Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory: Key Concepts Explained

Preconscious

The preconscious system is located between the unconscious and the conscious. Although its contents are not endowed with consciousness, it differs from the unconscious in the following ways:

• They have been forbidden passage to the conscience but have not been repelled by it through repression.
• Their representations are linked to language and operate with the laws of logic and language.

Although the information in memory would be in the area of the preconscious, some traces of certain experiences that have been subjected to repression are inscribed in the unconscious.

Conscious

Consciousness, for Freud, need not be characterized as coinciding with the consciousness of which philosophers and everyday speech speak. Freud seems to overlook how problematic this characterization is, especially for philosophers.

• Preconscious system
• Perception-consciousness system
• Unconscious system

Censorship

World

The Id

The id should be considered a first psychical expression, yet impersonal and instinctual. Its contents are presented in a strange, sometimes baffling way: an impulse, an occurrence, a fantasy, or a fear of anguish, as well as desire. It always appears as if from a dark world, chaotic and contradictory.

It is important to note that while all of the id is unconscious, only a part of the repressed contains elements having an innate and hereditary character. These components of the id are governed by the pleasure principle.

The Ego

The ego is the central instance and mediator within the psychic system, which is open to the world, representing the subject. Besides awareness, the ego has unconscious aspects.

The origin of the self is not entirely clear, nor to Freud himself. On one side, he chooses to give a physiological explanation, stating the ego is the result of an evolution from a separate part of the id as a result of contact with reality. On the other, from a more psychological perspective, we are told the self is the result of a long process in which parts of the body image in a field of relationships are increasingly organized through identifications and processes of symbolization.

The Superego

The superego is the critical agency of the psyche that is expressed by all prohibitions, laws, and norms of family and society in general. It focuses its mastery over the self, if necessary punishing it with a sense of guilt and disapproval when it tries to transgress the rules that have been internalized by the Oedipus complex.