Editing Id, ego and superego (section)

{{Short description|Psychological concepts by Sigmund Freud}}
{{Other uses|Ego (disambiguation)|ID (disambiguation)|Superego (disambiguation)}}
{{Use British English|date=January 2024}}
{{Psychoanalysis |Concepts}}

In [[psychoanalytic theory]], the '''id, ego and superego''' are three distinct, interacting agents in the [[psychic apparatus]], outlined in [[Sigmund Freud]]'s structural model of the [[Psyche (psychology)|psyche]]. The three agents are theoretical constructs that Freud employed to describe the basic structure of mental life as it was encountered in psychoanalytic practice. Freud himself used the [[German language|German]] terms ''das Es'', ''Ich'', and ''Über-Ich'', which literally translate as "the it", "I", and "over-I". The [[Latin]] terms id, ego and superego were chosen by his original translators and have remained in use. 

The structural model was introduced in Freud's essay ''[[Beyond the Pleasure Principle]]'' (1920) and further refined and formalised in later essays such as ''[[The Ego and the Id]]'' (1923). Freud developed the model in response to the perceived ambiguity of the terms "conscious" and "unconscious" in his earlier ''topographical'' model.<ref>''The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought'', Third Edition (1999) Allan Bullock and Stephen Trombley, Eds. pp. 256–257.</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Freud |first=Sigmund |url=https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Freud_Beyond_P_P.pdf |title=The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XVIII |publisher=The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis |year=1920–1922 |location=London |pages=51 |translator-last=Strachey |translator-first=James}}</ref>

Broadly speaking, the '''id''' is the organism's unconscious array of uncoordinated [[instinct]]ual needs, impulses and desires; the '''superego''' is the part of the psyche that has internalized social rules and norms, largely in response to parental demands and prohibitions in childhood; the '''ego''' is the integrative agent that directs activity based on mediation between the id's energies, the demands of external reality, and the moral and critical constraints of the superego. Freud compared the ego, in its relation to the id, to a man on horseback: the rider must harness and direct the superior energy of his mount, and at times allow for a practicable satisfaction of its urges. The ego is thus "in the habit of transforming the id's will into action, as if it were its own."<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Volume XIX (1923–26) ''The Ego and the Id and Other Works'' |last=Freud|first=Sigmund|publisher=Hogarth Press|others=Strachey, James., Freud, Anna, 1895–1982, Rothgeb, Carrie Lee, Richards, Angela., Scientific Literature Corporation.|year=1978|isbn=0701200677|location=London|pages=19|oclc=965512}}</ref>