Editing Id, ego and superego (section)

== Ego ==
The ego acts according to the [[reality principle]]. It analyses complex perceptions (things, ideas, dreams), synthesises the appropriate parts into logically coherent interpretations (also [[Model|models]]) and rules the muscular apparatus. Since the id's drives are frequently incompatible with the moral prescriptions and religious illusions of contemporary cultures,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Freud |first1=Sigmund |title=Das Unbehagen in der Kultur}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Freud |first1=Sigmund |title=Die Zukunft einer Illusion}}</ref> the ego attempts to direct the libidinal energy and satisfy its demands in accordance with the imperatives of that reality.<ref name="Child Development">{{cite journal |last1=Noam |first1=Gil G. |last2=Hauser |first2=Stuart |last3=Santostefano |first3=Sebastiano |last4=Garrison |first4=William |last5=Jacobson |first5=Alan M. |last6=Powers |first6=Sally I. |last7=Mead |first7=Merrill |date=February 1984 |title=Ego Development and Psychopathology: A Study of Hospitalized Adolescents |journal=Child Development |publisher=[[Blackwell Publishing]] on behalf of the [[Society for Research in Child Development]] |volume=55 |issue=1 |pages=189–194 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-8624.1984.tb00283.x |pmid=6705621}}</ref> According to Freud the ego, in its role as mediator between the id and reality, is often "obliged to cloak the (unconscious) commands of the id with its own [[preconscious]] [[Rationalization (making excuses)|rationalizations]], to conceal the id's conflicts with reality, to profess...to be taking notice of reality even when the id has remained rigid and unyielding."<ref name="Freud, p. 110">Sigmund Freud (1933). p. 110</ref>

Originally, Freud used the word ego to mean the sense of self, but later expanded it to include psychic functions such as judgment, tolerance, [[reality testing]], control, planning, defense, synthesis of information, intellectual functioning, and memory. The ego is the organizing principle upon which thoughts and interpretations of the world are based.<ref name="Snowden">{{cite book|title=Teach Yourself Freud|last=Snowden|first=Ruth|publisher=[[McGraw-Hill]]|year=2006|isbn=978-0-07-147274-6|pages=105–107}}</ref>

According to Freud, "the ego is that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world ... The ego represents what may be called reason and common sense, in contrast to the id, which contains the passions. ... it is like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse; with this difference, that the rider tries to do so with his own strength while the ego uses borrowed forces."<ref>Freud,''The Ego and the Id'', ''On Metapsychology'' pp. 363–4.</ref> In fact, the ego is required to serve "three severe masters...the external world, the superego and the id."<ref name="Freud, p. 110"/> It seeks to find a balance between the natural drives of the id, the limitations imposed by reality, and the strictures of the superego. It is concerned with self-preservation: it strives to keep the id's instinctive needs within limits, adapted to reality and submissive to the superego.

Thus "driven by the id, confined by the superego, repulsed by reality" the ego struggles to bring about harmony among the competing forces. Consequently, it can easily be subject to "realistic anxiety regarding the external world, moral anxiety regarding the superego, and neurotic anxiety regarding the strength of the passions in the id."<ref>Sigmund Freud (1933). pp. 110–11.</ref> The ego may wish to serve the id, trying to gloss over the finer details of reality to minimize conflicts, while pretending to have a regard for reality. But the superego is constantly watching every one of the ego's moves and punishes it with feelings of [[guilt (emotion)|guilt]], [[anxiety (mood)|anxiety]], and inferiority.

To overcome this the ego employs [[defense mechanism]]s. Defense mechanisms reduce the tension and anxiety by disguising or transforming the impulses that are perceived as threatening.<ref name="Meyers">{{cite book |last=Meyers |first=David G. |author-link=David Myers (academic) |title=Psychology Eighth Edition in Modules |publisher=Worth Publishers |year=2007 |chapter=Module 44 The Psychoanalytic Perspective |isbn=978-0-7167-7927-8}}</ref> [[Denial]], [[Displacement (psychology)|displacement]], [[intellectualisation|intellectualization]], [[Fantasy (psychology)|fantasy]], [[Compensation (psychology)|compensation]], [[Psychological projection|projection]], [[Rationalization (making excuses)|rationalization]], [[reaction formation]], [[Regression (psychology)|regression]], [[Psychological repression|repression]], and [[Sublimation (psychology)|sublimation]] were the defense mechanisms Freud identified. His daughter [[Anna Freud]] identified the concepts of [[Undoing (psychology)|undoing]], [[Thought suppression|suppression]], [[dissociation (psychology)|dissociation]], [[Idealization and devaluation|idealization]], [[Identification (psychology)|identification]], [[introjection]], inversion, [[somatisation|somatization]], [[Splitting (psychology)|splitting]], and substitution.

[[File:Structural-Model1.png|thumb|right|200px|"The ego is not sharply separated from the id; its lower portion merges into it.... But the repressed merges into the id as well, and is merely a part of it. The repressed is only cut off sharply from the ego by the resistances of repression; it can communicate with the ego through the id." ([[Sigmund Freud]], 1923)]]In a diagram of the Structural and Topographical Models of Mind, the ego is depicted as being half in the conscious, a quarter in the [[preconscious]], and the other quarter in the [[Unconscious mind|unconscious]].