The Id, Ego and Super Ego

[truth]

The Id, Ego and Super Ego have been much facination for humans since Freud coined the terms. We have very little understanding about human motivations. I myself think in some ways I still do not have the full grasp, however, " I think threfore I am." Anyway, the Id is based upon the pleasure principle. And for mere amusement, will make her feminine. She is primarly concerned with pleasure. I want.. I want.. I want. Libido, what a monster. We can relate the her to a Child she seeks pleasure at all costs. Like a baby. Feed me.. hold me...change me. Is this where our unconscious desires may play out. :yim_rolling_on_the_

The Ego works on the reality priciple. Once she kicks in you have faced reality. Now you are not controlled by your instinctial urges as you were in the Id stage but you are more "realistic" now. A balancing act between I can not have everything I want, when I want it. We would relate her to the Adult. She plays the equalizer between the ID and Super Ego. She is reasponsible, logical, effective. Yet, sometimes boring and grounded.

Now the Super Ego is the moral self. She is the determinant of right and wrong of personality. She basically can be seen as the Parent. The Supe Ego holds on to the principles formed through society and parents.The Super Ego gives us rules and standards for good behavior. The super Ego can be too Rigid

The Id Ego and Super ego are always at odds to create a balanced personality(ego strength).



Ego Strength relates to the ego's ability to function despite these dueling forces. A person with good ego strength is able to effectively manage these pressures while those with too much or too little ego strength can become too unyielding or too disruptive (rigid).

Tell us about your ego strength. Are you balanced or not? Why or why not?

 

[elfinchilde]

As my nick suggests, I'm too much of a child.

you just see the world with so different eyes this way, in so much more colour; it's freer, and less judgmental.

on the negative side, may be too destructive at times: petulance, temperamental, a good old-fashioned intp refusal to conform to social norms.

and i have GOT to get to sleep. argh. (see. this is the petulant child in me being controlled by the mature ego/super ego now. hehe.)

 

[Totenkindly]

I find the paradigm very useful for some people, where the three aspects are more pronounced.

To make it even more simple:

ID = impulses and desires
Superego = conscience
Ego = mediator between id and superego

When the ID dominates, the person can become hedonistic and impulsive, self-indulgent. When the superego dominates, the person is very restricted and confined in behavior, also very judgmental.

As far as my own personality goes, it is slowly coming back into balance, but my pathway was:

1. Normal amount of ID.
2. Towering Superego
3. Superego constantly crushed the ID.
4. Superego constantly overruled the ego, kept it an infant.
5. Ego remained undefined, weak, puny, ineffective, the superego was the totalitarian master (I never really knew what I wanted to do, I just knew what I *had* to do, and going outside of that caused terrible anxiety)
6. Finally the superego began to relinquish control, realizing that if the ego did not survive, then all of me would die. (In a sense I *am* my ego -- that sense of how I balance/mediate impulses with conscience.)
7. This meant acknowledgment of the ID and indulgence of some impulses... but the ego would have to make those decisions.
8. My ego is an older child, almost adolescent by now. The Superego still gripes a lot and brings up shame and doubt but otherwise holds off, and the ego is getting more confident to keep it in its place.

 

[RDF]

Anyway, the Id is based upon the pleasure principle. And for mere amusement, will make her feminine. She is primarly concerned with pleasure. I want.. I want.. I want. Libido, what a monster. We can relate the her to a Child she seeks pleasure at all costs. Like a baby. Feed me.. hold me...change me. Is this where our unconscious desires may play out.

I would say that the Id has a bit more punch than that. The Id is a screaming two-year-old throwing a temper tantrum. It's all the things we have to deny in ourselves if we want to have civilization. Two-year-olds are all about immediate gratification; civilization is all about delayed gratification.

But other than that, I think everything else is on the mark.

The following is a tangent, using some stuff I posted in another thread:

I was playing around with functions and how they reflect the structure of the brain. I interpreted J and P functions operating in tangent to create a closed loop. Here's what I came up with:

Dominant & Auxiliary = Ego

Tertiary & Inferior = Superego

Shadow Dominant & Shadow Auxiliary = Wounded Ego

Shadow Tertiary & Shadow Inferior = Id

Id and Superego are basically early developmental stages from our childhood. Eventually they were kicked into our unconscious as something we didn't really want to face. But in even in our early childhood we were already playing around with our functions at those early stages, so some functions get tied up with those childhood developmental stages, albeit in an infantile form.

I think that when we get increasingly wounded or stressed, we regress back to earlier developmental stages; hence, a certain infantile, inappropriate aspect to emotions like anger, fear, etc. We revisit those infantile developmental stages, and in doing so we revisit the functions associated with them in their infantile form.

Hence, as an adult INFP, I can play around with my Tertiary function (Te) and develop it in a healthy form. But when I get very stressed I'll slip back to a developmental stage when my Superego was being formed, and I'll function (temporarily) in an infantile Te & Si loop - bullying (stressed-Te) and fixating on petty details (stressed Si).

We also project our infantile stages onto others. If I'm feeling wounded (but not yet into full stressed-out mode), I'll project my infantile stressed-Te out onto the world around me and see myself surrounded and beset by Te bullies.

Thus, I have adult functions (unstressed-Te), on one hand, and stressed functions hiding in my unconscious from earlier developmental stages (stressed-Te & stressed-Si) on the other. Developing unstressed Te doesn't necessarily defuse stressed-Te, though it does help me to better recognize when I'm getting too stressed and starting to regress back to stressed-Te & stressed-Si.

Anyway, that's just some tangential stuff I've been playing with: We have these earlier developmental stages still within us, and we revisit them at times. But they have a certain amount of power--they're not necessarily fun things to play with. In traditional Freudian psychology, they're at the base of neuroses and psychoses. If they're too powerful and erupt into our conscious unbidden or if they bind our conscious ego too closely and prohibit it to act, we go a bit nuts.

Sooner or later I have to type up my notes on this subject. Maybe I'll post them at some later date if anyone is interested in tying together MBTI and these Freudian childhood developmental stages.

 

[Athenian200]

This is something I've thought about before. I would say that in my case, the Ego seems stronger than the Super Ego most of the time (not sure about the Id). My Super Ego can be strong at times if other people may be assessing my actions and I know their opinion impacts me somehow, but I don't think I really internalize it much. I think it's more something I hold in mind when interacting with others.

The interesting thing is, I can have a tendency to be rigid/moralistic (superego traits), but I'm mostly rigid against people believing in and advocating perspectives that disgust me. Usually this is a problem for me because I feel like they're trying to impose a belief or set of values that I don't want, and that I can't see the value in. Possibly even one that I feel personally invalidated by. So I think mostly use my superego as a rationalization/defense mechanism against other people's values rather than internalizing it or making it part of myself... does that make sense?

 

[RDF]

The interesting thing is, I can have a tendency to be rigid/moralistic (superego traits), but I'm mostly rigid against people believing in and advocating perspectives that disgust me. Usually this is a problem for me because I feel like they're trying to impose a belief or set of values that I don't want, and that I can't see the value in. Possibly even one that I feel personally invalidated by. So I think mostly use my superego as a rationalization/defense mechanism rather than internalizing it or making it part of myself... does that make sense?

In traditional Freudian use of these concepts:

1) You hear someone advocating something;

2) Your Id perks up and says, "Yes! I want that! Now! Give it to me!";

3) Your Superego registers the Id getting excited and says to the Id, "You're a disgusting little creep. You know that Mom and Dad told you that you can't do/have that";

4) Having beat down the Id, the Superego takes over your conscious aspect (your conscious Ego registers the Id/Superego conflict as anxiety and stress, and you regress to full Superego mode), and it tells the person talking: "You can't talk about that! Everyone knows it's disgusting!"

5) Once the Superego tells off the other person or removes you from the source of the problem, the Id goes back to sleep, the Superego goes back to sleep, the stress level goes down, and the Ego can re-assert itself in unstressed (normal) fashion.

That's basically how it works in traditional Freudian use of these concepts.

[Edit:] The actually feeling or emotion of disgust is your expression of your anxiety. IOW, disgust isn't a property of the subject matter; it's the sensation that arises from your unconscious when your Id and Superego go into full conflict.

 

[Athenian200]

In traditional Freudian use of these concepts:

1) You hear someone advocating something;

2) Your Id perks up and says, "Yes! I want that! Now! Give it to me!";

3) Your Superego registers the Id getting excited and says to the Id, "You're a disgusting little creep. You know you that Mom and Dad told you that you can't do/have that";

4) Having beat down the Id, the Superego takes over your conscious aspect (your conscious Ego registers the Id/Superego conflict as anxiety and stress, and you regress to full Superego mode), and it tells the person talking: "You can't talk about that! Everyone knows it's disgusting!"

5) Once the Superego tells off the other person or removes you from the source of the problem, the Id goes back to sleep, the Superego goes back to sleep, the stress level goes down, and the Ego can re-assert itself in unstressed (normal) fashion.

That's basically how it works in traditional Freudian use of these concepts.

I don't know if I agree with that for all situations. What if you feel that what's being advocated negatively affects you personally? For instance, a taxpayer protesting against someone who advocates higher taxes.

 

[Athenian200]

[Edit:] The actually feeling or emotion of disgust is your expression of your anxiety. IOW, disgust isn't a property of the subject matter; it's the sensation that arises from your unconscious when your Id and Superego go into full conflict.

So what you're saying is that disgust/opposition is never mine, just a superego construct? So I don't really get to "not want" something or some situation, even if it seems undesirable or even harmful consciously?

Wow. Do I even get to have a will, or does it just seem that way based on how my conscious elements interact with the unconscious ones? I'll probably repress this eventually because if I think about it too much, it would probably make it harder to live, thus it will be pushed away from consciousness...

 

[RDF]

I don't know if I agree with that for all situations. What if you feel that what's being advocated negatively affects you personally? For instance, a taxpayer protesting against someone who advocates higher taxes.

1) Initially, you'll handle that discussion as a purely intellectual matter: Your Ego will remain in command, your Id is too infantile to be bothered by such a lofty subject and thus ignores the discussion, and since your Id remains quiet so does your Superego;

2) But after arguing with the other party for a while, you become frustrated when the other party remains adamant in their view. You start feeling wounded and hurt that the other party won't listen to you, and you regress to a more infantile Wounded Ego stage where you process the situation through a stressed-Ne + stressed-Fi loop (in the case of INFJs); you project stressed-Ti onto the other person and see him as negating/ridiculing you.

3) And so on. As you continue arguing, you continue to regress to more and more infantile states. You also project more and more infantile aspects onto the other party. Pretty quickly, this wakes up the Id; that is, the other party comes to appear more and more threatening, and your basic infantile fear and anger modes come out. So the Id wakes up and starts screaming "Kill the bastard! He has no right to treat me like this! Rip his guts out!"

4) And of course this wakes up the Superego and starts another Id/Superego conflict as described above.

Anyway, the point is this: It's not the subject of the discussion that gets you riled up (other than intellectually). The thing that gets you riled up is your emotional frustration that the other party isn't hearing you. In the case of INFJs, you tend to project that as the other party negating or even ridiculing you, and that starts off a regression to more infantile emotional states.

 

[RDF]

So what you're saying is that disgust/opposition is never mine, just a superego construct? So I don't really get to "not want" something or some situation, even if it seems undesirable or even harmful consciously?

Wow. Do I even have a will, or does it just seem that way based on how my conscious elements interact with the unconscious ones?

See my last post where I described the intellectual debate.

You can intellectually like or dislike something and make your own choices about what you want or don't want. But as soon as you begin to get emotional about the debate (i.e., experiencing frustration that the other party doesn't seem to be hearing you), then inevitably your reactions are going to become increasingly emotionally tinged.

So if you want to avoid a lot of emotional distress, keep things cool and intellectual. Take a break when you feel yourself start getting distressed and irritated. Don't go into places like disgust and frustration and anger if you want to make a purely intellectual point.

 

[INTJMom]

...
Ego Strength relates to the ego's ability to function despite these dueling forces. A person with good ego strength is able to effectively manage these pressures while those with too much or too little ego strength can become too unyielding or too disruptive (rigid).

Tell us about your ego strength. Are you balanced or not? Why or why not?

I find the paradigm very useful for some people, where the three aspects are more pronounced.

To make it even more simple:

ID = impulses and desires
Superego = conscience
Ego = mediator between id and superego

When the ID dominates, the person can become hedonistic and impulsive, self-indulgent. When the superego dominates, the person is very restricted and confined in behavior, also very judgmental.

...

I've heard these terms before but never knew what they meant.
It's interesting to finally find out what they mean.
I think I've had an overdose of "reality" and no longer have the ability to hope or dream.
My "ID" has been squelched by the disappointments of "real life",
so I would think I'm not balanced.

 

[Athenian200]

See my last post where I described the intellectual debate.

You can intellectually like or dislike something and make your own choices about what you want or don't want. But as soon as you begin to get emotional about the debate (i.e., experiencing frustration that the other party doesn't seem to be hearing you), then inevitably your reactions are going to become increasingly emotionally tinged.

Oh, yes... I think that's what irritates me most when I get mad. I feel like I'm making perfect sense, and they're just being oblivious or basing their decisions on values I don't agree with, and thus trying to impose those values/beliefs on me, and those values/beliefs seem disagreeable to me because they don't mesh with how I see reality. And when they keep insisting, it just feels like they're trying to impose their will on me, and make their belief (which I've rejected) apply to me when I don't think it should. So I counter by trying to apply something I know is equally uncomfortable to them.

How would that reaction be described?

 

[miss fortune]

my roommates a few years ago and I had a running joke that we were all three parts of Frued's psyche- I was the Id, the ESTJ was the ego and the ENTJ (a very sanctimonious ENTJ ) was the superego!

I'd say that I have a strong Id and a dreadfully annoying Super Ego that occasionally pops up and reminds me "be nice- wouldn't you be unhappy if someone did that to you?" occasionally when I'm set out to do something especially wicked ...... damn superego, always ruining all of the fun ... I'm stuck between the child and parent with a lesser adult lurking around not caring somewhere

 

[RDF]

Oh, yes... I think that's what irritates me most when I get mad. I feel like I'm making perfect sense, and they're just being oblivious or basing their decisions on values I don't agree with, and thus trying to impose those values/beliefs on me, and those values/beliefs seem disagreeable to me because they don't mesh with how I see reality. And when they keep insisting, it just feels like they're trying to impose their will on me, and make their belief (which I've rejected) apply to me when I don't think it should. So I counter by trying to apply something I know is equally uncomfortable to them.

How would that reaction be described?

Let me get back to you on that. I'll detail how an INFJ would presumably regress and get emotional in a debate using infantile MBTI functions. But it will take a few minutes to write up.

 

[Totenkindly]

my roommates a few years ago and I had a running joke that we were all three parts of Frued's psyche- I was the Id, the ESTJ was the ego and the ENTJ (a very sanctimonious ENTJ ) was the superego!

A memory that has stuck with me was when a friend in high school came up to me and said they talked about me in Intro to Psych class that day -- they were discussing the superego. I still didn't know why he said it, he was not particularly interested in psych at all or too people-astute... but he was right, and I wonder how obvious it was to other observers.

I'd say that I have a strong Id and a dreadfully annoying Super Ego that occasionally pops up and reminds me "be nice- wouldn't you be unhappy if someone did that to you?" occasionally when I'm set out to do something especially wicked ...... damn superego, always ruining all of the fun ...

hee... yup. We is the Boot Stomping On Your Head.

(it's a dirty job but someone has to do it!)

honestly i'd trade u for a day if I could... but i doubt you'd want to.

 

[RDF]

Oh, yes... I think that's what irritates me most when I get mad. I feel like I'm making perfect sense, and they're just being oblivious or basing their decisions on values I don't agree with, and thus trying to impose those values/beliefs on me, and those values/beliefs seem disagreeable to me because they don't mesh with how I see reality. And when they keep insisting, it just feels like they're trying to impose their will on me, and make their belief (which I've rejected) apply to me when I don't think it should.

How would that reaction be described?

As I see it (using my ideas about MBTI functions as Ego/Superego/Id):

1) As an INFJ, if you are in a debate and you don't seem to be making any headway, you'll get frustrated and regress to Wounded Ego mode. This is the stage where you feel frustrated, worn down, and feeling kind of intellectually/emotionally wounded that the other person is treating you so unfairly. In Wounded Ego mode:

A) You project your own Tertiary and Inferior (stressed-Se and stressed-Ti) onto your opponent. That is, in Wounded Ego mode you have a tendency to see all opponents as doing one certain thing and playing one certain role: "He is just trying to overwhelm me with his viewpoint and won't even hear mine" (stressed-Se), and "He has totally negated me, thereby ridiculing me" (stressed-Ti).

B) Still in Wounded Ego mode, and having projected such an unlikable picture of your opponent in your head, you yourself increasingly process all his arguments through your own Shadow Dominant and Shadow Auxiliary (stressed-Ne and stressed-Fi). IOW, you will say, "Since he is just trying to overwhelm me, this debate is a waste of time" (stressed-Ne), and "Since he is totally negating/ridiculing me, I feel shamed by him" (stressed-Fi).

2) If you continue the debate, you will regress to the next mode: Superego mode. This is the place where you get insistent and bossy. In this mode, you are actually projecting your own Id onto him and acting out your own Superego (IOW, you are playing the role of bullying Superego chastising the rebellious Id):

A) You project your own Shadow Tertiary and Shadow Inferior (stressed-Si and stressed-Te) onto your opponent and say: "He is obsessed/fixated on a few small points and is unable even to hear me" (stressed-Si), and "He is bullying me" (stressed-Te).

B) Still in Superego mode, and having projected such an unlikable picture of your opponent in your head, you yourself increasingly process all his arguments through your own Tertiary and Inferior (stressed-Se and stressed-Ti). IOW, you will say, "Since he is fixated on his own point, I'm going to try to overwhelm him with my viewpoint" (stressed-Se), and "Since he is bullying me, I'm going to negate him and thereby ridicule him" (stressed-Ti).

3) If Superego mode doesn't have an effect, you are going to regress to your own Id. This is where you blow up and break relations with him entirely. You process him and the world through Shadow Tertiary and Shadow Inferior (stressed-Si and stressed-Te) and say, "I will obsess and fixate on petty details about him and his argument" (stressed-Si), and "I am going to bully him." (stressed-Te).

And that is pretty much the end of the debate.

There is a lot going on there. At each stage, you are projecting an J-P loop onto him, and you are processing his arguments through another J-P loop of your own. That's a lot of different functions in play. But that's what makes emotional arguments (and emotions themselves) such a muddle.

I'm married to an INFP like me, so I've been watching how my wife and I interact when conflicts arise: How we see each other, how we hear each other. I've been trying to pull apart the various "stressed functions" and see them as separate entities. Here are the separate functions that I described above for you as an INFJ:

Stressed-Se: Overwhelm/have a tantrum
Stressed Ti: Negating/ridiculing

Stressed-Ne: Get stuck in a rut
Stressed-Fi: Use shame

Stressed-Si: See everything through tunnel vision, obsess/fixate
Stressed-Te: Bully

Each J works in tandem with one P as a closed loop. And as you regress to each stage, you see your opponent through one standard J-P template and react to your opponent through another standard J-P template (reflecting the conflicts you had with your parents at that developmental stage). It's standard Freudian philosophy: The conflicts we have in our developmental years become templates for how we deal with conflict in our adult years.

Of course, a lot of this is guesswork. I'm mainly extrapolating from my wife and me (both INFPs). The definitions of some of these stressed-functions could probably be tightened up*. But I've done some debating with argumentative, stressed-out INFJs in the past, and the picture seems pretty close.

Anyway, see how it works for you.

For purposes of personal development in the future, the main J-P loop to keep an eye on is the Superego mode. For INFJs, that's your Tertiary and Inferior (stressed-Se & stressed-Ti: "Overwhelm/have a tantrum" & "Negate/ridicule"). That's the one you're going to keep using when you get combative and start insisting on your point of view. It pops up a lot in most people, depending on their stress levels from one day to the next.

Developmentally speaking, your Superego mode is also the one that determines the profile of your Dominant/Auxiliary J-P loop (Ni & Fe). By mastering your Inferior (Se) in its healthy uses, you can broaden your Dominant considerably and also increasingly defuse your Superego mode when stressed and limit your abuse of infantile stressed-Se.

Standard disclaimer: IANAS. I'm just playing around with some ideas.

* [Edit: I should mention that I'm weak on stressed-Se & stressed-Ti in particular; they are Id functions for INFPs and don't pop up much for INFPs except in extreme circumstances. Being Superego functions for INFJs, you could probably define them better.]

 

[RDF]

As Of course, a lot of this is guesswork. I'm mainly extrapolating from my wife and me (both INFPs). The definitions of some of these stressed-functions could probably be tightened up.

One quick follow-up point.

The pattern of escalating regression can be derailed by a number of things. For example, I mentioned that I've drawn many of my descriptions of individual functions in part from my own interactions with my wife. I also mentioned that I'm a little unsure about the descriptions for stressed-Se & stressed-Ti functions. That's because they are Id functions for INFPs, and my wife and I don't go there with each other. (We work off that kind of irritation in other ways.)

Another way that things can get derailed is the phenomenon of "shutting down." The more avoidant personality types may never progress much beyond the "Wounded Ego" phase in debates and arguments, because they may shut down when conflict begins to arise.

But it's worth noting that the conflict isn't concluded by a shutdown. Those people are probably going to "churn" the details of the debate or argument using the stressed-J function of their Superego or Wounded Ego modes--possibly for days or even weeks--especially if they are not good at letting go of things. This represents getting stuck in a stressed-function mode, and it's why they say people shouldn't bottle up their emotions. You don't want to get stuck in that mode indefinitely.

My wife tends to shut down and engage in stressed-J "churning" of irritations for days and even weeks. It's almost hilarious when she finally brings the issues back up days or weeks later--the details or arguments have morphed into something rather more paranoid (reflecting a long period of "tunnel-vision" stressed-Si churning). In the meantime, while she's bottling up her mood, she's not a happy camper. She is effectively fluctuating between Wounded Ego and Superego mode in all her daily affairs for that period of time.

To sum up, I just wanted to point out that there are variations on the basic pattern. For example, the more avoidant types may claim that they shut down rather than regressing to more infantile modes. But in fact, they are often just bottling their regressive reactions and "churning" in stressed-J mode for a period of time afterward. And they'll tend to have a higher stress level in all their daily affairs for that period, showing a lot of Superego behavior toward the world around them. Typical "bottling-up" behavior, in other words.

[Edit:] Finally, let me distinguish between A) "shutting down" and B) "dropping it."

Ideally, one doesn't want to to get angry and regress. So it's fine to call a time-out or drop the argument, as long as you have the ability to drop it and move on. Ending the conflict and moving on is a perfectly healthy response, as long as you don't fume over the conflict indefinitely afterward.

Of course, the best and healthiest response is to have the tools to remain engaged in the conflict (because one can't always run from conflict every time) and defuse the conflict as one talks. Better "healthy" command of one's Tertiary and Inferior functions is the key to the latter part.

In my own individual case, as an INFP, the way to defuse conflict while staying engaged in the interaction is: Quit worrying about the other person's intentions (so that I stop projecting); use my "healthy" Tertiary (unstressed-Si) to hear what the person is saying--so I pay attention to the details of the argument and not get caught up in the mood or read malicious intent into the other person's words; and use my "healthy" Inferior (unstressed-Te) to frame my response--IOW, keep emotion out of my response and stick to a reasoned, reasonable clarification of my point.

That seems to help me a lot.