Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ames!pasteur!agate!ig!uwmcsd1!marque!gryphon!sarima
From: sarima@gryphon.CTS.COM (Stan Friesen)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: Re: superego/ego/id : some general questions
Message-ID: <3118@gryphon.CTS.COM>
Date: 3 Apr 88 23:44:45 GMT
References: <6171@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: sarima@gryphon.CTS.COM (Stan Friesen)
Distribution: sci
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 26

In article <6171@watdragon.waterloo.edu> kmgopinathan@violet.waterloo.edu (Krishna Gopinathan) writes:
>I've heard the terms superego, ego, and id mentioned a lot but I
>haven't really seen a clear definition of them.  Can anyone out there
>in netland explain them?
>
>In Management textbooks discussing Transactional Analysis, they mention
>three states of the human psyche called Parent, Adult, and Child.  Is
>there any parallel between these and superego, ego, and id?

	Well, I don't really *know*,  but I have gotten a certain general
impression from my rather sparse reading on the subject. So here are my
guesses. The id appears to be that part of a persons psyche that is purely
emotional, it "knows" only reactions, not reasons or ideas. It is "wild"
and "untamed". The ego, in my impression, is the rational part of ones
psyche, it is the thinking, logical self. It is the source os ideas and
reasoning. The superego is that part that is usually called the conscience,
that is it is the critical, or at least judgemental, self. Is anyone out
there more familiar with Freudian analysis?
	And there is a close parallel between the three Freudian terms and
the more modern terms Parent, Adult, and Child. I believe the switch in
terminology was in part due to the growing realization that the Freudian
concepts were too simplistic and a more flexible model was needed. Thus
while it is true that Parent is approximately Superego, Adult approximately
Ego and Child approximately Id, the new terms cover a broader range of
reactions than the older ones. They are also more easily understood by the
layman!!