 1987 ). A similar criticism can be extended to Lettieri’s (2005) treatment of the ego as a “self-organizing adaptive process” (p. 376). Additionally, the ego becomes a truly free and autonomous agent, as reflected in the reference above to the “ego’s fundamentally autonomous, self-generating nature” ( Lettieri, 2005 , p. 377). Accordingly, and as Freud recognized, to avoid a disembodied rational agency, a motivational account ultimately based on some biological deterministic mechanism is required to explain both the direction and activity of any behavior.

THE EGO AS A PORTION OF THE ID

While one line of Freud’s thinking paves the way to positing a drive-autonomous ego, Freud nevertheless provides a motivational basis for the ego when he writes that “[t]he ego is not sharply separated from the id; its lower portion merges into it” (1923b, p. 24; cf. 1933, p. 75). Similarly:

… this ego developed out of the id, it forms with it a single biological unit, it is only a specially modified peripheral portion of it, and it is subject to the influences and obeys the suggestions that arise from the id. For any vital purpose, a separation of the ego from the id would be a hopeless undertaking.

Freud, 1925a , p. 133

Freud’s reference here to a “single biological unit” is important here since it accounts for the ego’s motivation in terms of instinctual drives, in the same manner as the id and thus provides a possible explanatory motivational basis ( Maze, 1983 , 1987 , 1993 ).

This position extends one line of thought in Freud’s thinking where he directly links the ego with the instinctual drives when he proposes the existence of “ego-instincts.” This position appears initially in one of Freud’s lesser known works ( The psycho-analytic view of the psychogenic disturbance of vision – Freud, 1910 ) and appears to have enjoyed currency in Freud’s thinking for a relatively short period of time (1910–1915; Laplanche and Pontalis, 1973 ). The ego-instincts were broadly described as the “self-preservative” instincts (“hunger”) which could be contrasted with the libidinal instincts (“love”) and the account of ego instincts formalized this repressing source as a set of instincts responsible for conflict and subsequent repressions. Freud (1910) writes, for instance, that “instincts are not always compatible with one another; their interests often come into conflict. Opposition between ideas is only an expression of struggles between the various instincts” (pp. 213–214; cf. Freud, 1933 , p. 57). Laplanche and Pontalis (1973) nevertheless note that although Freud had always postulated that it was the ego that initiated repression, until the formulation of the ego-instincts “the ego had until now been assigned no specific instinctual support” (p. 146). Freud’s account of the ego-instincts is thus theoretically welcome since it provides a biological foundation for the motivational systems involve in conflict (cf. Maze, 1983 , 1987 , 1993 ).

Laplanche and Pontalis (1973) note, however, an apparent inconsistency in Freud’s account of the ego-instincts. Freud (1910) describes the ego as a set of “ideas.” For instance, in describing the conflict between the repressed and the ego-instincts he writes that we “must assume that these ideas have come into opposition to other, more powerful ones, for which we use the collective concept of the ‘ego”’ (p. 213). This line of thinking, comparing the ego to a “dominant mass of ideas,” can be traced to Freud’s earliest psychodynamic writings (e.g., in the Studies , Freud refers to “the dominant mass of ideas constituting the ego” – Freud in Breuer and Freud, 1895 , p. 116). Strictly speaking, however, ideas are policy-neutral and do not in themselves provide a basis for conflict. Laplanche and Pontalis further note here that treating the ego-instincts as a “group of ideas” is ambiguous in terms of whether the “ego” is either the subject or object of activity and cognition (i.e., the knower or something known). Laplanche and Pontalis question then whether the ego-instincts as “ideas” can serve as either the subject engaging in cognition or as motivational sources (“tendencies emanating from the organism” in their terms – p. 147, their italics), since, as “ideas”, the “ego” then is something known (the ego-instincts are “attached to the ego as if to their object ”; Laplanche and Pontalis – p. 147, their italics). Laplanche and Pontalis believe that this apparent ambiguity was resolved with the introduction of the theory of narcissism. Insofar as the ego could be both subject and object, “[t]he ego-instincts emanate from the ego and relate to independent objects (such as food); yet the ego may become the object of the sexual instinct (ego-libido)” (p. 148; see also Freud, 1933 , p. 58).

However, Freud’s position can be refined further. It is telling that Freud (1910) first mentions the ego in scare quotes (i.e., “ego”) in the context of a “collective concept” and a “compound” (p. 213. cf. p. 215). This is indicative of an attempt on Freud’s part not to reify the “ego” as a substantive agency or entity. After all, it is multiple instincts contributing to the collective, and it is this notion of multiplicity that helps conceptualize both splits and merging within the ego. Freud (1933) , for instance, in discussing the ego as both subject and object writes that “the ego can be split; it splits itself during a number of its functions – temporarily at least. Its parts can come together again afterward” (p. 58). Freud (1910) further refers to “the collective concept of the “ego” – a compound which is made up variously at different times” (p. 213). That is, the ego is not an irreducible entity but rather composed of a dominating set of instinctual drives of which membership is fluid. For Freud (1910) , what distinguishes the repressed instinctual drives from the instinctual drives composing the ego is that they remain isolated and incapable of synthesis into the collective forming the ego.

Freud’s ego-instincts account has, however, received little attention in psychoanalytic thinking and of those authors who do refer to ego-instincts, the tendency is to treat them, following following Hartmann (1958 , p. 107), simply as synonymous with ego functions (e.g., Khantzian and Mack, 1983 ). One exception is Young-Bruehl and Bethelard (1999) who discuss both the history of the ego-instinct concept in Freud’s thinking and apply the concept to explaining object choice. Nonetheless, what is generally missing here is any substantive discussion of “instincts” generally to provide a foundation for understanding the ego-instincts. This is perhaps comprehensible given that Freud (1933) writes that “[i]nstincts are mythical entities magnificent in their indefiniteness” (p. 95), and that these instincts are “at once the most important and the most obscure element of psychological research” ( Freud, 1920 , p. 34; cf. Freud, 1905b , p. 168; Freud, 1925c , pp. 56–57 n ; Freud, 1930 , p. 117). Furthermore, Freud’s editor Strachey’s choice of the term “instinct” as a translation for Freud’s “ Trieb ” is problematic since it connotes species-specific behavior patterns which is not in accord with Freud’s original usage ( Laplanche and Pontalis, 1973 ; Ritvo and Solnit, 1995 ). “Drive” (or “instinctual drive”) has been discussed extensively elsewhere as a better translation (see Maze, 1983 ; Boag, 2012 ; Solms and Panksepp, 2012 ), and is the preferred term here.

MAZE’S CLARIFICATION OF THE INSTINCTUAL DRIVE CONCEPT

A starting point for discussing drives is in the context of endogenous stimuli with respect to source (somatic process), aim (satisfaction), object (instrumental to aim), and pressure (motor) components ( Freud, 1915a ). Freud grounds drives somatically but relates them intimately to motivational states, cognitive activity and behavior. Drives engage in activity and for Freud the drives operate as endogenous stimuli, which, unlike external stimuli, persist until an activity or action is performed leading to satisfaction (i.e., the removal of the stimulus; Freud, 1895 , pp. 296–297; Freud, 1905b , p. 168; Freud, 1915a , p. 118–119; Freud, 1925b , pp. 118–119; Freud, 1933 , p. 96). While it is true that Freud chiefly speculated on the precise number and types of drives, this was not because drives are without real-world referents (as some claim – e.g., Fulgencio, 2005 ) but only because psycho analytic observations of behavior are limited with respect to what can be inferred about the source of any drive ( Freud, 1915a ). That is, the drive’s “source” means that drives must also be identified through investigating the internal workings of the body and not through psychological (psychoanalytic) enquiry alone.

Freud’s account of the instinctual drives has been variously criticized for invoking obsolete energic concepts (e.g., Holt, 1976 ; Rosenblatt and Thickstun, 1977 ) and not accommodating learnt experience (e.g., Westen, 1997 ). However, these criticisms rest upon outdated drive concepts, even if indicating a need for clarifying contemporary drive theory. This clarification has been achieved to some extent by the Australian psychoanalytic theorist Maze (1983 , 1987 , 1993) . Maze conceptualizes the drives as neuro-physical “biological engines” that engage sensory and motor mechanisms and operate according to mechanistic, causal principles. As “engines,” the drives convert potential energy into output (behavior) and rather than initiating their own activity, are instead activated (switched “on”) by relevant bodily states (e.g., deprivation) and environmental conditions. Maze’s position is broadly consistent with current behavioral neuroscience accounts of drives ( Sewards and Sewards, 2002 , 2003 ; see Berridge, 2004 for a critical review; see also Bazan and Detandt, 2013 for a comparison of contemporary neuroscience and Freudian drive theory) whereby the complexity of human behavior emerges initially from innate consummatory activities (e.g., simple motor activities such as swallowing), which become elaborated through motor development and distorted due to factors such as conflict. For instance, socialization and culture shape how drives are expressed and any behavior may reflect a variety of motivational inputs such that several drives may contribute to any given activity. Behavior may also reflect conflict and repression, whereby compromised avenues of satisfaction are forced due to fear of punishment (see Maze, 1983 ; Petocz, 1999 ; Boag, 2012 ).

It should be noted here that Maze is not engaging in speculative theorizing and instead bases his proposal on the homeostatic drive accounts of his day, a position still found in current behavioral neuroscience, even if possibly not covering the whole story (for instance, allodynamic processes may be needed to supplement homeostasis – Schulkin, 2003 ; McEwen and Wingfield, 2010 ; see also Berridge, 2004 ). Furthermore, current behavioral neuroscience provides in principle support for Freud’s (1910 ) libidinal and self-preservative drive distinction, with drives of sexuality, hunger, thirst, pain reduction, sleep, fear, power-dominance, and nurturance identified ( Wagner, 1999 ; Sewards and Sewards, 2002 , 2003 ). However, the aim here is not to provide an exhaustive list of drives (and any satisfactory list will necessarily require careful scrutiny) but simply to show that an account of drives conforming to Freud’s initial postulation is not entirely without contemporary justification.

Since Freud’s time there are also broader questions concerning whether affects should be considered the primary motivational instigators rather than the drives (see Westen, 1997 ; Kernberg, 2009 ) and while there is not scope here to develop this issue, a motivational account of affects does not necessarily contradict the Freudian drive position since drives and affects appear to be intimately connected ( Boag, 2008 , 2012 , Chap. 8; McIlwain, 2007 ). On the other hand, whether aggression is a primary drive or a reactive response of the drives to frustration remains an open-question and is also subject to ongoing debate (see Kernberg, 2009 ). Although some authors consider Freud’s (1920 , 1923a ) concept of a death instinct clinically useful (e.g., Segal, 1993 ), or useful in conjunction with a notion of a primary aggressive drive (e.g., Kernberg, 2009 ), a problem with Freud’s life and death drives is that these drives are defined by aim rather than source, and the question remains, as Kernberg observes, as to whether any observed aggression is a primary drive or a secondary response to frustration. Without bio-neurological evidence of a primary death/aggressive drive (i.e., a source) then one and the same aggressive expression can be “explained” in terms of it being either an expression of a primary aggression drive or reactive aggression (in other words, we are left guessing whether aggression is a primary drive requiring satisfaction or not). Nevertheless, it is still possible to agree with Kernberg (2009) that aggression is a “major motivational system” (p. 1018) since aggression appears to be part of our make-up, but whether we have primary aggressive aims that require satisfaction (rather than simply reactive aggression) remains to be seen.

DRIVES AND COGNITION

Maze (1983) further aims to clarify the relation between drives and cognition. Any act of cognition entails something standing as a knower , and while one commonly refers here to the “person” or organism, an innovation in Maze’s thinking (again following hints from Freud) is that it is the drives themselves that engage in cognition. In other words, the organism’s motivational systems are what engage cognitive/perceptual processes. This is, at times, indicated by Freud when he treats the drives as the “psychical representative of organic forces” (i.e., wishes or desires; Freud, 1911a , p. 74; cf. Freud, 1915a , p. 122; Freud, 1905b , p. 168), and elsewhere when Freud writes that an “instinct can never become an object of consciousness – only the idea that represents the instincts can” ( Freud, 1915c , p. 177). This could be taken to mean that the drives are defined somatically but simultaneously engage in cognition in their quest for gratification and avoidance of frustration (e.g., a hunger drive desires to eat and is interested in sources of food – Passmore, 1935 ). More recently, Panksepp (1998) to some extent suggests a similar position whereby he appears to imply that drives engage both cognition and behavior via the SEEKING system: “The SEEKING system, under the guidance of various regulatory imbalances, external incentive cues and past learning, helps take thirsty animals to water, cold animals to warmth, hungry animals to food, and sexually aroused animals toward opportunities for orgasmic gratification” (p. 167; cf. Panksepp and Moskal, 2008 ; see also Bazan and Detandt, 2013 , pp. 6–7; see also Boag, 2012 , pp. 114–115). Accordingly, the drives can be considered as psychobiological systems rather than “blind bodily forces” as some propose (e.g., Slavin and Grief, 1995 , p. 166). It is the drives that desire, believe, and phantasise, and such desires, beliefs, and phantasies are not automatically conscious and may be prevented from being reflected upon via repression ( Freud, 1915b ; for further discussion see Boag, 2010 , 2012 , Chaps. 5 and 6).

Subsequently, Maze (1983 , 1987) develops the position that the smallest units comprising the “knowers” within the personality are the psychobiological drive structures: “Each instinctual drive accumulates information and misinformation about the location and means of acquisition of the objects necessary for its specific actions to be performed” ( Maze, 1983 , p. 162). While not a common standpoint, this view has nevertheless been taken up by others to account for the dynamics of mental life (e.g., Petocz, 1999 ; Boag, 2005 , 2012 ; Newbery, 2011 ) and although we can generally refer to the “organism” as that which knows, the fact of psychological conflict – a foundation of psychoanalytic theory – forces upon us the view of there being multiple systems, each motivated and cognising, coming into conflict (a position not dissimilar to Plato’s observation that human life reflects “struggles of factions in a State” – Plato, 1928 ; 440b, p. 170). As Petocz (1999) writes, “in order to accommodate the facts of mental conflict, of a conflict of interests within a single mind, there must be a plurality of drives – at least two” (p. 221; cf. Maze, 1983 ; Boag, 2005 , 2007 , 2012 ; McIlwain, 2007 ). That is, it is literally possible to be in “two minds” about something since, unlike the indivisible and immaterial Cartesian ego, any experience of “self” belies what is in fact a multiplicity of knowing systems.

Maze is thus proposing a strongly partitive view of personality: each individual is made up of a small community of these drives, “each of which is a knower and a doer” ( Maze, 1987 , p. 197). However, Maze is not suggesting that these drives are anthropomorphic homunculi (“little persons”). Instead, these knowers are biomechanical systems utilizing cognition:

…unlike the whole person each has, in effect, only one motive, never restrains itself from seeking satisfaction, knows only a portion of the aggregate body of information, and suffers no internal conflict. An instinctual drive can no more restrain itself from working than any motor can, once the switches are thrown. If its operation is to be arrested, then that must be through some influence external to itself – in the case of repression, from other instinctual drives

Maze, 1987 , p. 197

Thus, rather than a “person” (or persons) acting rationally and deciding upon courses of action, each drive is simply a mechanistic system that once activated motivates the organism’s cognitive activity and behavior. The restraining and inhibiting factors are consequent on conflict and repression ( Maze, 1983 ; Boag, 2012 ) and the behavior of the “person” results from both facilitating and inhibiting influences emerging from the interaction of these drives.

A potential shortcoming with Maze’s account has, however, been identified by Newbery (2011) with respect to accounting for the ongoing activity of the organism after apparent satiation. In Maze’s account, once drive-satiation occurs then the consequent cessation of the drive-excitation pattern would terminate stimulation of motor activity ( Maze, 1983 , p. 151). Accordingly, should all the primary drives be satisfied then the organism would cease to engage in motivated behavior. Addressing this issue, Newbery proposes a conceptual distinction between drives being inoperative – ceasing activity altogether – and drives being satisfied , whereby the drives nonetheless engage in cognitive activity even when satisfied ( Newbery, 2011 , p. 857). Here Newbery postulates that a satisfied drive may nevertheless remain sensitive to environmental sources of gratification and frustration. A hunger-satiated person may remain alert to hunger-gratifying information when, for instance, environmental information affords the possibility of predicting food shortages.

EGO-DRIVES AND ID-DRIVES

Following Freud’s (1910 ) ego-instinct account, Maze (1983 , 1987) proposes that both the ego and the id are constituted by the drives. Furthermore, both the ego and id engage in acts of knowing. Consistent with Freud’s position, the primary factor determining which sub-set of drives form the ego-drives and which form the id are the social forces instigating repression. In Freud’s theory it is primarily the social environment during infancy which provides the context for repression ( Freud, 1914 , 1915b ). Wishes and desires that are proscribed by the social environment are associated with loss of love and danger, leading to anxiety and primary repression. Later, such external prohibitions become internalized as the superego, reinforcing the initial repression with secondary repression ( Freud, 1926 , p. 128; Freud, 1930 , p. 124). Here Maze (1987) writes that the drive expressions (i.e., desires and behaviors) that provoke anxiety due to associations with “loss of love” form the repressed id while the ego emerges as a dominating sub-set of the drives:

In general, all those instinctual drives whose gratification is dependent on the parent’s good will and which is employed as reward by them are mobilized in opposition to the forbidden instinctual impulses. Thus, one subset of the instinctual drives becomes organized in competition with the remainder, and treats the blocking off of the remainder as an essential part of securing its own gratification

Maze, 1983 , p. 171

While Freud (1910) viewed the self-preservative drives as those constituting the ego-drives and the libidinal drives as those constituting the repressed, Freud further notes that although the sexual drives are typically repressed, this is essentially an empirical finding rather than an a priori assertion (for the role of sexuality in personality and repression see also Boag, 2012 , pp. 118–119).

Theoretically there is no objection to supposing that any sort of instinctual demand might occasion the same repressions and their consequences: but our observation shows us invariably, so far as we can judge, that the excitations that play the pathogenic part arose from the component instincts of sexual life

Freud, 1940 , p. 186

Viewed in this way there are no a priori “id” drives and Bleichmar (2004) rightly notes that it is not inconceivable that sexuality could repress the aim of self-preservation (p. 1387). What becomes repressed is determined by prevailing social factors and inter-drive competition and it is moral disapproval that provides the context for the development of id and ego:

The actual principle of division, between the instinctual drives that are to constitute the ego and those which are to be repressed and constitute the id, would be that the former were those whose expression was not subject to moral disapproval , that is, those which were socially regarded as legitimate constituents of a respectable person, whereas the latter were morally condemned as impulses that no worthwhile person would have

Maze, 1983 , p. 172, his italics

Given then that the ego is not divorced from the drives, the id is better conceptualized solely in reference to what is repressed. Furthermore, the ego and id are not then fixed and unchanging entities. For both Freud (1910) and Maze (1983) , the “ego” is not a substantive, indivisible entity but rather a fluid collective of dominating drives that have not submitted to repression. Accordingly, there is no single executive entity called the ego acting as the agency of repression. Instead, the protagonists behind repression are the ego-drives, guided by beliefs of frustration and gratification and preventing id-drives from forms of expression. Should the social context change (and with it the conditions of moral reproach), then the inclusion within ego and id would also be subject to change (cf. Maze, 1983 ).

EGO, IDENTIFICATION, AND IDENTITY

Given that the ego is not an indissoluble entity but instead a collection of dominating drives, some account is required for explaining how a sense of identity forms normatively to form a singular sense of “self.” Gardner (1993) , in fact, objects to the possibility of multiple knowers given that phenomenologically we only have a single subjective frame of reference and can only ever experience ourselves as a single person (p. 83). While this is disputable (e.g., there are a variety of dissociative phenomena that suggest otherwise – see Kluft, 2000 ), the “single frame of reference” criticism instead provides the answer to why we do not recognize multiplicity. Given that the drives are brain structures (connected nevertheless intimately with various physiological organs, perceptual systems, etc.), there is ordinarily no possibility of direct awareness of the drives themselves. However, the expressions of the drives are knowable, and such expressions are realized through the body and its various activities (including cognition). As Freud (1923b) notes, the known ego “is first and foremost a body-ego” (p. 27) and “the ego is ultimately derived from bodily sensations” (p. 26 n ). Here the distinction between the ego-drives and the “known ego” or ego-self is important. Solms and Panksepp (2012) contribute here the important point that awareness of the body is the same as awareness of objects in the world generally. The body in this sense is something known (including fantasized about), and so a sense of unity rather than division is what is apparent. Freud (1910) additionally notes that both the ego-drives and sexual drives have an anaclitic relationship: “The sexual and ego-instincts alike have in general the same organs and systems of organs at their disposal” ( Freud, 1910 , pp. 215–216; cf. Freud, 1912 , pp. 180–181). Accordingly, what the drives know in relation to themselves is the “person’s” desires, beliefs, and actions (a shared pool of beliefs): The apparent unity of the ego follows from a drive neither knowing itself directly (nor the other drives) and instead only knowing the organism generally and its activities via a singular perceptual apparatus of which each drive partakes in. As I elsewhere note ( Boag, 2005 ), “[t]he resulting belief of a unified self is as prima facie plausible as the belief that the sun revolves around the earth” (p. 753). Our social interactions further reinforce developing a coherent sense of self since we appear as a single organism to others and are treated as such accordingly.

However, one’s sense of self of course is not simply restricted to the actual organism and can extend further than the body. Here the role of identification in the formation of the ego-self is paramount. On the account of ego-drives here, it is the drives themselves that are the subjects identifying with different states of affairs. While the drives typically identify with the body and psychic apparatus, such identification can conceivably extend to family and possessions and beyond. James (1890/1950) was one of the first to recognize this in modern psychology where, in his discussion of the “self”, he writes:

In its widest possible sense …. a man’s Self is the sum total of all that he CAN call his , not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes, and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank-account. All these things give him the same emotions. If they wax and prosper, he feels triumphant; if they dwindle and die away, he feels cast down… (p. 291, italics/capitals in original). “Personal identity,” then, can be seen as a collective viewpoint whereby a subset of the drives identifies with (most commonly but not necessarily) the body and its parts, other people to various degrees, values, society, culture, etc. Nevertheless, the known ego-self is essentially a fantasy – a false belief – based on appearances (cf. Grossman, 1982 ; Solms and Panksepp, 2012 ). This ego-self, while appearing as an agent, is simply a puppet driven by the ego-drives.

THE SUPEREGO AND THE POSSIBILITY OF MULTIPLE EGOS

Given that the ego is conceptualized above in terms of the drives and their identifications the question arises then concerning the nature of the superego and other possible dynamic structures. On Maze’s (1983 , 1987 , 1993 ) view the superego is not a dynamic structure (or agent, or independent set of drives) and instead conceptualized in terms of the moral beliefs guiding the ego in terms of possible sources or gratification and punishment (see also Boag, 2006 , 2012 ), a position reflecting Brenner’s (1994 ) insistence that there is no special agency of the superego. On this view, the superego is not a motivated, cognising agency but simply internalized obstructions in the form of beliefs, even if represented by personal forms based on identification with actual people.

However, one limitation of the “superego as beliefs” account here is that the theory does not appear to account for the observed clinical phenomena. More specifically, treating the superego merely as a set of moral beliefs contradicts Freud’s own descriptions (and others after him) whereby the superego itself appears to be both motivated and active:

In the course of an individual’s development a portion of the inhibiting forces in the external world are internalized and an agency is constructed in the ego which confronts the rest of the ego in an observing, criticizing and prohibiting sense. We call this new agency the super-ego . Thenceforward the ego, before putting to work the instinctual satisfaction demanded by the id, has to take into account not merely the dangers of the external world but also the objections of the super-ego, and it will have all the more grounds for abstaining from satisfying the instinct.

Freud, 1939 , pp. 116–117, his italics; cf. Freud, 1914 , p. 95; 1916–1917, pp. 428–429; Freud, 1933 , p. 60

If Freud’s account of the superego as a dynamic structure is to be taken as an accurate reflection of the psychic situation, then some dynamic account of the superego’s motivational sources is required. Rather, then, than treating the superego simply in terms of beliefs (or even phantasy), the account to be developed here proposes that the superego is dynamic (motivated) and is based on a differentiation of the drives organized around (i.e., identified with) a parental imago.

A drive position can be reconciled with Freud’s position on the superego above through proposing that the superego entails a subset of the ego-drives reflecting intra-ego conflict. Although this is not Maze’s position, if the ego is a sub-set of the drives as Maze proposes, then there is no logical objection to there being further divisions. Proposed here, then, is that a subset of the ego-drives, the superego-drives , identifies with the external inhibiting sources based on a self-preservative motive and becomes (in certain situations) turned against the remainder of the ego-drives (and the id). Accordingly, the superego is a motivated organization, in the same way as the ego, and the moral character of the superego follows from the characteristic finding that this superego subset of the drives identifies with the moral authority of the caregivers ( Freud, 1923b , p. 36; see also Pulcu, 2014 , for a recent discussion of superego formation within an evolutionary context).

If this account of superego-drives is granted, then by logical implication other personality divisions are possible. That is, if various drives can join forces but can also be in conflict, then there is the possibility of divisions and further sub-divisions of dynamic structures based on various identifications giving rise to a multiplicity of “personalities.” Freud (1923b) , in fact, directly addresses this when discussing the superego and the formation of the ego’s object-identifications. There Freud observes that the ego’s multiple object-identifications may become “too numerous, unduly powerful and incompatible with one another” and that “perhaps the secret of the cases of what is described as “multiple personality” is that the different identifications seize hold of consciousness in turn,” a position he describes as not necessarily pathological (pp. 30–31) 1 . Indeed, although the id, ego, and superego are commonly observed personality structures, Freud proposes that variations may nevertheless be found:

In thinking of this division of the personality into an ego, super-ego and an id, you will not, of course, have pictured sharp frontiers like the artificial ones drawn in political geography… After making the separation we must allow what we have separated to merge together once more… It is highly probable that the development of these divisions is subject to great variations in different individuals …

Freud, 1933 , p. 79, emphasis added

Accordingly, the triadic structural theory is simply typical rather than inevitable: various other personality divisions might arise in the same manner as the account of id, ego and superego here. Consequently, given that the superego can represent a sub-set of the ego-drives which act as an apparent agent, there is no logical problem with the conclusion then that multiple “egos” could potentially form which, for all intents and purposes, reflect “multiple personalities” [a possibility also briefly touched upon by Freud (1914) in On narcissism ]. Here various sub-sets of drives could constitute various “egos,” each developing an independent and separate sense of identity or self-hood via various object-identifications.

What the present account contributes then is a dynamic framework for understanding a variety of normal and clinical psychological phenomena related to “multiple personalities” including Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). DID manifests as disruptions in identity characterized by two or more “distinct personality states” (possibly experienced as “possession”) and is associated with recurring gaps in remembering of events including trauma (APA, 2013, p. 292). While DID finds inclusion in the DSM-5 there is nevertheless persistent controversy as to whether DID is in fact an authentic disorder (see, for instance, Piper and Merskey, 2004a , b ; Boysen and VanBergen, 2013 , 2014 ; for recent examples of the controversy surrounding fantasy and trauma models, see Dalenberg et al., 2012 , 2014 ; Lynn et al., 2014 ). One major theoretical problem within this controversy concerns how best to conceptualize personality within DID, an issue that also impacts upon clinicians working with DID with respect to conceptualizing the personalities (“alters”) and then engaging with them in therapy: “Among the major issues that arise in the treatment of DID are the relationship of the alters to the personality that the therapist may experience as his or her patient, and the relationship of the therapist to the alters” ( Kluft, 2000 , p. 266). As a consequence of this uncertainty, Kluft writes that many psychoanalytic clinicians (even if accepting that some version of alters exist), “are reluctant to address them [the alters] directly or to request or facilitate their participation in the process” (p. 270). On the theoretical position developed above, there is theoretical justification for treating alters in the same manner as one would treat the “ego”: both the ego and alters can be thought of as drive-object-identifications and neither are indivisible nor fixed. Accordingly, and given the centrality of the therapeutic alliance ( Meissner, 2007 ), there is justification for Kluft’s (2000 ) proposal of forming therapeutic alliances with the alters (i.e., the clinician addresses the alters as one would the “ego” and engages them in the therapeutic process). Clinical issues aside, a further implication from the account proposed here is that (at least in principle) there may be further means of contributing to neuroscientific studies addressing the authenticity of DID (e.g., Reinders et al., 2012 ; Schlumpf et al., 2013 ). Given that drives essentially entail neural sources (see Bazan and Detandt, 2013 ) then their contribution to DID should be assessable, in the same manner as the motivational contributions to dreaming are presently being assessed (e.g., Colace, 2014 ; Colace and Boag, in press ).

EGO-DRIVES, OBJECT-RELATIONS, AND THE DYNAMICS OF INTERNAL OBJECTS

Placing primary emphasis upon the drives raises questions concerning how this account fits with an object-relations approach which views motivation primarily in terms of developing relationships with others (e.g., Fairbairn, 1952 ; Guntrip, 1968 ; Greenberg and Mitchell, 1983 ). Maze (1993) rightly argues that drive accounts and object-relations theory are not, as commonly supposed, antithetical since the drives can be seen as the subjects involved in the motivated, emotional relationships with objects. Furthermore, a drive account provides a biologically grounded explanatory framework for understanding why a person is motivated to relate to certain objects and not others, as well as helping understand the dynamics underlying frustration and gratification within object-relationships. In addition to this, Young-Bruehl and Bethelard (1999) have gone some way to applying an ego-drive account for understanding the relationship between the developing infant and actual caregivers, and thus demonstrating that an ego-drive account can accommodate an object relations perspective. What is less certain, however, is the relationship between drives, ego structures, and internal objects .

While object-relational approaches are diverse, one influential approach is that of Fairbairn (1952) which has been developed by Ogden (1993 , 2002 , 2010) and also discussed in contemporary philosophy of psychoanalysis (e.g., Pataki, 2014 ). As Ogden (1993) notes, while object-relations are commonly thought of in terms of interpersonal relations, it “is in fact fundamentally a theory of unconscious [intrapersonal] object relations in dynamic interplay with current interpersonal experience” (p. 131, my insertion; see Ogden, 1993 , p. 131 n ). These intrapersonal relationships result from a fragmenting of the ego leading to a multiplicity of ego-structures and their internal objects. For Fairbairn (1944/1952) an initial unitary Central ego becomes split into separate dynamic egos (Central ego, anti-libidinal (internal saboteur) and libidinal egos) each existing as dynamic (motivated) “endopsychic structures.” This differentiation of the ego is a consequence of frustration and repression, leading to split-off aspects of the Central ego attached to their frustrating internal objects (see also Ogden, 2010 ).

For Maze (1993) , however, internal objects are simply imagined entities that have no actual autonomy and exist simply as objects of a person’s desires and beliefs. He writes that despite views to the contrary “[i]nternal objects do not really initiate their own behavior” ( Maze, 1993 , p. 464), and while it may appear that internal objects act autonomously, this, according to Maze, is more apparent than real:

… while this way of describing them may convey the patient’s phenomenological experience very powerfully, it seems to me to obscure the fact that one is really dealing with the person’s thoughts, wishes and fears, or more precisely, with the beliefs, wishes and fears of various parts of the person’s mind

Maze, 1993 , p. 464

Nevertheless, the observation of apparent autonomous centers within the psyche is not uncommon and the notion of multiple autonomous inner personalities is found in a variety of theories. For instance, Symington (1993) writes that “[w]e are all made up of parts, each part capable of functioning as a separate little person” (p. 23), and, within the context of object-relations he writes: “when we talk about an internalized mother, father, brother, sister, or whatever, these are internalized objects, and these objects acts. They act within the personality. At certain points they may even take over the personality” (p. 20). The question then is how we can account for these apparent autonomous centers that addresses both the phenomenology and provides a satisfactory explanatory framework.

EGO-STRUCTURES AND INTERNAL OBJECTS

The relation between ego-structures and internal objects is not always clear in Fairbairn’s theory and while Fairbairn generally treats ego-structures as dynamic he does not consistently do so with internalized objects ( Maze, 1993 ; Ogden, 1993 ). Ogden (1993) writes that “Fairbairn only hesitatingly accepted the idea that internal objects are dynamic structures and was not able to delineate the relationship between the concept of internal objects and the concept of the ego” (p. 156). For example, whereas Freud treats the superego as a dynamic structure, Fairbairn in places explicitly does not [e.g., Fairbairn, 1944/1952 , pp. 131–132; see also Maze (1993 , p. 463)]. Nevertheless, Fairbairn can also be found to grant autonomy to both various ego structures and internal objects, which he sees as an extension of Freud’s position that the superego is an autonomous structure:

… the time is now ripe for us to replace the concept of “phantasy” by a concept of “inner reality” peopled by the ego and its internal objects. These internal objects should be regarded as having an organized structure, an identity of their own, an endopsychic existence and an activity [a capacity for thinking and feeling] as real within the inner world as those of any objects in the outer world. To attribute such features to internal objects may at first seem startling to some; but, after all, they are only features which Freud has already attributed to the superego… What has now emerged is simply that the superego is not the only internal object

Fairbairn, 1943, in Ogden, 2011 , p. 938, Ogden’s insertion

Ogden (2011) takes this to mean that internal objects are identical with ego-structures, writing that for Fairbairn, internal objects are not merely phantasy or simply ideational content: “Internal objects are not ideas – they are split-off parts of the ego with which the internal world is “peopled”” (p. 938). Furthermore, as dynamic agents internal objects are the subjects that do the phantasying: “ phantasying is the product of internal objects ( i.e., internal objects are the thinkers doing the unconscious thinking) ” ( Ogden, 2011 , p. 139, his italics). On the other hand, if, as Maze (1993) believes, internal objects are primarily beliefs, phantasies, and desires, then such internal objects cannot exists as autonomous structures simply because beliefs, phantasies, and desires are activities and so cannot be structures engaging in those same activities (see also Boag, 2005 ).

Ogden’s intention here is to clarify the relation between ego-structures and internal objects and address a short-coming in Fairbairn’s approach, viz. Fairbairn “did not explain how an internal object (presumably originally thought) achieves its dynamism” ( Ogden, 1993 , p. 148). Nevertheless, identifying ego-structures with the internal objects does not mean that ego-structures and internal objects cannot be differentiated, even if “[t]his identification with the object is so thorough that one’s original sense of self is almost entirely lost” ( Ogden, 1993 , p. 132). To clarify this, Pataki (2014) proposes that the ego-structures are “attached” to their respective objects, and that these internal objects are dynamic by virtue of their relation to these ego structures. Fairbairn (1951/1952) similarly writes:

Although I have spoken of internalized objects as structures, I have treated them simply as objects of dynamic ego-structures, and not as themselves dynamic. … In the interests of consistency, however, I must draw the logical conclusion of my theory and acknowledge that, since internal objects are endopsychic structures, they must be themselves in some measure dynamic; and it should be added that they must derive their dynamic quality from their cathexis by ego-structures

Fairbairn, 1951/1952 , p. 177; my emphasis

Thus, Fairbairn could be taken to be proposing an ego-structure/phantasy-object relationship whereby the internal object is itself phantasy but nevertheless dynamic insofar as the respective ego-structure identifies with the phantasy object (cf. Pataki, 2014 ). Pataki (2014) describes this identification between ego-structures with internalized figures as personation which I take to mean that the ego-structures take on (personate) actual or phantasized individuals.

Pataki (2014) observes that the possibility of multiple ego-structures/internal objects implicated in the account above raises complex questions with respect to understanding agency, personhood and identity. Furthermore, whether we should commit to a theory of multiple “persons” inhabiting the psyche requires careful scrutiny. After all, Maze (1993) proposes a simpler explanation whereby internal objects are nothing more than phantasy reflecting fears and desires, rather than constituting distinct centers of agency. Accordingly, if Fairbairn and Ogden are to be believed then a theoretical basis for postulating ego-structures and their internal objects as dynamic structures (capable of acting and knowing) is required. Here Ogden (1993) claims, though, that his account of internal objects “goes no further in the direction of demonology than did Freud in describing the formation of the superego” (p. 150). However, this is not necessarily a virtue. As noted earlier, Freud’s theory of the id, ego and superego has been heavily criticized for both reification and anthropomorphism (e.g., Grossman and Simon, 1969 ; Laplanche and Pontalis, 1973 ; Boesky, 1995 ; Talvitie, 2012 ). As with Freud, both Fairbairn and Ogden are open to the criticism that their account of the ego-structures simply multiplies instances of reification since both Fairbairn and Ogden tell us what the various ego-structures do but not what they actually are (and so leave the ego-structures uncharacterized).

The ego-drive account developed earlier provides a theoretical rationale for understanding ego-structures and their internal objects as dynamic organizations. The ego-structures are characterized in terms of subsets of the (biologically grounded) drives which, in turn, provides a basis for making sense of both personality differentiation and the motivational bases of ego-structures and their internal objects. As argued earlier, there is no logical difficulty in proposing various drive-combinations organized around various apparent centers of agency (ego-structures, etc.). Internal objects reflect combinations of drives forming dynamic structures identifying with an imago and acting as an apparent agent. This is “apparent” simply because while the drives constitute the knowing motivational systems, the drives underlying the various ego-structures mistakenly see themselves as “persons” acting as a singular agent. Consequently, given that Fairbairn does aim to provide an explanatory system for the dynamics of endopsychic structures (e.g., Fairbairn, 1944/1952 , pp. 128ff), Fairbairn’s account gains everything from admitting a drive basis to account for the motivation of ego-structures and loses nothing with respect to providing his distinctive object-relations approach.

DREAMS AND INTERNAL OBJECTS: EVIDENCE FROM CASE STUDIES

The dynamics of dream figures provides an indication of apparent structures or agents with their own dynamics, a finding which, prima facie , contradicts Maze’s (1993 ) proposal that internal objects are simply objects of imagination and not separate organizations. In discussing the dreams of a patient with a physical genital abnormality, Fairbairn (1931/1952) describes how two dream figures appeared to correspond to the id and superego (“the mischievous boy” and the “critic,” respectively – p. 217). These dream figures were also active, to the point where “invasion of waking life by [these] personifications did actually occur” (p. 219). For instance, at the onset of analysis “‘the mischievous boy’ took almost complete possession of her conscious life” (p. 219). Nevertheless, Fairbairn writes that “[i]t must be recorded, however, that the dream-figures so far mentioned by no means exhaust the personifications appearing in this patient’s life” (p. 217), and during analysis other figures (e.g., a “little girl” and “the martyr”) also emerged. Consequently, Fairbairn writes that the prevalence and multiplicity of such dream figures raises questions concerning whether Freud’s tripartite division has led us to consider the id, ego and superego “too much in the light of entities” (p. 218). This is an important observation because it indicates how personality structures are commonly treated as stable and fixed entities when, instead, the findings suggest that the psyche and its ego-structures and internal objects are fluid and maleable. What is required then is a theoretical approach that can account for the motivation of dynamic structures but is also flexible enough to accommodate both ongoing personality division and combination resulting in various organizations within the psyche. An ego-drive approach provides a basis for understanding both these splits within personality as well as how drive combinations could give rise to a variety of personifications. On the account developed here, neither the ego, id, and superego, nor ego-structures and internal objects are immutable. Instead, and following a line of Freud’s own thinking, “the ego can be split; it splits itself during a number of its functions – temporarily at least. Its parts can come together again afterward” ( Freud, 1933 , p. 58). The relative fluidity of drive-subsets organizing themselves around an imago (a fluidity which seems to be further facilitated in dreaming) is central here to understanding the complexity of situations faced by the clinician. Furthermore, viewing internal objects as based on drives indicates why the figures in dreams express their own frustration and gratification (cf. Maze, 1993 ) and how these structures, too, can be instigators of repression in a psyche where the various ego-structures facilitate or attempt to cancel one another out. Consistent with Fairbairn’s theory (e.g., Fairbairn, 1943/1952 , 1944/1952 ) repression involves the ego rejecting aspects of itself and provides the grounds for splitting the personality into various dynamic structures within the psyche (cf. Ogden, 1993 , 2010 ).

This paper contributes to a metapsychological understanding of the id, ego, and superego through developing Maze’s ego-drive account based on Freud’s (1910 ) ego-instincts. On this view the ego emerges as a sub-set of drives which have achieved control over another sub-set of drives that form the (repressed) id. The drives that constitute the ego develop a sense of identity (self-hood) whereby the ego-drives identify with various states of affairs in unison, which for the most part includes a view of a singular organism (“person”). A theoretical innovation here is that there is no logical objection to there being multiple egos within any individual as found in Fairbairn’s object-relations account. Furthermore, extending this ego-drive account to object relations theory provides both a synthesis of otherwise distinct positions and an explanatory basis for ego-differentiation and the dynamics of ego-structures and internal objects. While the fore-going discussion is primarily theoretical, both conceptual and theoretical research is essential for developing psychoanalysis generally, and particularly with respect to clarifying and refining our understanding of psychoanalytic theory and systems (see also Dreher, 2005 ; Leuzinger-Bohleber and Fischmann, 2006 ). This ego-drive account goes some way to providing a theoretical framework that bridges the “wide gulf between the actual theories that clinicians apply in their work and the psychoanalysis that is learned in universities” ( Symington, 1993 , p. 4) through providing an account of persons, internal or otherwise, that is consistent with a coherent theory of motivation as embodied in Freud’s (1915a ) metapsychology of the instinctual drives.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Tamas Pataki for his critical feedback.

1 I would like to thank a Reviewer for drawing my attention to this reference.

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• DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-375000-6.00199-3
• Corpus ID: 141091480

Id, Ego, and Superego

• D. Lapsley , P. Stey
• Published 2012

53 Citations

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The id is the oldest and most primitive psychic agency according to Sigmund Freud, representing basic instinctual drives and seeking pleasure.

The id is the oldest and most primitive psychic agency in Freud's theory, representing basic instinctual drives and seeking pleasure.

The id is considered to be the primitive part of personality because it represents the biological foundations of personality and contains basic instinctual drives.

Sigmund Freud’s The Ego and the Id

Freud died 80 years ago this week. In this “Virtual Roundtable,” three scholars debate the legacy of his 1923 text.

Sigmund Freud died 80 years ago this week, and his 1923 study, The Ego and the Id , which introduced many of the foundational concepts of psychoanalysis, entered the public domain earlier this year. Freud’s ideas have long been absorbed by popular culture, but what role do they continue to play in the academy, in the clinical profession, and in everyday life? To answer those questions, this roundtable discussion—curated by Public Books and JSTOR Daily —asks scholars about the legacy of The Ego and the Id in the 21st century.

• Elizabeth Lunbeck: Pity the Poor Ego! • Amber Jamilla Musser: The Sunken Place: Race, Racism, and Freud • Todd McGowan: The Superego or the Id

Pity the Poor Ego!

Elizabeth Lunbeck

It would be hard to overestimate the significance of Freud’s The Ego and the Id for psychoanalytic theory and practice. This landmark essay has also enjoyed a robust extra-analytic life, giving the rest of us both a useful terminology and a readily apprehended model of the mind’s workings. The ego, id, and superego (the last two terms made their debut in The Ego and the Id ) are now inescapably part of popular culture and learned discourse, political commentary and everyday talk.

Type “id ego superego” into a Google search box and you’re likely to be directed to sites offering to explain the terms “for dummies”—a measure of the terms’ ubiquity if not intelligibility. You might also come upon images of The Simpsons: Homer representing the id (motivated by pleasure, characterized by unbridled desire), Marge the ego (controlled, beholden to reality), and Lisa the superego (the family’s dour conscience), all of which need little explanation, so intuitively on target do they seem.

If you add “politics” to the search string, you’ll find sites advancing the argument that Donald Trump’s success is premised on his speaking to our collective id, our desires to be free of the punishing strictures of law and morality and to grab whatever we please—“a flailing tantrum of fleshly energy.” Barack Obama in this scheme occupies the position of benign superego: incorruptible, cautious, and given to moralizing, the embodiment of our highest ideas and values but, in the end, not much fun. You’ll also glean from Google that Trump’s ego is fragile and needy but also immense and raging, its state—small or large?—a dire threat to the nation’s stability and security.

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In these examples, the ego is used in two distinct, though not wholly contradictory, ways. With The Simpsons , the ego appears as an agency that strives to mediate between the id and superego. When we speak of Trump’s fragile ego, the term is being used somewhat differently, to refer to the entirety of the self, or the whole person. When we say of someone that their ego is too big, we are criticizing their being and self-presentation, not their (presumably) weak superego.

The idea of the ego as agency is routinely considered more analytically rigorous and thus more “Freudian” than the ego-as-self, yet both interpretations of the ego are found not only in popular culture, but also—perhaps surprisingly—in Freud. Further, I would argue that the second of these Freudian conceptualizations, premised on feelings, is more consonant with a distinctively American construal of the self than are the abstractions of ego psychology. Understanding why this is so necessitates a look at the post-Freud history of the ego in America—in particular at the attempts of some psychoanalysts to clear up ambiguities in Freud’s texts, attempts that luckily for us met with only mixed success.

As Freud proposed in The Ego and the Id , three agencies of the mind jostle for supremacy: the ego strives for mastery over both id and superego, an ongoing and often fruitless task in the face of the id’s wild passions and demands for satisfaction, on the one hand, and the superego’s crushing, even authoritarian, demands for submission to its dictates, on the other. The work of psychoanalysis was “to strengthen the ego”; as Freud famously put it 10 years later, “where id was, there ego shall be.”

The Freudian ego sought to harmonize relations among the mind’s agencies. It had “important functions,” but when it came to their exercise it was weak, its position, in Freud’s words, “like that of a constitutional monarch, without whose sanction no law can be passed but who hesitates long before imposing his veto on any measure put forward by Parliament.” Elsewhere in the essay, the ego vis-à-vis the id was no monarch but a commoner, “a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse … obliged to guide it where it wants to go.” Submitting to the id, the ego-as-rider could at least retain the illusion of sovereignty. The superego would brook no similar fantasy in the erstwhile royal, instead establishing “an agency within him” to monitor his desires for aggression, “like a garrison in a conquered city.” Pity the poor ego!

It could be argued that the Viennese émigré psychoanalysts who took over the American analytic establishment in the postwar years did precisely that. They amplified this Freudian ego’s powers of mastery while downplaying its conflicts with the id and superego. They formulated a distinctively optimistic and melioristic school of analytic thought, “ego psychology,” in which the ego was ideally mature and autonomous, a smoothly operating agency of mind oriented toward adaptation with the external environment. More than a few commentators have argued that ego psychology’s celebration of compliance and de-emphasis of conflict fit perfectly with the demands of the postwar corporate state as well as with the prevailing stress on conformity and fitting in. Think here of William H. Whyte’s The Organization Man , published in 1956, or of David Riesman’s The Lonely Crowd , from 1950, best sellers that were read as laments for a lost golden age of individualism and autonomy.

Among the professed achievements of the mid-century ego psychologists was clearing up Freud’s productive ambiguity around the term’s meanings; ego would henceforth refer to the agency’s regulatory and adaptive functions, not to the person or the self. Consider that the doyen of ego psychology, Heinz Hartmann, gently chided Freud for sometimes using “the term ego in more than one sense, and not always in the sense in which it was best defined.”

Ego psychologists’ American hegemony was premised on their claim to being Freud’s most loyal heirs; The Ego and the Id ranked high among their school’s foundational texts. Freud’s text, however, supports a conceptualization of the ego not only as an agency of mind (their reading) but also as an experienced sense of self. In it, Freud had intriguingly referred to the ego as “first and foremost a body-ego,” explaining that it “is ultimately derived from bodily sensations.”

Ignored by the ego psychologists, Freud’s statement was taken up in the 1920s and 1930s by, among others, the Viennese analyst Paul Federn, who coined the term “ego feeling” to capture his contention that the ego was best construed as referring to our subjective experience of ourselves, our sense of existing as a person or self. He argued that the ego should be conceived of in terms of experience, not conceptualized as a mental abstraction. Ego feeling, he explained in 1928, was “the sensation, constantly present, of one’s own person—the ego’s perception of itself.” Federn was a phenomenologist, implicitly critiquing Freud and his heirs for favoring systematizing over felt experience while at the same time fashioning himself a follower, not an independent thinker. Marginalization has been the price of his fealty, as he and his insights have been largely overlooked in the analytic canon.

When we talk of the American ego, we are more likely than not speaking Federn-ese. Federn appreciated the evanescence of moods and the complexity of our self-experiences. Talk of our “inner resources” and equanimity, of the necessity of egoism and its compatibility with altruism, of commonplace fantasies of “love, greatness, and ambition” runs through his writings. Even the analytic session is likely focused more manifestly on the “goals of self-preservation, of enrichment, of self-assertion, of social achievements for others, of gaining friends and adherents, up to the phantasy of leadership and discipleship” than on ensuring the ego’s supremacy over the id and superego.

The Ego and the Id supports such a reading of the ego as experiencing self, the individual possessed of knowledge of her bodily and mental “selfsameness and continuity in time.” Federn’s “ego feeling” is also compatible with 1950s vernacular invocations of the “real self” as well as with the sense of identity that Erik Erikson defined in terms of the feelings individuals have of themselves as living, experiencing persons, the authentic self that would become the holy grail for so many Americans in the 1960s and beyond. Erikson, also an ego psychologist but banished from the mainstream of analysis for his focus on the experiential dimension of the self, would capture this same sensibility under the rubric of identity. His delineation of the term identity to refer to a subjective sense of self, taken up overnight within and beyond psychoanalysis, arguably did more to ensure the survival of the discipline in the United States than did the all the labors of Freud’s most dutiful followers.

Thus, while Google may give us images (including cartoons) of a precisely divvied-up Freudian mind, it is the holistic ego-as-self that is as much the subject of most of our everyday therapeutic, analytically inflected talk. This ego-as-self is less readily represented pictorially than its integrated counterpart but nonetheless central to our ways of conveying our experience of ourselves and of others. It is as authentically psychoanalytic as its linguistic double, neither a corruption of Freud’s intentions nor an import from the gauzy reaches of humanistic psychology. When we invoke Trump’s outsized and easily bruised ego, for example, we are calling on this dimension of the term, referring to his sense of self—at once inflated and fragile. Federn has been forgotten, but his feelings-centered analytic sensibility lives on. It may be all the more relevant today, when, as many have observed, our feelings are no longer sequestered from reason and objectivity but, instead, instrumentally mobilized as the coin of the populist realm.

Jump to: Elizabeth Lunbeck , Amber Jamilla Musser , Todd McGowan

The Sunken Place: Race, Racism, and Freud

Amber Jamilla Musser

In a tense scene from the 2017 film Get Out , Missy (Catherine Keener) finds her daughter’s boyfriend, Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), sneaking a cigarette outside and invites him into the sitting room, which also functions as a home office for her therapy clients. Chris, a black photographer, has just met his white girlfriend, Rose’s, liberal family, including her mother, Missy, for the first time. As the two sit across from one another, Missy asks Chris about his childhood, her spoon repeatedly striking the inside of a teacup, and Chris, eyes watering uncontrollably, begins to sink deep into the “sunken place.” As his present surroundings shift out of view, he flails and falls through a large black void, before eventually waking in his own bed, uncertain as to what’s taken place. The therapy office setting is worth noting, for while what follows this early hypnosis scene is a horror-comedy about racism, psychoanalytic ideas of the unconscious help illuminate race relations in the film and beyond.

In the film, the “sunken place” refers to a fugue state that subdues the black characters so that (spoiler alert) the brains of the highest white bidder can be transplanted into their bodies. While this large black void is the product of director Jordan Peele’s imagination, the “sunken place” has culturally come to signify a pernicious aspect of racialization; namely, the nonwhite overidentification with whiteness. Recent memes make this connection clear. In one, Kanye West, who not too long ago argued that President Trump was on “a hero’s journey,” appears in the armchair from Get Outwearing a “Make America Great Again” hat, tears streaming down his face. In another, the actress Stacey Dash, who ran for Congress as a Republican from California, stares blankly out of a window.

Freud’s The Ego and the Id , however, gives us another way to understand the “sunken place.” Writing in 1923,Freud presents a comprehensive map of the psyche as a space where the ego, superego, and id form a dynamic structure that reacts to and is formed by multiple varieties of the unconscious. The superego, Freud argues, acts as a sort of “normative” check on behavior, while the id is libidinal energy and purely hedonistic. The ego, what is consciously enacted, balances these two different modes of the unconscious in order to function.

The Freudian model helps us to understand how racialization, the process of understanding oneself through the prism of racial categories, occurs at the level of the unconscious. When viewed in the context of psychoanalysis, the “sunken place” is what happens when the superego’s attachment to whiteness runs amok; when Chris’s eyes tear up and he involuntarily scratches the armchair, he is enacting bodily resistance that is connected to the id. What’s more, Freud’s structure also allows us to extend this understanding of race beyond the individual, toward thinking about why the “sunken place” can be seen as a metonym for race relations in the United States writ large.

Race itself was largely underdiscussed in Freud’s works. In one of his most explicit engagements with racial difference, 1930’s Civilization and its Discontents , he mostlyconfined his theorizations of racial difference to thinking about the atavistic and primitive. Following Freud, other analysts in the early 20th century tended to ignore underlying racial dynamics at work in their theories. For example, if patients discussed the ethnicity or race of a caretaker or other recurring figure in their lives, analysts tended not to explore these topics further. As a rich body of contemporary critical work on psychoanalysis has explored, this inattention to race created an assumption of universal normativity that was, in fact, attached to whiteness.

While psychoanalysis has historically ignored or mishandled discussions of race, Freud’s The Ego and the Id introduces concepts that are useful in thinking through race relations on both an individual and a national level. His tripartite division of the psyche can help show us how race itself functions as a “metalanguage,” to use Evelyn Higginbotham’s phrase , one that structures the unconscious and the possibilities for the emergence of the ego. In Get Out , “the sunken place” is the stage for a battle between a white-identified superego, which is induced through brain transplantation or hypnosis, and a black-identified id. Outside of the parameters of science fiction, however, this racialized inner struggle offers insight into theorizations of assimilation and racialization more broadly.

Sociologist Jeffrey Alexander describes assimilation, a process of adapting to a form of (implicitly white) normativity, as an attempt to incorporate difference through erasure even while insisting on some inassimilable (racialized) residue. Alexander writes , “Assimilation is possible to the degree that socialization channels exist that can provide ‘civilizing’ or ‘purifying’ processes—through interaction, education, or mass mediated representation—that allow persons to be separated from their primordial qualities. It is not the qualities themselves that are purified or accepted but the persons who formerly, and often still privately, bear them. ” The tensions between these performances of white normativity—“civilization”—and the particular “qualities” that comprise the minority subject that Alexander names are akin to the perpetual struggle Freud describes between the superego, id, and ego.

Drawing on psychoanalysis, recent theorists such as David Eng and Anne Anlin Cheng have emphasized the melancholia that accompanies assimilation—Chris’s involuntary tears in the “sunken place” and the instances of staring out the window, going on evening runs, and the flash-induced screams of the other black characters who have received white-brain implants perhaps being among the most extreme forms. Cheng argues that having to assimilate to a white culture produces melancholy at both the unattainability of whiteness for black and brown subjects and at the repression of racial otherness necessary to sustain white dominance. Cheng’s description of the “inarticulable loss that comes to inform the individual’s sense of his or her own subjectivity” helps explain why the conditions of white normativity can be particularly psychologically harmful for nonwhite subjects.

While Freud’s concepts are useful for understanding the psychological burden of racialization for nonwhite subjects under conditions of white normativity, scholars have also explored how Freud’s concepts of the ego, id, and superego can be used to theorize what it means to frame whiteness as a form of national consciousness. Describing the sadistic impulses of Jim Crow, theorist and psychiatrist Frantz Fanon argued that the ego of the United States is masochistic. In imagining the psychic structure of the country as a whole, he saw a clash between the nation’s aggressive id—which was attempting to dominate black people—and its superego—which felt guilt at the overt racism of a supposedly “democratic” country.

Fanon argued that the United States’ desires to punish black people (manifesting in virulent antiblack violence) were swiftly “followed by a guilt complex because of the sanction against such behavior by the democratic culture of the country in question.” Fanon exposed the hypocrisy inherent in holding anti-racist ideals while allowing racist violence to flourish. The country’s national masochism, he argued, meant that the United States could not recognize its own forms of white aggression; instead, the country embraced a stance of passivity and victimization in relation to nonwhites disavowing their own overt violence. Or, in Freud’s language, the country submerged the id in favor of an idealization of the superego.

We see this dynamic, too, in Get Out , where the white characters fetishize black physicality and talent as somehow inherent to their race, while strenuously denying any charges of racism. In the film, the white characters who wish to inhabit black bodies understand themselves primarily as victims of aging and other processes of debilitation, a logic that allows them to use their alleged affection for blackness to cloak their aggressive, dominative tendencies. Before Chris and Rose meet her parents, Rose tells him that they would have voted for Obama for a third term, a statement repeated in a later scene, by her father (Bradley Whitford), when he notices Chris watching the black domestic workers on the property: “By the way, I would have voted for Obama for a third term if I could. Best president in my lifetime. Hands down.” In such a statement, we can see ways that the masochistic white ego Fanon spoke about remains an accurate reflection of national debates about political correctness, what counts as racism, and the question of reparations.

As Get Out helps dramatize, we can use the legacy of Freud’s parsing of the unconscious to identify the tensions at work within individuals struggling to assimilate to a perceived idea of white normativity. But we can also use psychoanalytic concepts to understand how certain ideas of race have created a white national consciousness, which, in the United States and elsewhere, is in crisis. At this broader scale, we can begin to see how the national superego has sutured normativity to a pernicious idea of whiteness, one that manifests psychological, but also physical, aggression against nonwhite subjects.

For, while the presumption that whiteness is the “normal” and dominant culture situates it in the position of the superego for individuals who are attempting to assimilate, this assumption of superiority is actually an anxious position, haunted by racial others and constantly threatened by the possibility of destabilization. For many, this has led to difficulty reckoning with white culture’s violent tendencies, and to an insistence on its innocence. Working more with these Freudian dynamics might help us think more carefully about both strategies of resistance and survival for nonwhite subjects and what fuller contours of white accountability could look like.

The Superego or the Id

Todd McGowan

To properly understand The Ego and the Id ,we should mentally retitle it The Superego . The two terms most frequently invoked from Freud’s 1923 text are, perhaps unsurprisingly, the ego and the id . We have easily integrated them into our thinking and use them freely in everyday speech. The third term of the structural model—the superego —receives far less attention. This is evident, for instance, in the pop psychoanalysis surrounding Donald Trump. Some diagnose him as a narcissist, someone in love with his own ego. Others say that he represents the American id, because he lacks the self-control that inhibits most people. According to these views, he has either too much ego or too much id. Never one to be self-critical, Trump’s problem doesn’t appear to be an excess of superego. If the superego comes into play at all in diagnosing him, one would say that the problem is his lack of a proper superego.

In the popular reception of Freud’s thought, the discovery of the id typically represents his most significant contribution to an understanding of how we act. The id marks the point at which individuals lack control over what they do. The impulses of the id drive us to act in ways that are unacceptable to the rest of society. And yet, the concept of the id nonetheless serves a comforting function, in that it enables us to associate our most disturbing actions with biological impulses for which we have no responsibility. For this reason, we have to look beyond the id if we want to see how Freud most unsettles our self-understanding.

Freud’s introduction of the superego, in contrast, represents the most radical moment of The Ego and the Id , because it challenges all traditional conceptions of morality. Typically, our sense of the collective good restrains the amorality of our individual desires: we might want to crash our car into the driver who has just cut us off, but our conscience prevents us from disrupting our collective ability to coexist as drivers on the road. Historically, the reception of Freud’s work has considered the superego as this voice of moral conscience, but Freud theorizes that there are amoral roots to this moral voice. According to Freud, the superego does not represent the collective good, but manifests the individual desires of the id, which run counter to the collective good.

With the discovery of the concept of the superego, Freud reshapes how we think of ourselves as moral actors. If Freud is right that the superego “reaches deep down into the id,” then all our purportedly moral impulses have their roots in libidinal enjoyment. When we upbraid ourselves for a wayward desire for a married coworker, this moral reproof doesn’t dissipate the enjoyment of this desire but multiplies it. The more that we experience a desire as transgressive, the more ardently we feel it. In this way, the superego enables us to enjoy our desire while consciously believing that we are restraining it.

The concept of the superego reveals that the traditional picture of morality hides a fundamental amorality, which is why the response to The Ego and the Id has scrupulously avoided it. When we translate radical ideas like the superego into our common understanding, we reveal our assumed beliefs and values. In such a translation, the more distortion a concept suffers, the more it must represent a challenge to our ordinary way of thinking. This is the case with the popular emphasis on the ego and the id relative to the superego. What has been lost is the most radical discovery within this text.

Our failure to recognize how Freud theorizes the superego leaves us unable to contend with the moral crises that confront us today. We can see the catastrophic consequences in our contemporary relationship to the environment, for example. As our guilt about plastic in the oceans, carbon emissions, and other horrors increases, it augments our enjoyment of plastic and carbon rather than detracting from it. Using plastic ceases to be just a convenience and becomes a transgression, which gives us something to enjoy where otherwise we would just have something to use.

Enjoyment always involves a relationship to a limit. But in these cases, enjoyment derives from transgression, the sense of going beyond a limit. Our conscious feeling of guilt about transgression corresponds to an unconscious enjoyment that the superego augments. The more that environmental warnings take the form of directions from the superego, the more they create guilt without changing the basic situation. Far from limiting the enjoyment of our destructive desires, morality becomes, in Freud’s way of thinking, a privileged ground for expressing it, albeit in a disguised form. It turns out that what we think of as morality has nothing at all to do with morality.

The superego produces a sense of transgression and thereby supercharges our desire, turning morality into a way of enjoying ourselves. Picking up Freud’s discovery 50 years later, Jacques Lacan announces, “Nothing forces anyone to enjoy ( jouir ) except the superego. The superego is the imperative of jouissance—Enjoy!” All of our seemingly moral impulses and the pangs of conscience that follow are modes of obeying this imperative.

In this light, we might reevaluate the diagnosis of Donald Trump. If he seems unable to restrain himself and appears constantly preoccupied with finding enjoyment, this suggests that the problem is neither too much ego nor too much id. We should instead hazard the “wild psychoanalytic” interpretation that Trump suffers from too much superego. His preoccupation with enjoying himself—and never enjoying himself enough to find satisfaction—reflects the predominance of the superego in his psyche, making clear that the superego has nothing to do with actual morality, and everything with wanton immorality.

When we understand morality as a disguised form of enjoyment, this does not free us from morality. Instead, the discovery of the superego and its imperative to enjoy demands a new way of conceiving morality. Rather than being the vehicle of morality, the superego is a great threat to any moral action, because it allows us to believe that we are acting morally while we are actually finding a circuitous path to our own enjoyment. Contrary to the popular reading of the superego, authentic moral action requires a rejection of the superego’s imperatives, not obedience to them.

Morality freed from the superego would no longer involve guilt. It would focus on redefining our relationship to law. Rather than seeing law as an external constraint imposed on us by society, we would see it as the form that our own self-limitation takes. This would entail a change in how we relate to the law. If the law is our self-limitation rather than an external limit, we lose the possibility of enjoyment associated with transgression. One can transgress a law but not one’s own self-limitation.

In terms of the contemporary environmental crisis, we would conceive of a constraint on the use of plastic as the only way to enjoy using plastic, not as a restriction on this enjoyment. The limit on use would become our own form of enjoyment because the limit would be our own, not something imposed on us. The superego enjoins us to reject any limit by always pushing our enjoyment further. Identifying the law as our self-limitation provides a way of breaking with the logic of the superego and its fundamentally immoral form of morality.

Given what he chose as the title for the book— The Ego and the Id —it is clear that even Freud himself did not properly identify what was most radical in his discovery. He omitted the superego from the title at the expense of the ego and the id, even though his recognition of the superego and its role in the psyche represents the key insight from the book. In this sense, Freud paved the way for the popular misapprehension that followed.

What is missed or ignored by society often reveals what most unsettles it. Our commonly held beliefs and values might try to mute the disturbance caused by radical ideas like the superego, but they don’t eliminate their influence completely. By focusing on what Freud himself omits, we can uncover the insight in his work most able to help us think beyond the confines of traditional morality. The path of a genuine morality must travel beyond the superego.

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Relation of ego to id, superego, and reality

• Published: September 1977
• Volume 37 , pages 229–234, ( 1977 )

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Rapaport, D. Some metapsychological considerations concerning activity and passivity. In The Collected Papers of David Rapaport (Gill, M., ed.) New York: Basic Books, 1967, (1953), pp. 530–568.

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Freud’s Theory of Personality: Id, Ego, and Superego

Saul McLeod, PhD

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BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

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Perhaps Freud’s single most enduring and important idea was the human psyche ( personality ).

Freud’s personality theory (1923) saw the psyche structured into three parts (i.e., tripartite), the id, ego, and superego, all developing at different stages in our lives.

These are systems, not parts of the brain, or in any way physical, but rather hypothetical conceptualizations of important mental functions.

According to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory , the id is the primitive and instinctual part of the mind that contains sexual and aggressive drives and hidden memories, the super-ego operates as a moral conscience, and the ego is the realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego.

Although each part of the personality comprises unique features, they interact to form a whole, and each part makes a relative contribution to an individual’s behavior.

What is the Id?

The id is the primitive and instinctive component of personality.

The id is a part of the unconscious that contains all the urges and impulses, including what is called the libido, a kind of generalized sexual energy that is used for everything from survival instincts to appreciation of art.

The id is the impulsive (and unconscious ) part of our psyche that responds directly and immediately to basic urges, needs, and desires. The personality of the newborn child is all id, and only later does it develop an ego and super-ego.

The id engages in primary process thinking, which is primitive, illogical, irrational, and fantasy-oriented. This form of process thinking has no comprehension of objective reality, and is selfish and wishful in nature.

The id operates on the pleasure principle (Freud, 1920), that every unconscious wishful impulse should be satisfied immediately, regardless of the consequences.

When the id achieves its demands, we experience pleasure, and when it is denied, we experience ‘unpleasure’ or tension.

The id comprises two kinds of biological instincts (or drives), including the sex (life) instinct called Eros (which contains the libido) and the aggressive (death) instinct called Thanatos.

Eros, or life instinct, helps the individual to survive; it directs life-sustaining activities such as respiration, eating, and sex (Freud, 1925). The energy created by the life instinct is known as libido.

In contrast, Thanatos, or death instinct, is viewed as a set of destructive forces in all human beings (Freud, 1920).

When this energy is directed outward onto others, it is expressed as aggression and violence. Freud believed that Eros was stronger than Thanatos, thus enabling people to survive rather than self-destruct.

The id remains infantile in its function throughout a person’s life and does not change with time or experience, as it is not in touch with the external world.

The id is not affected by reality, logic, or the everyday world, as it operates within the unconscious part of the mind.

What is the Ego?

Freud’s ego is the rational part of the psyche that mediates between the instinctual desires of the id and the moral constraints of the superego, operating primarily at the conscious level.

The ego is “that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world.” (Freud, 1923, p. 25)

The ego is the only part of the conscious personality. It’s what the person is aware of when they think about themselves and what they usually try to project toward others.

The ego develops to mediate between the unrealistic id and the real external world. It is the decision-making component of personality. Ideally, the ego works by reason, whereas the id is chaotic and unreasonable.

The ego develops from the id during infancy. The ego’s goal is to satisfy the id’s demands in a safe and socially acceptable way. In contrast to the id, the ego follows the reality principle as it operates in both the conscious and unconscious mind.

The ego operates according to the reality principle, working out realistic ways of satisfying the id’s demands, often compromising or postponing satisfaction to avoid negative consequences of society.

The ego considers social realities and norms, etiquette, and rules in deciding how to behave.

Like the id, the ego seeks pleasure (i.e., tension reduction) and avoids pain, but unlike the id, the ego is concerned with devising a realistic strategy to obtain pleasure.

The ego has no concept of right or wrong; something is good simply if it achieves its end of satisfying without causing harm to itself or the id.

Often the ego is weak relative to the headstrong id, and the best the ego can do is stay on, pointing the id in the right direction and claiming some credit at the end as if the action were its own.

Freud made the analogy of the id being a horse while the ego is the rider. The ego is “like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superiour strength of the horse.” (Freud, 1923, p. 15)

If the ego fails to use the reality principle and anxiety is experienced, unconscious defense mechanisms are employed to help ward off unpleasant feelings (i.e., anxiety) or make good things feel better for the individual.

The ego engages in secondary process thinking, which is rational, realistic, and orientated toward problem-solving. If a plan of action does not work, then it is thought through again until a solution is found.

This is known as reality testing and enables the person to control their impulses and demonstrate self-control, via mastery of the ego.

An important feature of clinical and social work is to enhance ego functioning and help the client test reality through assisting the client to think through their options.

According to Freudians, some abnormal upbringing (particularly if there is a cold, rejecting ‘schizogenic’ mother) can result in a weak and fragile ego, whose ability to contain the id’s desires is limited.

This can lead to the ego being ‘broken apart’ by its attempt to contain the id, leaving the id in overall control of the psyche.

What is the Superego?

Freud’s superego is the moral component of the psyche, representing internalized societal values and standards. It contrasts with the id’s desires, guiding behavior towards moral righteousness and inducing guilt when standards aren’t met.

The superego incorporates the values and morals of society, which are learned from one’s parents and others. It develops around 3 – 5 years during the phallic stage of psychosexual development .

The superego develops during early childhood (when the child identifies with the same-sex parent) and is responsible for ensuring moral standards are followed.

The superego operates on the morality principle and motivates us to behave in a socially responsible and acceptable manner.

The superego is seen as the purveyor of rewards (feelings of pride and satisfaction) and punishments (feelings of shame and guilt), depending on which part (the ego-deal or conscious) is activated.

The superego is a part of the unconscious that is the voice of conscience (doing what is right) and the source of self-criticism.

It reflects society’s moral values to some degree, and a person is sometimes aware of their own morality and ethics, but the superego contains many codes, or prohibitions, that are issued mostly unconsciously in the form of commands or “don’t” statements.

The superego’s function is to control the id’s impulses, especially those which society forbids, such as sex and aggression.

It also persuades the ego to turn to moralistic goals rather than simply realistic ones and strive for perfection.

The superego consists of two systems: The conscience and the ideal self.

• The conscience is our “inner voice” that tells us when we have done something wrong.

The conscience can punish the ego by causing feelings of guilt. For example, if the ego gives in to the id’s demands, the superego may make the person feel bad through guilt.

The superego is also somewhat tricky, in that it will try to portray what it wants the person to do in grandiose, glowing terms, what Freud called the ego-ideal, which arises out of the person’s first great love attachment (usually a parent).

• The ideal self (or ego-ideal) is an imaginary picture of how you ought to be, and represents career aspirations, how to treat other people, and how to behave as a member of society.

The assumption is that children raised by parents experience love conditionally (when they do something right), and the child internalizes these experiences as a series of real or imagined judgmental statements.

Behavior which falls short of the ideal self may be punished by the superego through guilt. The super-ego can also reward us through the ideal self when we behave ‘properly’ by making us feel proud.

Guilt is a common problem because of all the urges and drives from the id and all the prohibitions and codes in the superego. There are various ways an individual handles guilt, which are called defense mechanisms .

If a person’s ideal self is too high a standard, then whatever the person does will represent failure. The ideal self and conscience are largely determined in childhood by parental values and how you were brought up.

Examples of the Id, Ego, and Superego

Skipping a workout:

• The id : I want to skip my workout because I feel lazy and just want to relax.
• The superego : I shouldn’t skip the workout because it’s essential for my health and discipline.
• The ego : I can do a shorter workout today and make up for it with a longer session tomorrow.

Buying an expensive item:

• The id : I want this luxury bag now because it’s stylish and will make me feel good.
• The superego : I shouldn’t spend so much on a bag when I could save or use that money for more essential things.
• The ego : I’ll save a portion of my salary for a few months, and if I still want it, I’ll buy the bag as a reward.

Reacting to criticism:

• The id : I’m upset and want to snap back immediately because they hurt my feelings.
• The superego : I should remain calm and composed, taking criticism professionally and not personally.
• The ego : I’ll consider the feedback, see if there’s any truth to it, and respond diplomatically, asking for clarification if needed.

Therapeutic Implications

Freud believed that mental illness is caused by conflicts in the unconscious between the id, ego, and superego.

Neuroses, according to Freud, are caused by an overdominant superego, the resultant defense mechanisms implemented by the ego in an attempt to regain control.

Because the defense mechanisms are being over-used, too much psychic energy is used and allows the maladaptive behavior to emerge. Psychoses, in contrast, are caused by an overdominant id.

According to the psychodynamic approach , the therapist would resolve the problem by assisting the client in delving back into their childhood and identifying when the problem arose.

Identifying the problem can bring this into the conscious, where the imbalance can be resolved, returning equanimity between the id, ego, and superego.

Consequently, the defense mechanisms will only operate at the maintenance level, and the mental illness will be cured.

However, psychoanalysis , the method used to produce this new balance, is time-consuming and costly. Furthermore, no objective measurement can be taken to demonstrate that a cure has been effected; it is reliant on the client’s subjective report of their improvement.

There is concern that clients may claim they are better, not because they are, but because of the time and expense involved. 

Freud, S. (1920). Beyond the pleasure principle . SE, 18: 1-64.

Freud, S. (1923). The ego and the id . SE, 19: 1-66.

What is the difference between the ego and the id?

The id is the primitive, impulsive part of our psyche driven by instincts and desires, while the ego is the rational, conscious part that mediates between the id’s demands and the realities of the external world.

The ego balances the id’s desires with the superego’s moral guidance, striving to maintain harmony within the human psyche.

What is an example of the id ego superego?

An example of the id, ego, and superego interaction can be illustrated through a person on a strict diet who is tempted by a box of delicious donuts at work. The id impulsively desires immediate gratification by indulging in the donuts.

At the same time, the superego reminds the person of their commitment to a healthy lifestyle and instills feelings of guilt for considering breaking the diet.

The ego mediates between the id’s cravings and the superego’s moral standards, potentially allowing the person to eat just one donut as a compromise, demonstrating its role in maintaining psychological balance amidst conflicting desires.

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Id, Ego, and Superego: Freud's Elements of Personality

How do the three work together to form personality?

The Interaction of the Id, Ego, and Superego

What happens if there is an imbalance.

According to  Sigmund Freud , human personality is complex and has more than a single component. In his famous psychoanalytic theory, Freud states that personality is composed of three elements known as the id, the ego, and the superego. These elements work together to create complex human behaviors.

"The id is considered the basis of sexual and aggressive energy and is largely held in the unconscious, emerging as illogical or wishful thinking," explains Shannon Sauer-Zavala, PhD , associate professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky. "The superego is one’s conscience and is established via identification with parental figures or social groups at large. The ego is tasked with balancing reality with the demands of desire (id) and morality (superego)." 

Each component adds its own unique contribution to personality, and the three interact in ways that have a powerful influence on an individual. Each element of personality emerges at different points in life.

According to Freud's theory, certain aspects of your personality are more primal and might pressure you to act upon your most basic urges. Other parts of your personality work to counteract these urges and strive to make you conform to the demands of reality. 

Here's a closer look at each of these key parts of the personality, how they work individually, and how they interact.

• According to Freud, the id is the source of all psychic energy, making it the primary component of personality.
• The id is the only component of personality that is present from birth.
• This aspect of personality is entirely unconscious and includes instinctive and primitive behaviors.

The id is driven by the  pleasure principle , which strives for immediate gratification of all desires, wants, and needs. If these needs are not satisfied immediately, the result is a state of anxiety or tension. For example, an increase in hunger or thirst should produce an immediate attempt to eat or drink.

The id is very important early in life because it ensures that an infant's needs are met. If the infant is hungry or uncomfortable, they will cry until the demands of the id are satisfied. Young infants are ruled entirely by the id; there is no reasoning with them when these needs demand satisfaction.

Examples of the Id

Imagine trying to convince a baby to wait until lunchtime to eat their meal. The id requires immediate satisfaction, and because the other components of personality are not yet present, the infant will cry until these needs are fulfilled.

However, immediately fulfilling these needs is not always realistic or even possible. If we were ruled entirely by the pleasure principle, we might find ourselves grabbing the things that we want out of other people's hands to satisfy our cravings.

This behavior would be both disruptive and socially unacceptable. According to Freud, the id tries to resolve the tension created by the pleasure principle through the use of  primary process thinking , which involves forming a mental image of the desired object to satisfy the need.

Although people eventually learn to control the id, this part of personality remains the same infantile, primal force throughout life. It is the development of the ego and the superego that allows people to control the id's basic instincts and act in ways that are both realistic and socially acceptable.

• According to Freud, the ego develops from the id and ensures that the impulses of the id can be expressed in a manner acceptable in the real world.
• The ego functions in the  conscious , preconscious, and  unconscious  mind.
• The ego is the personality component responsible for dealing with reality.

Everyone has an ego. The term ego is sometimes used to describe your cohesive awareness of your personality, but personality and ego are not the same. The ego represents just one component of your full personality.

The ego operates based on the  reality principle , which strives to satisfy the id's desires in realistic and socially appropriate ways. The reality principle weighs the costs and benefits of an action before deciding to act upon or abandon impulses.

In many cases, the id's impulses can be satisfied through a process of  delayed gratification —the ego will eventually allow the behavior, but only in the appropriate time and place.

The term ego is often used informally to suggest that someone has an inflated sense of self. However, the ego in personality has a positive effect. It is the part of your personality that keeps you grounded in reality and prevents the id and superego from pulling you too far toward your most basic urges or moralistic virtues. Having a strong ego means having a strong sense of self-awareness.

Freud compared the id to a horse and the ego to the horse's rider. The horse provides power and motion, while the rider provides direction and guidance. Without its rider, the horse would wander wherever it wished and do whatever it pleased. The rider gives the horse directions and commands to get it where it wants it to go.

The ego also discharges tension created by unmet impulses through secondary process thinking, in which the ego tries to find an object in the real world that matches the mental image created by the id's primary process.

Examples of the Ego

Imagine that you are stuck in a long meeting at work. You find yourself growing increasingly hungry as the meeting drags on. While the id might compel you to jump up from your seat and rush to the break room for a snack, the ego guides you to sit quietly and wait for the meeting to end.

Instead of acting upon the primal urges of the id, you spend the rest of the meeting imagining yourself eating a cheeseburger. Once the meeting is finally over, you can seek out the object you were imagining and satisfy the demands of the id realistically and appropriately.

The Superego

The last component of personality to develop is the superego .

• According to Freud, the superego begins to emerge at around age 5.
• The superego holds the internalized moral standards and ideals that we acquire from our parents and society (our sense of right and wrong).
• The superego provides guidelines for making judgments.

The superego has two parts:

• The conscience  includes information about things that are viewed as bad by parents and society. These behaviors are often forbidden and lead to bad consequences, punishments, or feelings of guilt and remorse.
• The ego ideal  includes the rules and standards for behaviors that the ego aspires to.

The superego tries to perfect and civilize our behavior. It suppresses all the id's unacceptable urges and struggles to make the ego act upon idealistic standards rather than on realistic principles. The superego is present in the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious.

Examples of the Superego

For example, if you give in to the urges of the id, the superego is what will cause you to feel a sense of guilt or even shame about your actions. The superego may help you feel good about your behavior when you suppress your most primal urges.

Other examples of the superego include:

• A woman feels an urge to steal office supplies from work. However, her superego counteracts this urge by focusing on the fact that such behaviors are wrong. 
• A man realizes that the cashier at the store forgot to charge him for one of the items he had in his cart. He returns to the store to pay for the item because his internalized sense of right and wrong urges him to do so.
• A student forgets to study for a history test and feels an urge to cheat off of a student sitting nearby. Even though he feels like his chances of getting caught are low, he knows that cheating is wrong, so he suppresses the urge.

When talking about the id, the ego, and the superego, it is important to remember that these are not three separate entities with clearly defined boundaries. These aspects are dynamic and always interacting to influence an individual's overall personality and behavior.

With many competing forces, it is easy to see how conflict might arise between the id, ego, and superego. "A central theme of Freud’s work is that id, ego, and superego are always in conflict and the specific nature of these discrepancies determines one’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (or personality)," says Sauer-Zavala.

Freud further assumed that it takes a lot of mental energy to keep the id’s desires in the unconscious; however, unconscious thoughts must go somewhere and are likely to be expressed in another form that may not be under one’s control (e.g., as symptom, dream, joke, slip of the tongue, or behavior).

Freud used the term  ego strength  to refer to the ego's ability to function despite these dueling forces. A person who has good ego strength can effectively manage these pressures, while a person with too much or too little ego strength can be unyielding or disruptive.

According to Freud, the key to a healthy personality is a balance between the id, the ego, and the superego. If the ego is able to adequately moderate between the demands of reality, the id, and the superego, a healthy and well-adjusted personality emerges. Freud believed that an imbalance between these elements would lead to a maladaptive personality.

"Freud believed that mental health difficulties (anxiety, depression) arise when 'the ego has lost the capacity to allocate the [id] in some way' (Freud, 1920), adds Sauer-Zavala. "Freud noted that, in many cases, the symptoms experienced are as bad or worse than the conflict they were designed to replace. Though the symptom is a substitute for the instinctual impulse, it has been so reduced, displaced, and distorted that it looks more like a compulsion or even an illness than a gratification of the id’s desire."

For example, an individual with an overly dominant id might become impulsive, uncontrollable, or even criminal. Such an individual acts upon their most basic urges with no concern for whether their behavior is appropriate, acceptable, or legal.

On the other hand, an overly dominant superego might lead to a personality that is extremely moralistic and judgmental. A person ruled by the superego might not be able to accept anything or anyone that they perceive to be "bad" or "immoral."

Final Thoughts

Freud's theory provides one conceptualization of how personality is structured and how the elements of personality function. In Freud's view, a balance in the dynamic interaction of the id, ego, and superego is necessary for a healthy personality.

"Freud’s accounts of the nature of one’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors have largely fallen out of favor," admits Sauer-Zavala. "People began to question whether differences in people’s personalities could accurately be reduced to sexual and aggressive impulses. In fact, there is limited research support for Freud’s theories."

While the ego has a tough job to do, it does not have to act alone. Anxiety also plays a role in helping the ego mediate between the demands of the basic urges, moral values, and the real world. When you experience different types of anxiety , defense mechanisms may kick in to help defend the ego and reduce the anxiety you are feeling.

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Pulcu E. An evolutionary perspective on gradual formation of superego in the primal horde. Front Psychol. 2014;5:8. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00008

Bargh JA, Morsella E. The Unconscious Mind. Perspect Psychol Sci. 2008;3(1):73-9. doi:10.1111/j.1745-6916.2008.00064.x

Carhart-harris RL, Friston KJ. The default-mode, ego-functions and free-energy: a neurobiological account of Freudian ideas. Brain . 2010;133(Pt 4):1265-83. doi:10.1093/brain/awq010

Schalkwijk F. A New Conceptualization of the Conscience. Front Psychol. 2018;9:1863. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01863

Kovačić petrović Z, Peraica T, Kozarić-kovačić D. Comparison of ego strength between aggressive and non-aggressive alcoholics: a cross-sectional study. Croat Med J . 2018;59(4):156-164. doi:10.3325/cmj.2018.59.156

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• Engler, B. Personality theories . Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing; 2009.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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Ego/Id/Super Ego, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1932)

This page includes preparatory drawings for the final, published version of the topographic model that would be included in The New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis . The diagrams demonstrate Freud’s work process as he experiments with how to hierarchize the functional divisions of the psyche. Freud here uses a brain-like template to map a series of relations between the three main agencies of mind that are today recognizably “Freudian”: the Ego, the Id, and the Super-Ego. In these Lectures , Freud describes the “poor Ego” as “hemmed in on all sides,” serving three “tyrannical masters” leveling incompatible demands: the external world, the exacting Super-Ego and the pleasure-loving Id. Beginning with the lower left template and moving clockwise, Freud slowly shifts the relative ratio of the Super-Ego, the plane of repression, the relation between the pre-conscious and the Ego, as well as the portion given to the Ego and the Id. These drawings mark the pinnacle of Freud’s capacity for abstraction in their display of data alluding to anatomy, while at the same time avoiding any reference to specific spatial or functional localization within the brain.

Click here to see full-size image.

HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article

Ego, drives, and the dynamics of internal objects.

• Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia

This paper addresses the relationship between the ego, id, and internal objects. While ego psychology views the ego as autonomous of the drives, a less well-known alternative position views the ego as constituted by the drives. Based on Freud’s ego-instinct account, this position has developed into a school of thought which postulates that the drives act as knowers. Given that there are multiple drives, this position proposes that personality is constituted by multiple knowers. Following on from Freud, the ego is viewed as a composite sub-set of the instinctual drives (ego-drives), whereas those drives cut off from expression form the id. The nature of the “self” is developed in terms of identification and the possibility of multiple personalities is also established. This account is then extended to object-relations and the explanatory value of the ego-drive account is discussed in terms of the addressing the nature of ego-structures and the dynamic nature of internal objects. Finally, the impact of psychological conflict and the significance of repression for understanding the nature of splits within the psyche are also discussed.

The precise relationship between the id, ego, and instinctual drives remains an issue of dispute. The most prominent post-Freudian position proposes that the ego is independent of the instinctual drives (e.g., Hartmann, 1950 , 1958 ). However, an alternative, albeit less-recognized, school of thought proposes instead that it is the instinctual drives as knowers that constitute the ego. The first attempt to clearly articulate this position originates in the writings of Maze (1983 , 1987 , 1993) although antecedents can be seen in the writings of earlier authors (e.g., Passmore, 1935 , p. 282). Following clues from Freud’s writings concerning the “ego-instincts” (e.g., Freud, 1910 ), Maze’s position postulates that the knowing subjects within the individual are the instinctual drives. Furthermore, given that there are multiple instinctual drives, each person then consists of a multiplicity of knowers. Consequently, this position has radical implications for conceptualizing the id, ego, and superego, and personality structures in general.

However, assessing any theory about the ego, id and superego is not straight-forward. While Freud’s position is based upon empirical observation, empirical evaluation of any theory also requires prior theoretical clarification. Accordingly, refining our understanding of psychoanalytic theory and concepts is essential for progress in psychoanalysis. An added obstacle here, though, is that psychoanalytic schools of thought are diverse ( Wallerstein, 2005a , b ), contributing to what is described as “theoretical chaos” ( Green, 2005 , p. 629). One possible common ground, however, is to return to Freud’s theory since a “very minimal version of Freudian theory is accepted by almost all who accept any version of psychoanalytic theory” ( Erwin, 1988 , p. 243). However, as is well-recognized, evaluating the complexity of Freudian theory is itself difficult, partly due to “unresolved contradictions in Freud’s writings” ( Shill, 2004 , p. 125). In fact, anyone systematically reading Freud will likely agree with Madison’s (1956 ) observation that Freud’s writings:

… represent an historical account of an adventurous explorer developing a system of concepts that changed and grew continuously and unevenly over a half-century of creative effort … [subsequently he] left behind a trail of complex ideas unevenly developed and never integrated into a logical, systematic whole (p. 75).

Despite this, the importance of theoretical clarification cannot be over-stated since theory provides the major explanatory foundation for understanding clinical findings and therapeutic success in psychoanalysis. For this reason, both conceptual and theoretical research is an indispensable tool for assessing psychoanalytic claims, both with respect to theoretical clarification and generating theoretical implications for empirical assessment (see Dreher, 2005 ; Leuzinger-Bohleber and Fischmann, 2006 ; Brakel, 2009 , 2013 ; Boag, 2012 ).

Using theoretical and conceptual analysis, the broad aims of this paper are to contribute theoretical clarification and extension to the accounts of the id, ego, and superego and to then provide a synthesis of this account with object relations accounts that postulate multiple ego-structures and dynamic internal objects. More specifically, the paper aims to: (a) develop novel theoretical insights by assessing the logical implications of an ego-drive account, and; (b) synthesize these theoretical findings with object-relation approaches to address the dynamics of internal objects. To achieve this, this paper first discusses the “ego” concept in psychoanalytic thinking and its relationship to the id. After discussing problems with the view that the ego is autonomous of the id, a theory of ego-drive theory is then advanced. On this viewpoint, a sub-set of the instinctual drives directly compose the ego and this sub-set can be further divided to account for the superego (intra-ego conflict). This position is then applied to a general theory of ego-differentiation and ego-structures, as well as justifying the dynamics of internal objects in object-relations approaches.

The Ego and the Id in Freudian Thinking

The ego ( Ich ) and id ( Es ) first formally appear in 1923 although antecedents are found in both Freud’s Project ( Freud, 1895 ) and his earlier topographic theory (e.g., Freud, 1900 ). It was short-comings of the latter which prompted Freud to revise the conscious-unconscious relationship and postulate a revised model of personality that has come to be known as the “structural” theory. These structures consist of the ego, id and superego and according to Freud the id and ego can be understood in terms of how they differ from one another. For instance, consciousness is attached to the ego whereas the id is unconscious; the ego is that which knows and that which can be known (even if some aspects of ego functioning such as defences are unconscious – Freud, 1923b , pp. 17–18), while the id consists of “the dark, inaccessible part of our personality” ( Freud, 1933 , p. 73). Furthermore, the ego is structured, organized, and possesses a synthetic character which is uncharacteristic of the id: “what distinguishes the ego from the id quite especially is a tendency to synthesis in its contents, to a combination and unification in its mental processes which are totally lacking in the id” ( Freud, 1933 , p. 76). The ego is also an agency that controls and initiates action whereas the id can only act through influencing the ego:

… in each individual there is a coherent organization of mental processes; and we call this his ego . It is to this ego that consciousness is attached; the ego controls the approaches to motility… it is the mental agency which supervises all its own constituent processes….

Freud, 1923b , p. 17, his italics

However, the id is further conceptualized in two (not mutually exclusive) ways: one as the biological unconscious instinctual drives; the other as that which is repressed. With the former, the id is “a cauldron full of seething excitations. We picture it as being open at its end to somatic influences, and as there taking up into itself instinctual needs which find their psychical expression in it” ( Freud, 1933 , p. 73). This id is primarily concerned with gratification, without regard to external constraints or possible consequences and, unlike the ego, is only sensitive to internal stimulation and “has no direct communication with the external world” ( Freud, 1940 , p. 197). The other component of the id is that of the repressed. Freud (1923b) writes that “the repressed merges into the id as well, and is merely a part of it” (p. 24; cf. Freud, 1933 , p. 77). As the repressed, the id consists of all those impulses subjected to repression, which remain unaffected by time and which partake in the particular processes of the biological id ( Freud, 1933 , p. 74).

The processes that the id and ego differ on reflect Freud’s primary Ucs . processes and Cs ./ Pcs. secondary processes distinction, and Gill (1963) writes that “the criteria of Ucs . and Pcs . are the same as those of id and ego” (p. 53; cf. Compton, 1972 , 1981 ; Wiedeman, 1972 ; Wollheim, 1991 ; Brenner, 1994 ; Boesky, 1995 ; Petocz, 1999 ). The id here is described as operating via the primary process pleasure principle whereas the ego is motivated by the reality principle: “Just as the id is directed exclusively to obtaining pleasure, so the ego is governed by considerations of safety. The ego has set itself the task of self-preservation, which the id appears to neglect” ( Freud, 1940 , p. 199; cf. Freud, 1923b , p. 56).

Due to the id’s lack of concern for external reality and safety, the ego assumes the role of an executive agent , attempting to satisfy the id through activity in the world: “As a frontier-creature, the ego tries to mediate between the world and the id, to make the id pliable to the world and, by means of its muscular activity, to make the world fall in with the wishes of the id” ( Freud, 1923b , p. 56; cf. Freud, 1924 , p. 167, Freud, 1933 , p. 75). Accordingly, the ego is viewed as a regulating agent in charge of balancing the demands of the “irrational” id, super-ego, and constraints of the external world ( Freud, 1923b , p. 55; Freud, 1940 , p. 199). The ego functions here via cognitive activity and perception, anticipating danger, and both preparing responses and inhibiting action ( Freud, 1940 , p. 199).

Problems With the Ego And the Id

Freud’s account generally spells out the id and ego in terms of their functions (i.e., what they are said to do). A problem with such functional definitions is that it is not entirely clear what it is that is said to be performing these functions and such definitions lend themselves to reification and circular explanation whereby a set of processes is treated as an entity performing those same processes (and then used to explain those same processes with respect to the concocted entity – see Boag, 2011 ). In this respect the structural theory has been criticized for reifying various activities into entities performing those same activities ( Boesky, 1995 ) along with the further associated problem of describing the id, ego, and superego in anthropomorphic terms. Laplanche and Pontalis (1973) , for instance, note that “[the structural theory] is shot through with anthropomorphism” (p. 452), which entails populating the mind with little people and then explaining the person with reference to persons – a tactic that simply multiplies the number of entities and explanations that need to be accounted for ( Grossman and Simon, 1969 ; Wiedeman, 1972 ; Talvitie, 2012 ).

Furthermore, there are various problems with Freud’s aforementioned lines of demarcation between ego and id which extend the problems with the demarcations within his earlier topographic theory, viz . the supposed peculiar processes can be found across all of the systems (see Petocz, 1999 ). For instance, Brenner (1994) notes that “the ego is by no means as consistent, as integrated, as mature, and as immune from primary process functioning as the ego is supposed to be” (p. 477). On the other hand, the id cannot be ignorant of the external world since any id-impulse or urge can only be conceptualized as an impulse or urge to do, say, X or Y (where X and Y will be some real or imagined state of affairs; i.e., a content-less “urge” or “impulse” is incoherent). Moreover, any such urge or impulse is a propositional attitude ( S desires that X ) and so cannot be less organized or structured compared to any other mental act. In fact, Freud’s distinction between the ego and the id also generates problems for understanding the nature of the repressed since, as Beres (1962) notes, an “organized repressed content” must somehow then belong to the ego rather than the id:

If we assume that the fantasy which is unconscious retains its organization, to whatever degree, we must grant the continued activity of ego functions. “The ego is an organization,” Freud has said, “and the id is not.” An “id fantasy,” then, is by definition a contradiction in terms, and to speak of a fantasy being “repressed into the id” is, in my opinion, a complex of logical fallacies.

Beres, 1962 , p. 324; cf. Slap and Saykin, 1984 , p. 110

Furthermore, the id is clearly an agent like the ego (i.e., can initiate muscular activity) since id-impulses find their way into behavior as parapraxes and other compromise formations (e.g., Freud, 1935 ). The further supposed distinction contrasting the pleasure-seeking id with the self-preservative ego simply ignores the well-recognized fact that self-preservation and reality-orientation (which is only ever more or less) is itself a means of gratification and frustration avoidance (see Maze, 1983 ; Maze and Henry, 1996 ; Petocz, 1999 ; Newbery, 2011 ; Boag, 2012 ). As Maze and Henry (1996) note, the pleasure principle is the regulating guide or underlying motivational law of the mental apparatus for both the ego and the id. For that matter, the “reality principle,” too, is but a modified version of the pleasure principle since, as Freud notes, the ego “is able only to modify the pleasure principle but not to nullify it” ( Freud, 1940 , p. 198; cf. Freud, 1911b , 1925a ). Accordingly, the reality principle is simply an elaboration of the pleasure principle and all mental activity is concerned with obtaining some sort of self-gratification even if appearing selfless or self-defeating.

While the problems of demarcation above have led some authors to reject the structural theory altogether (e.g., Brenner, 1994 ), none of this is to say that the ego and id cannot be differentiated by other means. Here at least one line of demarcation between ego and (repressed) id emerges in relation to the social context which is hostile toward certain means of gratification. Socially proscribed impulses become repressed and the resulting ego assumes a dominating position within the personality ( Freud, 1900 , pp. 594–595; Freud, 1905a , p. 85; Freud, 1907 , p. 58). Nonetheless, given the problems of demarcation outlined above, the relationship between the ego and id requires clarification. Furthermore, the relationship between the ego and instinctual drives also requires further consideration.

The Ego and the Drives

The distinction between the ego and the id above led Freud to contrast the ego and the id in terms of motivational sources. More specifically, the id is motivated by the drives whereas the ego manages them: “For the ego, perception plays the part which in the id falls to instinct. The ego represents what may be called reason and common senses, in contrast to the id, which contains the passions” ( Freud, 1923b , p. 25; cf. Freud, 1933 , p. 76). Similarly, Freud (1923b) also writes that “[t]he ego develops from perceiving instincts to controlling them, obeying instincts to inhibiting them” (pp. 55–56). This disconnect between the ego and the drives leads to the distinction of the “irrational” id with the rational executive ego, analogous to a horse and rider:

The ego’s relation to the id might be compared with that of a rider to his horse. The horse supplies the locomotive energy, while the rider has the privilege of deciding on the goal and of guiding the powerful animal’s movements.

Freud, 1933 , p. 77; cf. Freud, 1923b , p. 25

Maze (1987) notes that this distinction paved the way for the development of ego psychology whereby the ego is autonomous from the drives and consists of a set of functions including controlling motility, perceptual processes, synthetic functions, and an inhibitory capacity ( Hartmann, 1950 , 1958 ; Rapaport, 1951 ). While Hartmann (1950) initially believed that the “id and ego are originally one” developing “out of the matrix of animal instinct” (p. 79; cf. Freud, 1968 , p. 59), he nevertheless conceptualized the developed ego as functionally distinct from the id. Later Hartmann (1958) discusses “inborn ego apparatuses” (p. 103) as well as “functions of the ego which cannot be derived from the instinctual drives” (p. 101), leading to the view of strict ego autonomy. The ego’s autonomy from the drives has subsequently become orthodox ego psychology [for a discussion of the history of ego psychology see Marcus (1999) ]. Recently Lettieri (2005) , for instance, refers to the “ego’s fundamentally autonomous, self-generating nature” (p. 377) and Gillett (1997) even distinguishes two autonomous egos: the “conscious ego” “similar to that of a central executive” and an “unconscious ego,” “also a central executive with functions limited to those required for the regulation of defense” (p. 482).

A general problem, however, with postulating an “irrational” id and “rational” ego is that this essentially paves the way for reinstating the Cartesian “rational faculty.” Here humans are divorced from the rest of the animal kingdom by virtue of “ego functions” which aim to manage, yet are independent of, the instinctual drives. Beres (1962) , for instance, claims that “[h]uman psychic activity differs from that of animals, including, so far as we know, even the higher primates, by the mediation of ego functions between the instinctual drive stimulus, the need, and its gratification or inhibition” (p. 317). More recently Tauber (2010) has developed this implication to claim that the Freudian ego has free will and thus attributing to Freud a position he would find as antithetical to his favored deterministic position.

The more specific problem here with dissociating the ego from the drives is accounting for the ego’s motivation ( Maze, 1983 , 1987 , 1993 ). Since the ego is said to arbitrate between different desires and demands (e.g., between the id, super-ego and external world – Freud, 1923b , p. 56), then some account of the ego’s motivational policy must be provided (why, for instance, does the ego choose to do X rather than Y ?). Hartmann’s (1958 ) attempt to explain the ego’s motivation in terms of adaptation falls prey to an implicit moralism because adaptation is relative to different subjects’ points of view (see Maze, 1987 ). A similar criticism can be extended to Lettieri’s (2005) treatment of the ego as a “self-organizing adaptive process” (p. 376). Additionally, the ego becomes a truly free and autonomous agent, as reflected in the reference above to the “ego’s fundamentally autonomous, self-generating nature” ( Lettieri, 2005 , p. 377). Accordingly, and as Freud recognized, to avoid a disembodied rational agency, a motivational account ultimately based on some biological deterministic mechanism is required to explain both the direction and activity of any behavior.

The Ego As a Portion of the Id

While one line of Freud’s thinking paves the way to positing a drive-autonomous ego, Freud nevertheless provides a motivational basis for the ego when he writes that “[t]he ego is not sharply separated from the id; its lower portion merges into it” (1923b, p. 24; cf. 1933, p. 75). Similarly:

… this ego developed out of the id, it forms with it a single biological unit, it is only a specially modified peripheral portion of it, and it is subject to the influences and obeys the suggestions that arise from the id. For any vital purpose, a separation of the ego from the id would be a hopeless undertaking.

Freud, 1925a , p. 133

Freud’s reference here to a “single biological unit” is important here since it accounts for the ego’s motivation in terms of instinctual drives, in the same manner as the id and thus provides a possible explanatory motivational basis ( Maze, 1983 , 1987 , 1993 ).

This position extends one line of thought in Freud’s thinking where he directly links the ego with the instinctual drives when he proposes the existence of “ego-instincts.” This position appears initially in one of Freud’s lesser known works ( The psycho-analytic view of the psychogenic disturbance of vision – Freud, 1910 ) and appears to have enjoyed currency in Freud’s thinking for a relatively short period of time (1910–1915; Laplanche and Pontalis, 1973 ). The ego-instincts were broadly described as the “self-preservative” instincts (“hunger”) which could be contrasted with the libidinal instincts (“love”) and the account of ego instincts formalized this repressing source as a set of instincts responsible for conflict and subsequent repressions. Freud (1910) writes, for instance, that “instincts are not always compatible with one another; their interests often come into conflict. Opposition between ideas is only an expression of struggles between the various instincts” (pp. 213–214; cf. Freud, 1933 , p. 57). Laplanche and Pontalis (1973) nevertheless note that although Freud had always postulated that it was the ego that initiated repression, until the formulation of the ego-instincts “the ego had until now been assigned no specific instinctual support” (p. 146). Freud’s account of the ego-instincts is thus theoretically welcome since it provides a biological foundation for the motivational systems involve in conflict (cf. Maze, 1983 , 1987 , 1993 ).

Laplanche and Pontalis (1973) note, however, an apparent inconsistency in Freud’s account of the ego-instincts. Freud (1910) describes the ego as a set of “ideas.” For instance, in describing the conflict between the repressed and the ego-instincts he writes that we “must assume that these ideas have come into opposition to other, more powerful ones, for which we use the collective concept of the ‘ego”’ (p. 213). This line of thinking, comparing the ego to a “dominant mass of ideas,” can be traced to Freud’s earliest psychodynamic writings (e.g., in the Studies , Freud refers to “the dominant mass of ideas constituting the ego” – Freud in Breuer and Freud, 1895 , p. 116). Strictly speaking, however, ideas are policy-neutral and do not in themselves provide a basis for conflict. Laplanche and Pontalis further note here that treating the ego-instincts as a “group of ideas” is ambiguous in terms of whether the “ego” is either the subject or object of activity and cognition (i.e., the knower or something known). Laplanche and Pontalis question then whether the ego-instincts as “ideas” can serve as either the subject engaging in cognition or as motivational sources (“tendencies emanating from the organism” in their terms – p. 147, their italics), since, as “ideas”, the “ego” then is something known (the ego-instincts are “attached to the ego as if to their object ”; Laplanche and Pontalis – p. 147, their italics). Laplanche and Pontalis believe that this apparent ambiguity was resolved with the introduction of the theory of narcissism. Insofar as the ego could be both subject and object, “[t]he ego-instincts emanate from the ego and relate to independent objects (such as food); yet the ego may become the object of the sexual instinct (ego-libido)” (p. 148; see also Freud, 1933 , p. 58).

However, Freud’s position can be refined further. It is telling that Freud (1910) first mentions the ego in scare quotes (i.e., “ego”) in the context of a “collective concept” and a “compound” (p. 213. cf. p. 215). This is indicative of an attempt on Freud’s part not to reify the “ego” as a substantive agency or entity. After all, it is multiple instincts contributing to the collective, and it is this notion of multiplicity that helps conceptualize both splits and merging within the ego. Freud (1933) , for instance, in discussing the ego as both subject and object writes that “the ego can be split; it splits itself during a number of its functions – temporarily at least. Its parts can come together again afterward” (p. 58). Freud (1910) further refers to “the collective concept of the “ego” – a compound which is made up variously at different times” (p. 213). That is, the ego is not an irreducible entity but rather composed of a dominating set of instinctual drives of which membership is fluid. For Freud (1910) , what distinguishes the repressed instinctual drives from the instinctual drives composing the ego is that they remain isolated and incapable of synthesis into the collective forming the ego.

Freud’s ego-instincts account has, however, received little attention in psychoanalytic thinking and of those authors who do refer to ego-instincts, the tendency is to treat them, following following Hartmann (1958 , p. 107), simply as synonymous with ego functions (e.g., Khantzian and Mack, 1983 ). One exception is Young-Bruehl and Bethelard (1999) who discuss both the history of the ego-instinct concept in Freud’s thinking and apply the concept to explaining object choice. Nonetheless, what is generally missing here is any substantive discussion of “instincts” generally to provide a foundation for understanding the ego-instincts. This is perhaps comprehensible given that Freud (1933) writes that “[i]nstincts are mythical entities magnificent in their indefiniteness” (p. 95), and that these instincts are “at once the most important and the most obscure element of psychological research” ( Freud, 1920 , p. 34; cf. Freud, 1905b , p. 168; Freud, 1925c , pp. 56–57 n ; Freud, 1930 , p. 117). Furthermore, Freud’s editor Strachey’s choice of the term “instinct” as a translation for Freud’s “ Trieb ” is problematic since it connotes species-specific behavior patterns which is not in accord with Freud’s original usage ( Laplanche and Pontalis, 1973 ; Ritvo and Solnit, 1995 ). “Drive” (or “instinctual drive”) has been discussed extensively elsewhere as a better translation (see Maze, 1983 ; Boag, 2012 ; Solms and Panksepp, 2012 ), and is the preferred term here.

Maze’s Clarification of the Instinctual Drive Concept

A starting point for discussing drives is in the context of endogenous stimuli with respect to source (somatic process), aim (satisfaction), object (instrumental to aim), and pressure (motor) components ( Freud, 1915a ). Freud grounds drives somatically but relates them intimately to motivational states, cognitive activity and behavior. Drives engage in activity and for Freud the drives operate as endogenous stimuli, which, unlike external stimuli, persist until an activity or action is performed leading to satisfaction (i.e., the removal of the stimulus; Freud, 1895 , pp. 296–297; Freud, 1905b , p. 168; Freud, 1915a , p. 118–119; Freud, 1925b , pp. 118–119; Freud, 1933 , p. 96). While it is true that Freud chiefly speculated on the precise number and types of drives, this was not because drives are without real-world referents (as some claim – e.g., Fulgencio, 2005 ) but only because psycho analytic observations of behavior are limited with respect to what can be inferred about the source of any drive ( Freud, 1915a ). That is, the drive’s “source” means that drives must also be identified through investigating the internal workings of the body and not through psychological (psychoanalytic) enquiry alone.

Freud’s account of the instinctual drives has been variously criticized for invoking obsolete energic concepts (e.g., Holt, 1976 ; Rosenblatt and Thickstun, 1977 ) and not accommodating learnt experience (e.g., Westen, 1997 ). However, these criticisms rest upon outdated drive concepts, even if indicating a need for clarifying contemporary drive theory. This clarification has been achieved to some extent by the Australian psychoanalytic theorist Maze (1983 , 1987 , 1993) . Maze conceptualizes the drives as neuro-physical “biological engines” that engage sensory and motor mechanisms and operate according to mechanistic, causal principles. As “engines,” the drives convert potential energy into output (behavior) and rather than initiating their own activity, are instead activated (switched “on”) by relevant bodily states (e.g., deprivation) and environmental conditions. Maze’s position is broadly consistent with current behavioral neuroscience accounts of drives ( Sewards and Sewards, 2002 , 2003 ; see Berridge, 2004 for a critical review; see also Bazan and Detandt, 2013 for a comparison of contemporary neuroscience and Freudian drive theory) whereby the complexity of human behavior emerges initially from innate consummatory activities (e.g., simple motor activities such as swallowing), which become elaborated through motor development and distorted due to factors such as conflict. For instance, socialization and culture shape how drives are expressed and any behavior may reflect a variety of motivational inputs such that several drives may contribute to any given activity. Behavior may also reflect conflict and repression, whereby compromised avenues of satisfaction are forced due to fear of punishment (see Maze, 1983 ; Petocz, 1999 ; Boag, 2012 ).

It should be noted here that Maze is not engaging in speculative theorizing and instead bases his proposal on the homeostatic drive accounts of his day, a position still found in current behavioral neuroscience, even if possibly not covering the whole story (for instance, allodynamic processes may be needed to supplement homeostasis – Schulkin, 2003 ; McEwen and Wingfield, 2010 ; see also Berridge, 2004 ). Furthermore, current behavioral neuroscience provides in principle support for Freud’s (1910 ) libidinal and self-preservative drive distinction, with drives of sexuality, hunger, thirst, pain reduction, sleep, fear, power-dominance, and nurturance identified ( Wagner, 1999 ; Sewards and Sewards, 2002 , 2003 ). However, the aim here is not to provide an exhaustive list of drives (and any satisfactory list will necessarily require careful scrutiny) but simply to show that an account of drives conforming to Freud’s initial postulation is not entirely without contemporary justification.

Since Freud’s time there are also broader questions concerning whether affects should be considered the primary motivational instigators rather than the drives (see Westen, 1997 ; Kernberg, 2009 ) and while there is not scope here to develop this issue, a motivational account of affects does not necessarily contradict the Freudian drive position since drives and affects appear to be intimately connected ( Boag, 2008 , 2012 , Chap. 8; McIlwain, 2007 ). On the other hand, whether aggression is a primary drive or a reactive response of the drives to frustration remains an open-question and is also subject to ongoing debate (see Kernberg, 2009 ). Although some authors consider Freud’s (1920 , 1923a ) concept of a death instinct clinically useful (e.g., Segal, 1993 ), or useful in conjunction with a notion of a primary aggressive drive (e.g., Kernberg, 2009 ), a problem with Freud’s life and death drives is that these drives are defined by aim rather than source, and the question remains, as Kernberg observes, as to whether any observed aggression is a primary drive or a secondary response to frustration. Without bio-neurological evidence of a primary death/aggressive drive (i.e., a source) then one and the same aggressive expression can be “explained” in terms of it being either an expression of a primary aggression drive or reactive aggression (in other words, we are left guessing whether aggression is a primary drive requiring satisfaction or not). Nevertheless, it is still possible to agree with Kernberg (2009) that aggression is a “major motivational system” (p. 1018) since aggression appears to be part of our make-up, but whether we have primary aggressive aims that require satisfaction (rather than simply reactive aggression) remains to be seen.

Drives and Cognition

Maze (1983) further aims to clarify the relation between drives and cognition. Any act of cognition entails something standing as a knower , and while one commonly refers here to the “person” or organism, an innovation in Maze’s thinking (again following hints from Freud) is that it is the drives themselves that engage in cognition. In other words, the organism’s motivational systems are what engage cognitive/perceptual processes. This is, at times, indicated by Freud when he treats the drives as the “psychical representative of organic forces” (i.e., wishes or desires; Freud, 1911a , p. 74; cf. Freud, 1915a , p. 122; Freud, 1905b , p. 168), and elsewhere when Freud writes that an “instinct can never become an object of consciousness – only the idea that represents the instincts can” ( Freud, 1915c , p. 177). This could be taken to mean that the drives are defined somatically but simultaneously engage in cognition in their quest for gratification and avoidance of frustration (e.g., a hunger drive desires to eat and is interested in sources of food – Passmore, 1935 ). More recently, Panksepp (1998) to some extent suggests a similar position whereby he appears to imply that drives engage both cognition and behavior via the SEEKING system: “The SEEKING system, under the guidance of various regulatory imbalances, external incentive cues and past learning, helps take thirsty animals to water, cold animals to warmth, hungry animals to food, and sexually aroused animals toward opportunities for orgasmic gratification” (p. 167; cf. Panksepp and Moskal, 2008 ; see also Bazan and Detandt, 2013 , pp. 6–7; see also Boag, 2012 , pp. 114–115). Accordingly, the drives can be considered as psychobiological systems rather than “blind bodily forces” as some propose (e.g., Slavin and Grief, 1995 , p. 166). It is the drives that desire, believe, and phantasise, and such desires, beliefs, and phantasies are not automatically conscious and may be prevented from being reflected upon via repression ( Freud, 1915b ; for further discussion see Boag, 2010 , 2012 , Chaps. 5 and 6).

Subsequently, Maze (1983 , 1987) develops the position that the smallest units comprising the “knowers” within the personality are the psychobiological drive structures: “Each instinctual drive accumulates information and misinformation about the location and means of acquisition of the objects necessary for its specific actions to be performed” ( Maze, 1983 , p. 162). While not a common standpoint, this view has nevertheless been taken up by others to account for the dynamics of mental life (e.g., Petocz, 1999 ; Boag, 2005 , 2012 ; Newbery, 2011 ) and although we can generally refer to the “organism” as that which knows, the fact of psychological conflict – a foundation of psychoanalytic theory – forces upon us the view of there being multiple systems, each motivated and cognising, coming into conflict (a position not dissimilar to Plato’s observation that human life reflects “struggles of factions in a State” – Plato, 1928 ; 440b, p. 170). As Petocz (1999) writes, “in order to accommodate the facts of mental conflict, of a conflict of interests within a single mind, there must be a plurality of drives – at least two” (p. 221; cf. Maze, 1983 ; Boag, 2005 , 2007 , 2012 ; McIlwain, 2007 ). That is, it is literally possible to be in “two minds” about something since, unlike the indivisible and immaterial Cartesian ego, any experience of “self” belies what is in fact a multiplicity of knowing systems.

Maze is thus proposing a strongly partitive view of personality: each individual is made up of a small community of these drives, “each of which is a knower and a doer” ( Maze, 1987 , p. 197). However, Maze is not suggesting that these drives are anthropomorphic homunculi (“little persons”). Instead, these knowers are biomechanical systems utilizing cognition:

…unlike the whole person each has, in effect, only one motive, never restrains itself from seeking satisfaction, knows only a portion of the aggregate body of information, and suffers no internal conflict. An instinctual drive can no more restrain itself from working than any motor can, once the switches are thrown. If its operation is to be arrested, then that must be through some influence external to itself – in the case of repression, from other instinctual drives

Maze, 1987 , p. 197

Thus, rather than a “person” (or persons) acting rationally and deciding upon courses of action, each drive is simply a mechanistic system that once activated motivates the organism’s cognitive activity and behavior. The restraining and inhibiting factors are consequent on conflict and repression ( Maze, 1983 ; Boag, 2012 ) and the behavior of the “person” results from both facilitating and inhibiting influences emerging from the interaction of these drives.

A potential shortcoming with Maze’s account has, however, been identified by Newbery (2011) with respect to accounting for the ongoing activity of the organism after apparent satiation. In Maze’s account, once drive-satiation occurs then the consequent cessation of the drive-excitation pattern would terminate stimulation of motor activity ( Maze, 1983 , p. 151). Accordingly, should all the primary drives be satisfied then the organism would cease to engage in motivated behavior. Addressing this issue, Newbery proposes a conceptual distinction between drives being inoperative – ceasing activity altogether – and drives being satisfied , whereby the drives nonetheless engage in cognitive activity even when satisfied ( Newbery, 2011 , p. 857). Here Newbery postulates that a satisfied drive may nevertheless remain sensitive to environmental sources of gratification and frustration. A hunger-satiated person may remain alert to hunger-gratifying information when, for instance, environmental information affords the possibility of predicting food shortages.

Ego-Drives and id-Drives

Following Freud’s (1910 ) ego-instinct account, Maze (1983 , 1987) proposes that both the ego and the id are constituted by the drives. Furthermore, both the ego and id engage in acts of knowing. Consistent with Freud’s position, the primary factor determining which sub-set of drives form the ego-drives and which form the id are the social forces instigating repression. In Freud’s theory it is primarily the social environment during infancy which provides the context for repression ( Freud, 1914 , 1915b ). Wishes and desires that are proscribed by the social environment are associated with loss of love and danger, leading to anxiety and primary repression. Later, such external prohibitions become internalized as the superego, reinforcing the initial repression with secondary repression ( Freud, 1926 , p. 128; Freud, 1930 , p. 124). Here Maze (1987) writes that the drive expressions (i.e., desires and behaviors) that provoke anxiety due to associations with “loss of love” form the repressed id while the ego emerges as a dominating sub-set of the drives:

In general, all those instinctual drives whose gratification is dependent on the parent’s good will and which is employed as reward by them are mobilized in opposition to the forbidden instinctual impulses. Thus, one subset of the instinctual drives becomes organized in competition with the remainder, and treats the blocking off of the remainder as an essential part of securing its own gratification

Maze, 1983 , p. 171

While Freud (1910) viewed the self-preservative drives as those constituting the ego-drives and the libidinal drives as those constituting the repressed, Freud further notes that although the sexual drives are typically repressed, this is essentially an empirical finding rather than an a priori assertion (for the role of sexuality in personality and repression see also Boag, 2012 , pp. 118–119).

Theoretically there is no objection to supposing that any sort of instinctual demand might occasion the same repressions and their consequences: but our observation shows us invariably, so far as we can judge, that the excitations that play the pathogenic part arose from the component instincts of sexual life

Freud, 1940 , p. 186

Viewed in this way there are no a priori “id” drives and Bleichmar (2004) rightly notes that it is not inconceivable that sexuality could repress the aim of self-preservation (p. 1387). What becomes repressed is determined by prevailing social factors and inter-drive competition and it is moral disapproval that provides the context for the development of id and ego:

The actual principle of division, between the instinctual drives that are to constitute the ego and those which are to be repressed and constitute the id, would be that the former were those whose expression was not subject to moral disapproval , that is, those which were socially regarded as legitimate constituents of a respectable person, whereas the latter were morally condemned as impulses that no worthwhile person would have

Maze, 1983 , p. 172, his italics

Given then that the ego is not divorced from the drives, the id is better conceptualized solely in reference to what is repressed. Furthermore, the ego and id are not then fixed and unchanging entities. For both Freud (1910) and Maze (1983) , the “ego” is not a substantive, indivisible entity but rather a fluid collective of dominating drives that have not submitted to repression. Accordingly, there is no single executive entity called the ego acting as the agency of repression. Instead, the protagonists behind repression are the ego-drives, guided by beliefs of frustration and gratification and preventing id-drives from forms of expression. Should the social context change (and with it the conditions of moral reproach), then the inclusion within ego and id would also be subject to change (cf. Maze, 1983 ).

Ego, Identification, and Identity

Given that the ego is not an indissoluble entity but instead a collection of dominating drives, some account is required for explaining how a sense of identity forms normatively to form a singular sense of “self.” Gardner (1993) , in fact, objects to the possibility of multiple knowers given that phenomenologically we only have a single subjective frame of reference and can only ever experience ourselves as a single person (p. 83). While this is disputable (e.g., there are a variety of dissociative phenomena that suggest otherwise – see Kluft, 2000 ), the “single frame of reference” criticism instead provides the answer to why we do not recognize multiplicity. Given that the drives are brain structures (connected nevertheless intimately with various physiological organs, perceptual systems, etc.), there is ordinarily no possibility of direct awareness of the drives themselves. However, the expressions of the drives are knowable, and such expressions are realized through the body and its various activities (including cognition). As Freud (1923b) notes, the known ego “is first and foremost a body-ego” (p. 27) and “the ego is ultimately derived from bodily sensations” (p. 26 n ). Here the distinction between the ego-drives and the “known ego” or ego-self is important. Solms and Panksepp (2012) contribute here the important point that awareness of the body is the same as awareness of objects in the world generally. The body in this sense is something known (including fantasized about), and so a sense of unity rather than division is what is apparent. Freud (1910) additionally notes that both the ego-drives and sexual drives have an anaclitic relationship: “The sexual and ego-instincts alike have in general the same organs and systems of organs at their disposal” ( Freud, 1910 , pp. 215–216; cf. Freud, 1912 , pp. 180–181). Accordingly, what the drives know in relation to themselves is the “person’s” desires, beliefs, and actions (a shared pool of beliefs): The apparent unity of the ego follows from a drive neither knowing itself directly (nor the other drives) and instead only knowing the organism generally and its activities via a singular perceptual apparatus of which each drive partakes in. As I elsewhere note ( Boag, 2005 ), “[t]he resulting belief of a unified self is as prima facie plausible as the belief that the sun revolves around the earth” (p. 753). Our social interactions further reinforce developing a coherent sense of self since we appear as a single organism to others and are treated as such accordingly.

However, one’s sense of self of course is not simply restricted to the actual organism and can extend further than the body. Here the role of identification in the formation of the ego-self is paramount. On the account of ego-drives here, it is the drives themselves that are the subjects identifying with different states of affairs. While the drives typically identify with the body and psychic apparatus, such identification can conceivably extend to family and possessions and beyond. James (1890/1950) was one of the first to recognize this in modern psychology where, in his discussion of the “self”, he writes:

In its widest possible sense …. a man’s Self is the sum total of all that he CAN call his , not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes, and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank-account. All these things give him the same emotions. If they wax and prosper, he feels triumphant; if they dwindle and die away, he feels cast down… (p. 291, italics/capitals in original).

“Personal identity,” then, can be seen as a collective viewpoint whereby a subset of the drives identifies with (most commonly but not necessarily) the body and its parts, other people to various degrees, values, society, culture, etc. Nevertheless, the known ego-self is essentially a fantasy – a false belief – based on appearances (cf. Grossman, 1982 ; Solms and Panksepp, 2012 ). This ego-self, while appearing as an agent, is simply a puppet driven by the ego-drives.

The Superego and the Possibility of Multiple Egos

Given that the ego is conceptualized above in terms of the drives and their identifications the question arises then concerning the nature of the superego and other possible dynamic structures. On Maze’s (1983 , 1987 , 1993 ) view the superego is not a dynamic structure (or agent, or independent set of drives) and instead conceptualized in terms of the moral beliefs guiding the ego in terms of possible sources or gratification and punishment (see also Boag, 2006 , 2012 ), a position reflecting Brenner’s (1994 ) insistence that there is no special agency of the superego. On this view, the superego is not a motivated, cognising agency but simply internalized obstructions in the form of beliefs, even if represented by personal forms based on identification with actual people.

However, one limitation of the “superego as beliefs” account here is that the theory does not appear to account for the observed clinical phenomena. More specifically, treating the superego merely as a set of moral beliefs contradicts Freud’s own descriptions (and others after him) whereby the superego itself appears to be both motivated and active:

In the course of an individual’s development a portion of the inhibiting forces in the external world are internalized and an agency is constructed in the ego which confronts the rest of the ego in an observing, criticizing and prohibiting sense. We call this new agency the super-ego . Thenceforward the ego, before putting to work the instinctual satisfaction demanded by the id, has to take into account not merely the dangers of the external world but also the objections of the super-ego, and it will have all the more grounds for abstaining from satisfying the instinct.

Freud, 1939 , pp. 116–117, his italics; cf. Freud, 1914 , p. 95; 1916–1917, pp. 428–429; Freud, 1933 , p. 60

If Freud’s account of the superego as a dynamic structure is to be taken as an accurate reflection of the psychic situation, then some dynamic account of the superego’s motivational sources is required. Rather, then, than treating the superego simply in terms of beliefs (or even phantasy), the account to be developed here proposes that the superego is dynamic (motivated) and is based on a differentiation of the drives organized around (i.e., identified with) a parental imago.

A drive position can be reconciled with Freud’s position on the superego above through proposing that the superego entails a subset of the ego-drives reflecting intra-ego conflict. Although this is not Maze’s position, if the ego is a sub-set of the drives as Maze proposes, then there is no logical objection to there being further divisions. Proposed here, then, is that a subset of the ego-drives, the superego-drives , identifies with the external inhibiting sources based on a self-preservative motive and becomes (in certain situations) turned against the remainder of the ego-drives (and the id). Accordingly, the superego is a motivated organization, in the same way as the ego, and the moral character of the superego follows from the characteristic finding that this superego subset of the drives identifies with the moral authority of the caregivers ( Freud, 1923b , p. 36; see also Pulcu, 2014 , for a recent discussion of superego formation within an evolutionary context).

If this account of superego-drives is granted, then by logical implication other personality divisions are possible. That is, if various drives can join forces but can also be in conflict, then there is the possibility of divisions and further sub-divisions of dynamic structures based on various identifications giving rise to a multiplicity of “personalities.” Freud (1923b) , in fact, directly addresses this when discussing the superego and the formation of the ego’s object-identifications. There Freud observes that the ego’s multiple object-identifications may become “too numerous, unduly powerful and incompatible with one another” and that “perhaps the secret of the cases of what is described as “multiple personality” is that the different identifications seize hold of consciousness in turn,” a position he describes as not necessarily pathological (pp. 30–31) 1 . Indeed, although the id, ego, and superego are commonly observed personality structures, Freud proposes that variations may nevertheless be found:

In thinking of this division of the personality into an ego, super-ego and an id, you will not, of course, have pictured sharp frontiers like the artificial ones drawn in political geography… After making the separation we must allow what we have separated to merge together once more… It is highly probable that the development of these divisions is subject to great variations in different individuals …

Freud, 1933 , p. 79, emphasis added

Accordingly, the triadic structural theory is simply typical rather than inevitable: various other personality divisions might arise in the same manner as the account of id, ego and superego here. Consequently, given that the superego can represent a sub-set of the ego-drives which act as an apparent agent, there is no logical problem with the conclusion then that multiple “egos” could potentially form which, for all intents and purposes, reflect “multiple personalities” [a possibility also briefly touched upon by Freud (1914) in On narcissism ]. Here various sub-sets of drives could constitute various “egos,” each developing an independent and separate sense of identity or self-hood via various object-identifications.

What the present account contributes then is a dynamic framework for understanding a variety of normal and clinical psychological phenomena related to “multiple personalities” including Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). DID manifests as disruptions in identity characterized by two or more “distinct personality states” (possibly experienced as “possession”) and is associated with recurring gaps in remembering of events including trauma (APA, 2013, p. 292). While DID finds inclusion in the DSM-5 there is nevertheless persistent controversy as to whether DID is in fact an authentic disorder (see, for instance, Piper and Merskey, 2004a , b ; Boysen and VanBergen, 2013 , 2014 ; for recent examples of the controversy surrounding fantasy and trauma models, see Dalenberg et al., 2012 , 2014 ; Lynn et al., 2014 ). One major theoretical problem within this controversy concerns how best to conceptualize personality within DID, an issue that also impacts upon clinicians working with DID with respect to conceptualizing the personalities (“alters”) and then engaging with them in therapy: “Among the major issues that arise in the treatment of DID are the relationship of the alters to the personality that the therapist may experience as his or her patient, and the relationship of the therapist to the alters” ( Kluft, 2000 , p. 266). As a consequence of this uncertainty, Kluft writes that many psychoanalytic clinicians (even if accepting that some version of alters exist), “are reluctant to address them [the alters] directly or to request or facilitate their participation in the process” (p. 270). On the theoretical position developed above, there is theoretical justification for treating alters in the same manner as one would treat the “ego”: both the ego and alters can be thought of as drive-object-identifications and neither are indivisible nor fixed. Accordingly, and given the centrality of the therapeutic alliance ( Meissner, 2007 ), there is justification for Kluft’s (2000 ) proposal of forming therapeutic alliances with the alters (i.e., the clinician addresses the alters as one would the “ego” and engages them in the therapeutic process). Clinical issues aside, a further implication from the account proposed here is that (at least in principle) there may be further means of contributing to neuroscientific studies addressing the authenticity of DID (e.g., Reinders et al., 2012 ; Schlumpf et al., 2013 ). Given that drives essentially entail neural sources (see Bazan and Detandt, 2013 ) then their contribution to DID should be assessable, in the same manner as the motivational contributions to dreaming are presently being assessed (e.g., Colace, 2014 ; Colace and Boag, in press ).

Ego-Drives, Object-Relations, and the Dynamics of Internal Objects

Placing primary emphasis upon the drives raises questions concerning how this account fits with an object-relations approach which views motivation primarily in terms of developing relationships with others (e.g., Fairbairn, 1952 ; Guntrip, 1968 ; Greenberg and Mitchell, 1983 ). Maze (1993) rightly argues that drive accounts and object-relations theory are not, as commonly supposed, antithetical since the drives can be seen as the subjects involved in the motivated, emotional relationships with objects. Furthermore, a drive account provides a biologically grounded explanatory framework for understanding why a person is motivated to relate to certain objects and not others, as well as helping understand the dynamics underlying frustration and gratification within object-relationships. In addition to this, Young-Bruehl and Bethelard (1999) have gone some way to applying an ego-drive account for understanding the relationship between the developing infant and actual caregivers, and thus demonstrating that an ego-drive account can accommodate an object relations perspective. What is less certain, however, is the relationship between drives, ego structures, and internal objects .

While object-relational approaches are diverse, one influential approach is that of Fairbairn (1952) which has been developed by Ogden (1993 , 2002 , 2010) and also discussed in contemporary philosophy of psychoanalysis (e.g., Pataki, 2014 ). As Ogden (1993) notes, while object-relations are commonly thought of in terms of interpersonal relations, it “is in fact fundamentally a theory of unconscious [intrapersonal] object relations in dynamic interplay with current interpersonal experience” (p. 131, my insertion; see Ogden, 1993 , p. 131 n ). These intrapersonal relationships result from a fragmenting of the ego leading to a multiplicity of ego-structures and their internal objects. For Fairbairn (1944/1952) an initial unitary Central ego becomes split into separate dynamic egos (Central ego, anti-libidinal (internal saboteur) and libidinal egos) each existing as dynamic (motivated) “endopsychic structures.” This differentiation of the ego is a consequence of frustration and repression, leading to split-off aspects of the Central ego attached to their frustrating internal objects (see also Ogden, 2010 ).

For Maze (1993) , however, internal objects are simply imagined entities that have no actual autonomy and exist simply as objects of a person’s desires and beliefs. He writes that despite views to the contrary “[i]nternal objects do not really initiate their own behavior” ( Maze, 1993 , p. 464), and while it may appear that internal objects act autonomously, this, according to Maze, is more apparent than real:

… while this way of describing them may convey the patient’s phenomenological experience very powerfully, it seems to me to obscure the fact that one is really dealing with the person’s thoughts, wishes and fears, or more precisely, with the beliefs, wishes and fears of various parts of the person’s mind

Maze, 1993 , p. 464

Nevertheless, the observation of apparent autonomous centers within the psyche is not uncommon and the notion of multiple autonomous inner personalities is found in a variety of theories. For instance, Symington (1993) writes that “[w]e are all made up of parts, each part capable of functioning as a separate little person” (p. 23), and, within the context of object-relations he writes: “when we talk about an internalized mother, father, brother, sister, or whatever, these are internalized objects, and these objects acts. They act within the personality. At certain points they may even take over the personality” (p. 20). The question then is how we can account for these apparent autonomous centers that addresses both the phenomenology and provides a satisfactory explanatory framework.

Ego-Structures and Internal Objects

The relation between ego-structures and internal objects is not always clear in Fairbairn’s theory and while Fairbairn generally treats ego-structures as dynamic he does not consistently do so with internalized objects ( Maze, 1993 ; Ogden, 1993 ). Ogden (1993) writes that “Fairbairn only hesitatingly accepted the idea that internal objects are dynamic structures and was not able to delineate the relationship between the concept of internal objects and the concept of the ego” (p. 156). For example, whereas Freud treats the superego as a dynamic structure, Fairbairn in places explicitly does not [e.g., Fairbairn, 1944/1952 , pp. 131–132; see also Maze (1993 , p. 463)]. Nevertheless, Fairbairn can also be found to grant autonomy to both various ego structures and internal objects, which he sees as an extension of Freud’s position that the superego is an autonomous structure:

… the time is now ripe for us to replace the concept of “phantasy” by a concept of “inner reality” peopled by the ego and its internal objects. These internal objects should be regarded as having an organized structure, an identity of their own, an endopsychic existence and an activity [a capacity for thinking and feeling] as real within the inner world as those of any objects in the outer world. To attribute such features to internal objects may at first seem startling to some; but, after all, they are only features which Freud has already attributed to the superego… What has now emerged is simply that the superego is not the only internal object

Fairbairn, 1943, in Ogden, 2011 , p. 938, Ogden’s insertion

Ogden (2011) takes this to mean that internal objects are identical with ego-structures, writing that for Fairbairn, internal objects are not merely phantasy or simply ideational content: “Internal objects are not ideas – they are split-off parts of the ego with which the internal world is “peopled”” (p. 938). Furthermore, as dynamic agents internal objects are the subjects that do the phantasying: “ phantasying is the product of internal objects ( i.e., internal objects are the thinkers doing the unconscious thinking) ” ( Ogden, 2011 , p. 139, his italics). On the other hand, if, as Maze (1993) believes, internal objects are primarily beliefs, phantasies, and desires, then such internal objects cannot exists as autonomous structures simply because beliefs, phantasies, and desires are activities and so cannot be structures engaging in those same activities (see also Boag, 2005 ).

Ogden’s intention here is to clarify the relation between ego-structures and internal objects and address a short-coming in Fairbairn’s approach, viz. Fairbairn “did not explain how an internal object (presumably originally thought) achieves its dynamism” ( Ogden, 1993 , p. 148). Nevertheless, identifying ego-structures with the internal objects does not mean that ego-structures and internal objects cannot be differentiated, even if “[t]his identification with the object is so thorough that one’s original sense of self is almost entirely lost” ( Ogden, 1993 , p. 132). To clarify this, Pataki (2014) proposes that the ego-structures are “attached” to their respective objects, and that these internal objects are dynamic by virtue of their relation to these ego structures. Fairbairn (1951/1952) similarly writes:

Although I have spoken of internalized objects as structures, I have treated them simply as objects of dynamic ego-structures, and not as themselves dynamic. … In the interests of consistency, however, I must draw the logical conclusion of my theory and acknowledge that, since internal objects are endopsychic structures, they must be themselves in some measure dynamic; and it should be added that they must derive their dynamic quality from their cathexis by ego-structures

Fairbairn, 1951/1952 , p. 177; my emphasis

Thus, Fairbairn could be taken to be proposing an ego-structure/phantasy-object relationship whereby the internal object is itself phantasy but nevertheless dynamic insofar as the respective ego-structure identifies with the phantasy object (cf. Pataki, 2014 ). Pataki (2014) describes this identification between ego-structures with internalized figures as personation which I take to mean that the ego-structures take on (personate) actual or phantasized individuals.

Pataki (2014) observes that the possibility of multiple ego-structures/internal objects implicated in the account above raises complex questions with respect to understanding agency, personhood and identity. Furthermore, whether we should commit to a theory of multiple “persons” inhabiting the psyche requires careful scrutiny. After all, Maze (1993) proposes a simpler explanation whereby internal objects are nothing more than phantasy reflecting fears and desires, rather than constituting distinct centers of agency. Accordingly, if Fairbairn and Ogden are to be believed then a theoretical basis for postulating ego-structures and their internal objects as dynamic structures (capable of acting and knowing) is required. Here Ogden (1993) claims, though, that his account of internal objects “goes no further in the direction of demonology than did Freud in describing the formation of the superego” (p. 150). However, this is not necessarily a virtue. As noted earlier, Freud’s theory of the id, ego and superego has been heavily criticized for both reification and anthropomorphism (e.g., Grossman and Simon, 1969 ; Laplanche and Pontalis, 1973 ; Boesky, 1995 ; Talvitie, 2012 ). As with Freud, both Fairbairn and Ogden are open to the criticism that their account of the ego-structures simply multiplies instances of reification since both Fairbairn and Ogden tell us what the various ego-structures do but not what they actually are (and so leave the ego-structures uncharacterized).

The ego-drive account developed earlier provides a theoretical rationale for understanding ego-structures and their internal objects as dynamic organizations. The ego-structures are characterized in terms of subsets of the (biologically grounded) drives which, in turn, provides a basis for making sense of both personality differentiation and the motivational bases of ego-structures and their internal objects. As argued earlier, there is no logical difficulty in proposing various drive-combinations organized around various apparent centers of agency (ego-structures, etc.). Internal objects reflect combinations of drives forming dynamic structures identifying with an imago and acting as an apparent agent. This is “apparent” simply because while the drives constitute the knowing motivational systems, the drives underlying the various ego-structures mistakenly see themselves as “persons” acting as a singular agent. Consequently, given that Fairbairn does aim to provide an explanatory system for the dynamics of endopsychic structures (e.g., Fairbairn, 1944/1952 , pp. 128ff), Fairbairn’s account gains everything from admitting a drive basis to account for the motivation of ego-structures and loses nothing with respect to providing his distinctive object-relations approach.

Dreams and Internal Objects: Evidence From Case Studies

The dynamics of dream figures provides an indication of apparent structures or agents with their own dynamics, a finding which, prima facie , contradicts Maze’s (1993 ) proposal that internal objects are simply objects of imagination and not separate organizations. In discussing the dreams of a patient with a physical genital abnormality, Fairbairn (1931/1952) describes how two dream figures appeared to correspond to the id and superego (“the mischievous boy” and the “critic,” respectively – p. 217). These dream figures were also active, to the point where “invasion of waking life by [these] personifications did actually occur” (p. 219). For instance, at the onset of analysis “‘the mischievous boy’ took almost complete possession of her conscious life” (p. 219). Nevertheless, Fairbairn writes that “[i]t must be recorded, however, that the dream-figures so far mentioned by no means exhaust the personifications appearing in this patient’s life” (p. 217), and during analysis other figures (e.g., a “little girl” and “the martyr”) also emerged. Consequently, Fairbairn writes that the prevalence and multiplicity of such dream figures raises questions concerning whether Freud’s tripartite division has led us to consider the id, ego and superego “too much in the light of entities” (p. 218). This is an important observation because it indicates how personality structures are commonly treated as stable and fixed entities when, instead, the findings suggest that the psyche and its ego-structures and internal objects are fluid and maleable. What is required then is a theoretical approach that can account for the motivation of dynamic structures but is also flexible enough to accommodate both ongoing personality division and combination resulting in various organizations within the psyche. An ego-drive approach provides a basis for understanding both these splits within personality as well as how drive combinations could give rise to a variety of personifications. On the account developed here, neither the ego, id, and superego, nor ego-structures and internal objects are immutable. Instead, and following a line of Freud’s own thinking, “the ego can be split; it splits itself during a number of its functions – temporarily at least. Its parts can come together again afterward” ( Freud, 1933 , p. 58). The relative fluidity of drive-subsets organizing themselves around an imago (a fluidity which seems to be further facilitated in dreaming) is central here to understanding the complexity of situations faced by the clinician. Furthermore, viewing internal objects as based on drives indicates why the figures in dreams express their own frustration and gratification (cf. Maze, 1993 ) and how these structures, too, can be instigators of repression in a psyche where the various ego-structures facilitate or attempt to cancel one another out. Consistent with Fairbairn’s theory (e.g., Fairbairn, 1943/1952 , 1944/1952 ) repression involves the ego rejecting aspects of itself and provides the grounds for splitting the personality into various dynamic structures within the psyche (cf. Ogden, 1993 , 2010 ).

This paper contributes to a metapsychological understanding of the id, ego, and superego through developing Maze’s ego-drive account based on Freud’s (1910 ) ego-instincts. On this view the ego emerges as a sub-set of drives which have achieved control over another sub-set of drives that form the (repressed) id. The drives that constitute the ego develop a sense of identity (self-hood) whereby the ego-drives identify with various states of affairs in unison, which for the most part includes a view of a singular organism (“person”). A theoretical innovation here is that there is no logical objection to there being multiple egos within any individual as found in Fairbairn’s object-relations account. Furthermore, extending this ego-drive account to object relations theory provides both a synthesis of otherwise distinct positions and an explanatory basis for ego-differentiation and the dynamics of ego-structures and internal objects. While the fore-going discussion is primarily theoretical, both conceptual and theoretical research is essential for developing psychoanalysis generally, and particularly with respect to clarifying and refining our understanding of psychoanalytic theory and systems (see also Dreher, 2005 ; Leuzinger-Bohleber and Fischmann, 2006 ). This ego-drive account goes some way to providing a theoretical framework that bridges the “wide gulf between the actual theories that clinicians apply in their work and the psychoanalysis that is learned in universities” ( Symington, 1993 , p. 4) through providing an account of persons, internal or otherwise, that is consistent with a coherent theory of motivation as embodied in Freud’s (1915a ) metapsychology of the instinctual drives.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgment

The author thanks Tamas Pataki for his critical feedback.

• ^ I would like to thank a Reviewer for drawing my attention to this reference.

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Keywords : ego, instinctual drives, internal objects, metapsychology, object-relations, repression, self, structural theory

Citation: Boag S (2014) Ego, drives, and the dynamics of internal objects. Front. Psychol. 5 :666. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00666

Received: 14 February 2014; Paper pending published: 13 May 2014; Accepted: 09 June 2014; Published online: 01 July 2014.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2014 Boag. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Simon Boag, Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia e-mail: [email protected], Website: http://simonboag.com/

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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The superego. Its formation, structure, and functioning

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• 1 New York Psychoanalytic Institute, USA.
• PMID: 12723129

In this paper the theory of the superego is explored from the point of view of ego psychology. It traces the historical background in Freud's original contributions and the more contemporary understanding of the forces at work in the formation of this new psychic structure as they come together at a unique point in development, the oedipal phase. Superego functions are delineated, and precursors of superego functioning are differentiated from the functioning of the superego proper. Some attention is paid to the distinctions between ego and superego identifications, and between guilt and shame. Some clinical illustrations are included.

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Freud: Id, Ego, and Superego Explained

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• Ph.D., Psychology, Fielding Graduate University
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Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality is one of his most well-known ideas. This theory proposes that the human psyche is composed of three separate but interacting parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. The three parts develop at different times and play different roles in personality, but work together to form a whole and contribute to an individual’s behavior. While the id, ego, and superego are often referred to as structures, they are purely psychological and don’t exist physically in the brain.

Key Takeaways: Id, Ego, and Superego

• Sigmund Freud originated the concepts of the id, the ego, and the superego, three separate but interacting parts of the human personality that work together to contribute to an individual's behavior.
• While Freud’s ideas have often been critiqued and labeled unscientific, his work continues to be highly influential in the field of psychology.

Freud’s work wasn’t based on empirical research, but on his observations and case studies of his patients and others, so his ideas are often viewed with skepticism. Nonetheless, Freud was an enormously prolific thinker and his theories are still considered important. In fact, his concepts and theories are the foundation of psychoanalysis, an approach to psychology that is still studied today.

Freud’s personality theory was influenced by earlier ideas about the mind working at conscious and unconscious levels. Freud believed that early childhood experiences are filtered through the id, ego, and superego, and the way an individual handles these experiences, consciously and unconsciously , shapes personality in adulthood.

According to Freud, the id is the earliest part of the personality to emerge. The id is present at birth and runs on pure instinct, desire, and need. It is entirely unconscious and encompasses the most primitive part of the personality, including basic biological drives and reflexes.

The id is motivated by the pleasure principle, which wants to gratify all impulses immediately. If the id's needs aren’t met, it creates tension. However, because all desires cannot be fulfilled right away, those needs may be satisfied, at least temporarily, through primary process thinking in which the individual fantasizes about what they desire.   

Newborns’ behavior is driven by the id—they are concerned only with having their needs met. The id never grows up. Throughout life, it remains infantile because, as an unconscious entity, it never considers reality. As a result, the id remains illogical and selfish. The ego and the superego develop to keep the id in check.

The second part of the personality, the ego, arises from the id. Its job is to acknowledge and deal with reality, ensuring that the id’s impulses are reigned in and expressed in socially acceptable ways.

The ego operates from the reality principle, which works to satisfy the id’s desires in the most reasonable and realistic ways. The ego may do this by delaying gratification, compromising, or acting in ways that will avoid the negative consequences of going against society’s norms and rules.

Such rational thinking is referred to as secondary process thinking. It is geared towards problem-solving and reality-testing, enabling the person to maintain self-control. Like the id, the ego is interested in seeking pleasure, however, it wants to do so in a realistic way. The ego is not concerned with right and wrong, but with how to maximize pleasure and minimize pain without getting into trouble.

The ego operates at conscious, preconscious, and unconscious levels. The ego’s consideration of reality is conscious. However, it may also keep forbidden desires hidden by unconsciously repressing them. Much of the ego’s functioning is also preconscious, meaning it happens below awareness but takes little effort to bring those thoughts into consciousness.

Freud initially used the term ego to reference one’s sense of self. Often, when we use the term in everyday conversation—such as when we say someone has a “big ego”—we are using it in this sense. Yet, the term ego in Freud’s theory of personality no longer refers to the self-concept but to functions like judgment, regulation, and control.

The superego is the final part of the personality, emerging between the ages of 3 and 5, the phallic stage in Freud’s stages of psychosexual development. Freud says that the superego is the moral compass of the personality, upholding a sense of right and wrong, values that are initially learned from one’s parents. However, the superego continues to grow over time, enabling children to adopt moral standards from other people they admire, such as teachers.

The superego consists of two components: the conscious and the ego ideal. The conscious is the part of the superego that forbids unacceptable behaviors and punishes with feelings of guilt when a person does something they should not. The ego ideal, or ideal self, includes the rules and standards of good behavior one should adhere to. If one is successful in adhering to these behavioral standards, it leads to feelings of pride. However, if the standards of the ego ideal are too high, the person might feel like a failure and experience guilt.

The superego not only controls the id and its impulses towards societal taboos, like sex and aggression, but it also attempts to get the ego to go beyond realistic standards and aspire to moralistic ones. The superego works at conscious and unconscious levels. People are often aware of their ideas of right and wrong but sometimes these ideals impact us unconsciously.

The Mediating Ego

The id, ego, and superego interact constantly. Ultimately, though, it’s the ego that serves as the mediator between the id, the superego, and reality. The ego must determine how to meet the needs of the id, while upholding social reality and the moral standards of the superego.

A healthy personality is the result of a balance between the id, ego, and superego. A lack of balance leads to difficulties. If a person’s id dominates their personality, they may act on their impulses without considering the rules of society. This can cause them to spin out of control and even lead to legal troubles. If the superego dominates, the person can become rigidly moralistic, negatively judging anyone who doesn’t meet their standards. Finally if the ego becomes dominant, it can lead to an individual who is so tied to the rules and norms of society that they become inflexible, unable to deal with change, and incapable of coming to a personal concept of right and wrong.

Many critiques have been leveled at Freud’s theory of personality. For example, the idea that the id is the dominant component of personality is considered problematic, especially Freud’s emphasis on unconscious drives and reflexes, like the sexual drive. This perspective minimizes and oversimplifies the intricacies of human nature.

In addition, Freud believed that the superego emerges in childhood because children fear harm and punishment. However, research has shown that children whose greatest fear is punishment only appear to develop morals—their real motivation is to avoid getting caught and prevent harm. A sense of morality actually develops when a child experiences love and wants to keep it. To do so, they engage in behavior that exemplifies their parents’ morals and, therefore, will gain their approval.

Despite these criticisms, Freud’s ideas about the id, the ego, and the superego have been, and continue to be, highly influential in the field of psychology.

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• Crain, William. Theories of Development: Concepts and Applications. 5th ed., Pearson Prentice Hall. 2005.
• "Ego, superego, and id." New World Encyclopedia, 20 Sept. 2017, http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/p/index.php?title=Ego,_superego,_and_id&oldid=1006853
• McLeod, Saul. “Id, Ego and Superego.” Simply Psychology , 5 Feb. 2016, https://www.simplypsychology.org/psyche.html
• "The Freudian Theory of Personality.” Journal Psyche , http://journalpsyche.org/the-freudian-theory-of-personality/#more-191
• Psychodynamic Theory: Approaches and Proponents
• Oedipus Complex
• Anna Freud, Founder of Child Psychoanalysis
• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Explained
• An Introduction to Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development
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• What Is the Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion? Definition and Overview

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