The Ego and the Id (The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud)

by Sigmund Freud

Book Overview

The Ego and the Id ranks high among the works of Freud's later years. The heart of his concern is the ego, which he sees battling with three forces: the id, the super-ego, and the outside world. Of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393001423
• Release Date: September 1990
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.27 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.4" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

Not happy

I would love to give a review; however, I was sent the wrong book. I'm very upset as I was looking forward to reading this book

One of Freud's major models

This work presents one of Freud's major theoretical models for understanding human personality. The three- fold division into ego- id- super-ego in some sense parallels the three fold division in Plato's thought. For Freud the Id is the unconscious instinctual animal element in us. It is our ' drives our hungers our lusts, our sexual lust centrally. The ego is the social self, the construct with which we meet the world. It is our rational self, our self as we present ourselves to the world through. The superego is the conscience, the what we should be. For Freud it is the voice of others, and especially of our parents telling and teaching us the difference between right and wrong. As Freud understood these three aspects of self are in constant interaction, and the kind of personality we are is determined by which of these faculties is predominant. It is possible to regard this theory as insight and useful and draw conclusions from it.Or it is possible to simply put it aside as one more human construction aimed at understanding what must be understood in many different ways. The book is small but not easy to read. A great mind is at work making order out of the minds of all of us. Whether he succeeds for you , you alone must judge.

A new terminology for things already known

Despite being a very small book, with good introduction and preface, this is not an easy book to read and in my opinion the more the reader is well acquainted with the evolution of Freud's terminology the better. In this regard The Interpretation of Dreams is a prior reading which will give substance for the later reading of The Ego and the Id. Some concepts already presented in earlier books are developed more soundly in this opus, despite some confusion between the terminology, a situation acknowledge by the editor and even by the author. The Ego and the Id was written in 1924 and, contrary to some earlier books by Freud which could be read by the lay person (" The Interpretation of Dreams" , "The Psychopathology of Every Day Life" , "Jokes and Their Relations with the Unconscious" , " Totem and Taboo" and many others), this one was not written for the non-scientific person, due to a lot of psychanalitical lingo he uses in the text and the difficulty faced in the conceptualization. Despite all this, I think it is an useful reading to everyone interested in the history and theory of psychanalisys. The figth between the Id (which equals the Unconscious plus some conscious departments), the Ego (mainly inputed by senses perception) and the Ideal Ego (or Super-ego), who represents a kind of moral agency who reviews and criticizes all the actions by the Ego, is of special beauty and are quintessential Freudian. A pretty much intereting reading for anyone interested in the history of psychanalisys and in concepts already of working value.

Language Barrier

Sigmund Freud is not known for his easy-to-read writing style. Those that translated Freud's works have recently been under fire for being misleading or inaccurate. When I set out to read this book, I felt it neccessary to make as many notes neccesary and to dig beneath and between to bring out what Freud really meant by "ego" and "id." To my conclusion, the reason Freud is argued against so much is because of the confusion that surrounds his theories. The words "ego" and "id" are Greek, and we have carried them into the English language and then nominalized. By doing this our consciousness solidifies them as things within our brains. The word "ego" means "I" or "self". The word "id" means "non-I" or "non-self", or "it." We dont say "the I" when we refer to ourselves. But so often we say "the ego" as if to refer to a specific part or thing of our minds. The other confusion that adds to nominalization is then believing the rest of the book is about things in space. Yet, Freud specifically says, "The state of things which we have been describing can be respresented diagramatically, though it must be remarked that the form chosen has no pretensions to any special applicability, but is mere intended to serve for purposes of exposition (p. 18)." What Freud is saying is that in order to communicate clearly what is happening in ones psyche, or mind, there needs to be a working model of the psyche.That is to say, a model meaning a diagram with its parts that do not act as the psyche itself (or of reality), but shows what the psyche consists of. He does this by discerning that which is "descriptive," and that which is "dynamic." The descriptive only describes through language or imaginative use, while dynamic is more at the process that actually occurs.Now the model Freud eventually used as a diagram is not a very good model. In fact it is a bit unwieldy and clumsy and in the end served little purpose (later in he updated the model in 'New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis', 1933). Because Freud is the first to devise the model, it is primitive and modifications would be neccessary. Actually Freud seemed to have modeled what looks to be an ill-defined organ giving way to the idea that it functions like a heart would. While reading the book, I chose not to use the model he drew, but rather found it useful to create my own based on his descriptions of where things are in relation to each other. This does not mean I believe the model is a literal drawing of my mind or anyone elses, but rather a means in which we understand how one part of the psyche works with another. Similarly is Neil Bohr's model of the atom. He did not draw what he actually saw, he created a model only for communication purposes. When a group understands the parts, and the relationship of those parts, then you create a vernacular, or as Freud called it, a "shibboleth of psycho-analysis." Then we can clearly understand what we are talking about when referring to these parts. The bo

The begining for something new

I am only a college student and read this book for my own enlightenment. I loved reading Freud's theories about the ego and the id. This book consists of a brief introduction of Frued and his life, then goes on to present his work. The terms are also explained very well throughout the book. I definitly recomend this to anyone who is trying to enlighten themselves, or anyone who is interested in Frued's work or psychology at all.