Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!oddjob!ncar!ames!oliveb!pyramid!prls!philabs!ttidca!hollombe From: hollombe@ttidca.TTI.COM (The Polymath) Newsgroups: sci.psychology Subject: Re: superego/ego/id : some general questions Message-ID: <2232@ttidca.TTI.COM> Date: 5 Apr 88 18:53:36 GMT References: <6171@watdragon.waterloo.edu> Reply-To: hollombe@ttidcb.tti.com (The Polymath) Distribution: sci Organization: Citicorp/TTI, Santa Monica Lines: 53 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? And lastly >do the stages of development, oral/anal/genital, have any correlation >with these concepts? If so, how? Superego, Ego and Id are terms from Freudian psychology, as are oral/anal/genital (which are really oral/anal/latent/phallic/genital). It should first be stated that, while Freud is still highly respected as a brilliant man and acknowledged as one of the greats of the field, his theories have been pretty much discredited these days. That said: The superego is what is commonly referred to as your conscience. It's the internalization of all the rules laid down by your parents and society -- essentially, everything you had to do to be loved and not punished. The id is the unconscious part of the mind. It has neither conscience nor rationality and is completely childish and selfish. The ego is the self, literally "I", your couscious sense of being and on-going rational thought. It's the ego's job to mediate between the strict, unreasoning (sometimes irrational) rules of the superego and the selfish demands of the id. In Transactional Analysis, the Parent, Adult and Child roughly correspond to the Superego, Ego and Id, respectively. However, the two systems are sufficiently disparate that the correspondence isn't very useful. The Freudian stages of development refer to those parts of the body which are, supposedly, the center of sexual pleasure as the organism matures. Oral, the first, refers to the child's need to suck at the breast. Anal refers to the adventures of toilet training. Latent refers to a period when Freud couldn't find much going on (-: . Phallic refers to the sexual fascination of puberty. Genital refers to the maturity of adulthood. Freudian analysts interpret neurotic behaviors as the result of an adult being "stuck" at one of the earlier stages of development. (E.g.: Misers are anal-retentives. Spend-thrifts are anal-expulsives. Gluttons are oral types. Etc.) I think that sums it up in a nutshell. I'm sure others will be happy to flame me if I'm far off the mark. -- The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, hollombe@TTI.COM) Illegitimati Nil Citicorp(+)TTI Carborundum 3100 Ocean Park Blvd. (213) 452-9191, x2483 Santa Monica, CA 90405 {csun|philabs|psivax|trwrb}!ttidca!hollombe