EGO

The Ego acts according to the reality principle; i.e.
it seeks to please the id’s drive in realistic ways
that will benefit in the long term rather than
bringing grief.[5]
"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)
The Ego comprises that organised part of the
personality structure that includes defensive,
perceptual, intellectual-cognitive, and executive
functions. Conscious awareness resides in the
ego, although not all of the operations of the ego
are conscious. The ego separates what is real. It
helps us to organise our thoughts and make
sense of them and the world around us.[1]
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 ... in its relation to the id 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 [Freud, The Ego
and the Id (1923)] ”
In Freud's theory, the ego mediates among the
id, the super-ego and the external world. Its task
is to find a balance between primitive drives and
reality (the Ego devoid of morality at this level)
while satisfying the id and super-ego. Its main
concern is with the individual's safety and allows
some of the id's desires to be expressed, but only
when consequences of these actions are
marginal. Ego defense mechanisms are often
used by the ego when id behavior conflicts with
reality and either society's morals, norms, and
taboos or the individual's expectations as a result
of the internalisation of these morals, norms, and
their taboos.
The word ego is taken directly from Latin, where
it is the nominative of the first person singular
personal pronoun and is translated as "I myself"
to express emphasis. The Latin term ego is used
in English to translate Freud's German term Das
Ich, which literally means "the I".
Ego development is known as the development
of multiple processes, cognitive function,
defenses, and interpersonal skills or to early
adolescence when ego processes are emerged.
[5]
In modern English, ego has many meanings. It
could mean one ’s self-esteem, an inflated sense
of self-worth, or in philosophical terms, one’s
self. However, according to Freud, the ego is the
part of the mind that contains the consciousness.
Originally, Freud used the word ego to mean a
sense of self, but later revised it to mean a set of
psychic functions such as judgment, tolerance,
reality-testing, control, planning, defense,
synthesis of information, intellectual functioning,
and memory.[1]
In a diagram of the Structural and Topographical
Models of Mind, the ego is depicted to be half in
the consciousness, while a quarter is in the
preconscious and the other quarter lies in the
unconscious.
When the ego is personified, it is like a slave to
three harsh masters: the id, the super-ego, and
the external world. It has to do its best to suit all
three, thus is constantly feeling hemmed by the
danger of causing discontent on two other sides.
It is said, however, that the ego seems to be
more loyal to the id, preferring to gloss over the
finer details of reality to minimize conflicts while
pretending to have a regard for reality. But the
super-ego is constantly watching every one of
the ego's moves and punishes it with feelings of
guilt, anxiety, and inferiority. To overcome this
the ego employs defense mechanisms. The
defense mechanisms are not done so directly or
consciously. They lessen the tension by covering
up our impulses that are threatening.[6]
Denial, displacement, intellectualisation, fantasy,
compensation, projection, rationalisation, reaction
formation, regression, repression, and
sublimation were the defense mechanisms Freud
identified. However, his daughter Anna Freud
clarified and identified the concepts of undoing,
suppression, dissociation, idealisation,
identification, introjection, inversion, somatisation,
splitting, and substitution.