Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionII. Psychodynamic
Theories- Freud: Psychoanalysis © The McGraw−Hill^33
Companies, 2009
the large entrance hall and the small reception room. This guard has two methods of
preventing undesirables from escaping from the entrance hall—either turn them
back at the door or throw out those people who earlier had clandestinely slipped into
the reception room. The effect in either case is the same; the menacing, disorderly
people are prevented from coming into view of an important guest who is seated at
the far end of the reception room behind a screen. The meaning of the analogy is ob-
vious. The people in the entrance hall represent unconscious images. The small re-
ception room is the preconscious and its inhabitants represent preconscious ideas.
People in the reception room (preconscious) may or may not come into view of the
important guest who, of course, represents the eye of consciousness. The doorkeeper
who guards the threshold between the two rooms is the primary censor that prevents
unconscious images from becoming preconscious and renders preconscious images
unconscious by throwing them back. The screen that guards the important guest is
the final censor, and it prevents many, but not all, preconscious elements from reach-
ing consciousness. The analogy is presented graphically in Figure 2.1.
Provinces of the Mind
For nearly 2 decades, Freud’s only model of the mind was the topographic one we
have just outlined, and his only portrayal of psychic strife was the conflict between
conscious and unconscious forces. Then, during the 1920s, Freud (1923/1961a) in-
troduced a three-part structural model. This division of the mind into three provinces
did not supplant the topographic model, but it helped Freud explain mental images
according to their functions or purposes.
To Freud, the most primitive part of the mind was das Es,or the “it,” which is
almost always translated into English as id;a second division was das Ich, or the “I,”
translated as ego;and a final province was das Uber-Ich,or the “over-I,” which is
rendered into English as superego.These provinces or regions have no territorial ex-
istence, of course, but are merely hypothetical constructs. They interact with the
three levels of mental life so that the ego cuts across the various topographic levels
and has conscious, preconscious, and unconscious components, whereas the super-
ego is both preconscious and unconscious and the id is completely unconscious. Fig-
ure 2.2 shows the relationship between the provinces of the mind and the levels of
mental life.
The Id
At the core of personality and completely unconscious is the psychical region called
the id, a term derived from the impersonal pronoun meaning “the it,” or the not-yet-
owned component of personality. The id has no contact with reality, yet it strives con-
stantly to reduce tension by satisfying basic desires. Because its sole function is to
seek pleasure, we say that the id serves the pleasure principle.
A newborn infant is the personification of an id unencumbered by restrictions
of ego and superego. The infant seeks gratification of needs without regard for what
is possible (that is, demands of the ego) or what is proper (that is, restraints of the
superego). Instead, it sucks when the nipple is either present or absent and gains
pleasure in either situation. Although the infant receives life-sustaining food only by
Chapter 2 Freud: Psychoanalysis 27