system of psychoanalysis

The personality system of psychoanalysis dealt with the driving forces or energies that have been called instincts or urges for self-preservation, and creative forces were called libido. The death instincts were energies directed either inward toward self-destruction, or outward in aggression or hatred. Freud divided psychic mental life of the personality into id, ego, and superego. The id included sexual and aggressive instincts, no value judgments, and energies directed toward immediate satisfaction and tension reduction; it obeyed the pleasure principle. The ego, commonly known as reason or rationality, mediated between the id and the external world, holding under control the pleasure seeking demands of the id; it obeyed the reality principle. The superego—the conscience developed in early childhood—worked toward inhibiting the id completely, and toward actualizing the ego ideal to a state of perfection. The superego repressed the ‘‘internalized’’ community values and standards. Anxiety occurred whenever the ego became overburdened with the triple impact of the psychic energies of the pleasure-seeking id, the need to manipulate reality for tension reduction, and the perfectionistic superego.

References

Weiner, Irving B., and W. E. Craighead. 2010. The Corsini encyclopedia of psychology. 4th ed. Hoboken NJ: Wiley.