Ego and IWhen I have thought of I, I have been influenced by the Western way of thinking.
When I was young, in thinking about something or studying, we relied only on the
Western method. It never crossed our minds to consider the Buddhist approach to
such matters. It may sound strange to Westerners, but this is the way it generally is
for Japanese.
During my student years, I read Freud with great interest. As I studied little by
little, I found that the original German word, which in English is translated as ego,
originally was written in Freud’s publications as ich. I was surprised. Freud describes
ich and es—that is, I and it (always translated as ego and id)—as separate elements
of oneself. If I and it are separable in such a way is it possible, for example, that while
I speak in the US, it is sleeping at my house in Japan? Ordinarily speaking, it never
happens that way. I and it are always together and the existence which includes both
we call ‘I.’
Yet with Freud, I as a whole was divided into two. It is worth remembering here
that Freud deliberately denominated half of the whole, the ich, or ‘ego.’ This Ich of
Freud’s probably is the same as the I of the modern individual and the I of Descartes’
‘I think; therefore I am.’ Freud’s contribution is that he clarified ego as always
threatened by the id, even though he used Ich to refer to only a part of the mind. By
this we realize how much he valued that part. Therefore, even though pointing out
the importance of the id, his oft-quoted phrase, ‘Where id was, there ego shall be’
(Freud 1964:80), indicates clearly that the main focus was on ich, on ego. In Europe
in Freud’s time, it was to be expected that such a powerful ‘I’ would build modern
European culture and extend it over the whole world. It is truly amazing that, in such
an environment, Jung, from early in his career, asserted the significance of Selbst (Self)
as opposed to Freud’s ich. When Freud’s work was translated into English, his ich
and es were given the Latin equivalents ‘ego’ and ‘id’. The merit of this usage was that
it became possible, when we human beings think about our own minds, to objectify
a great deal. By doing so, we are able to analyze the human mind. Analysis enables
us to know the dynamism and structure of the human mind. Various schools of depth
psychology have emerged as a result. The understanding of neurosis also has been
advanced. All this occurred as psychotherapy developed.
At the same time, this selection of terms for translation created various problems.
The Freudian psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim (1983) initially criticized the use of
Latin words as bringing psychoanalysis too close to the medical model, giving the
impression that analysts were observing the patient’s mind objectively. As a result,
psychoanalysis became broadly accepted in the United States. Only recently have the
problematical aspects of this orientation become noticeable. People seemed to forget
that psychoanalysis had begun with ich, self-analysis, and too much emphasis was
placed on trying to manipulate the patient. Such self-analysis is not a matter of
applying the laws of natural science. Unfortunately, the use of terms such as ego and
id caused people to mistake this psychology for a branch of natural science.
134 HAYAO KAWAI