Talk Thursday: Identify Your Selves: Id, Ego, Superego

I took psych classes in high school and college. I discovered that I have a hard time remembering names and dates and theories that don't make a lot of sense. (Maybe it's just the whole "pseudoscience" thing)  Also, I might be fucked up. (I'll revisit that later.)

I have never understood Freud. I have never understood how a man so incredibly fucked up himself, became a leading authority on the fucked-uppedness of others. It boggles the mind.

So Mr Freud had this theory of Id, Ego, and SuperEgo. In a nutshell, these are the theoretical tiers that make up the human psyche. To quote Wiki, "According to this model of the psyche, the id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual trends; the ego is the organized, realistic part; and the super-ego plays the critical and moralizing role."


To expound a bit:
ID is the unconscious part that drives the instinctual needs, "fight em, fuck em, or flee." It serves to protect the others from pain and displeasure. According to Freud, it "knows no judgements of value: no good and evil, no morality...Instinctual cathexes seeking discharge — that, in our view, is all there is in the id."

The SUPEREGO seems to be the check system. " It comprises that organized part of the personality structure, mainly but not entirely unconscious, that includes the individual's ego ideals, spiritual goals, and the psychic agency (commonly called "conscience") that criticizes and prohibits his or her drives, fantasies, feelings, and actions."

The EGO seems to be the balancing system through which the others see fruition.  "The ego comprises the organized part of the personality structure that includes defensive, perceptual, intellectual-cognitive, and executive functions. Conscious awareness resides in the ego, although not all of the operations of the ego are conscious. Originally, Freud used the word ego to mean a sense of self, but later revised it to mean a set of psychic functions such as judgment, tolerance, reality testing, control, planning, defense, synthesis of information, intellectual functioning, and memory."

So basically, Id, Superego, and Ego, are the want, censure, and how to proceed functions of the personality.

I don't know about you, but my Id and Superego are two completely different beings with little or no understanding of each other.
 My Id is a prison yard boss named Skull who will squash you like a bug for not covering your mouth when you sneeze. He will envision ripping out your entrails and stuffing them up your nose. Then laugh.
My Superego is a strict non-secular Mother Superior named Mary Agnes who always looks for "right" regardless of personal opinion. She would hand the sneezer a box of tissues and lecture Snake on the exact science of sneezing, berate him for his violence, and then expound on the art of forgiveness.
My Ego is kind of like a Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde. Did you ever watch Another World? The characters played by Anne Heche pretty much sum up my Ego. Marley, a super sweet, non-violent pushover... and Vikki, a don't fuck with me, anything goes (often in a chaotic whirlwind of poorly thought out fucked-uppedness), balls-to-the-wall, the ends justify the means kind of girl.

Mary Agnes communes fairly well with Marley. Marley fights to suppress Snake and Vikki, but there comes a point when Snake and Vikki are pushed too far, tired of being censored, and come out with all four fists swinging. When the dust settles, Mary Agnes shakes her head and asks, "Are you happy now?"
Snake tells her to "SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
And Marley just cries.

Vikki picks up a sharp stick and goes to look for something to poke. 

Perhaps you're coming to realize that my "organized, realistic" part isn't that organized and realistic. A psychic once told me that I'd never get anywhere in life if I didn't pull my head out of the clouds and live in reality. Truth is, reality sucks. Reality is boring and depressing.

I have this huge filing cabinet in my mind where all those things that hurt me, make me angry, or stress me out, all get filed away and ignored. This works pretty well, for the most part. Until Snake gets Vikki worked up enough, and all those files get dumped in my lap at once. Marley gets instantly overwhelmed and adopts the fetal position, while Vikki goes on a rampage.

Or maybe I just don't understand this theory at all and Snake, Mary Agnes, Marley, and Vikki are all parts of the Ego, and Freud was right in that the Id and Superego are mostly unconscious bits of the psyche. In that case, I'm probably even more fucked up than I thought.