Hello my name is Sigmund Freud and once
again your instructor Pat Johnson can't be here
so she asked me to come and talk about a
very important part of my theory -- the
structure of the mind. We're going to be
focusing on id,
the ego and the super ego. Now many
of you have heard of these terms. They
still are part of everyday language
even though I died many many many years
ago.
Recall this picture-- it is my depiction
of the personality -- the structure of
the mind as an iceberg floating in a sea.  
With three levels of consciousness.  So here above the
surface is the conscious. Right below the
surface the pre-conscious, and then
buried deep beneath is the unconscious-- the
most important part of your personality.
The three structions, as I said,  are the
id, the ego and superego.   And here,
buried deep beneath the surface in the
unconscious is the id.  So let's start with the id.
The id is a very important part of your
mind.  It is all that unconscious
psychic energy, that, according to me, Freud, 
strives to satisfy basic sexual and
aggressive drives.  So these are the two most important drives
sexual and aggressive urges.
The id, this part of your personality,
operates on the pleasure principle.  It is
always seeking pleasure immediately.  It
demands immediate gratification.
If you are thirsty your id would say, I want to drink.  I want to drink right now. If you
are angry your id would say, take your
aggression out on somebody who angers
you.  Beat them up. If you are feeling 
frisky, your id would say, WOO-HOO. Right here. Right now.
It wants immediate gratification. The
next part of your personality -- part of your
mind, is the super ego and this part of
your personality represents your
conscience.  In other words, your
internalized ideals.  They provide
standards for judgment and future goals.
So the super ego spanning all three levels of
conscious, pre-conscious and unconscious lives
by the moral principle.   And the moral
principle says, do what's right. In other
words,  satisfy all that is in your
conscience,  all those shoulds and
those shouldn'ts.
As you can imagine, somebody would have
quite the stress between their super ego
and their id.  There would always be a
war going on.  Should I have immediate
gratification of all my drives and urges or should
I be doing what's right,
doing what my conscience says.
And so this is the job of the ego.  The ego,
which is largely conscious, balances the
demands of the id, the  super ego and
reality.  So the ego operates on the
reality principle.  So if you are feeling
hungry the ego would say yes you can
have something to eat,  but it should be healthy, it
should be nutritious for you,  which would
meet the demands of me super ego.  So
it seeks pleasure rather than pain but it
seeks to satisfy those rules of society,
while also fulfilling the basic demands.
So here you can see inside your
personality,  there is the id which lives
by the pleasure principle, always wanting
to be satisfied, and then on the right is
the super ego which has the halo trying
to do what's right.  Live by the
moral principle.  And here's your ego
caught between trying to satisfy both the
drives of the id and the demands of the
super ego.
