It could be said that by now there is no newspaper or magazine that does not deal with some topic concerning the human psyche and the various psychic and physical difficulties connected to our psychic structure. In order for the reader to better understand what he/she is reading and reflect with a critical and non-fideist sense, he must have at least basic information on the structures and their functions that are our psychic structure. It is for this reason that I want to give a brief summary of what is basic and indispensable information.

In psychology, while the Self identifies the person as a whole with respect to the environment, the Ego, inscribed in the Self, is an organized and relatively stable psychic structure, which perceives itself and enters into a relationship with external reality and with other people. (with their Ego), distinguishing them as “non-Ego”, generating one’s own awareness and of reality. In psychoanalysis the Ego is partially unconscious but also contains most of the conscious elements.

Sigmund Freud, father of psychoanalysis, believed that it is possible to divide the contents of the human mind in two different ways, called topical. The first one distinguishes unconscious, preconscious and consciousness, while the second one distinguishes between Id, ego and super-ego. In this division, the task of the ego is to mediate social drives and needs, represented by two other instances in conflict with each other (the Id and the Superego) and, precisely for this reason, it appears to be weak and only relatively stable. Consequently, this dimension becomes the proper seat of anguish, due to the triple danger to which the subject is exposed: the danger that looms from the external world, from the libido of the Id and from the rigor of the Superego.

The Id, according to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, is that intrapsychic instance that clearly expresses the character of objectivity, the impersonality of drive needs experienced as extraneous to the conscious part of the personality. The id is the territory of contrasting impulses and the continuous pressure incessantly aimed at satisfying the pleasure and egoistic needs of an erotic, aggressive and self-destructive nature that are the way in which human instincts have evolved. For Freud, one of the primary instincts and one of the primary sources of psychic energy is sexual. It is the most archaic intrapsychic instance of our mind where the laws of logic do not apply, there are no value judgments, the mechanisms of memory do not work to such an extent that the contents of this sphere are not changed over time. The id is identified in the unconscious whose contents – albeit latent – are decisive for the psychic activity of man.

In metapsychology linked to structural theory, the Id is not inferior to the Ego and has an extremely developed capacity for retention of memories and is able to store an enormous amount of repressed memories (especially childhood). Precisely for this reason, according to Freud, its activity can be the cause of neurosis, or disorders that arise from the conflict between conscious elements (Ego) and memories that the Super-ego does not want to recall.

Of the three intrapsychic instances (Id, Ego, Super-ego) it is the Super-ego (original German Über-Ich) according to Freudian theory, that originates from the internalization of codes of behavior (prohibitions, injunctions, value systems such as right/wrong; good/bad; pleasant/unpleasant) that the child acquires in the relationship with the parents first and then with other possible educators and represents a hypothetical ideal towards which the subject tends with his behavior, a series of mental processes, formed during childhood during the resolution of the Oedipus complex and which with tenacity and persistence condition him/her throughout life. On the one hand, it has a positive function, limiting human desires and impulses, on the other, it causes a continuous sense of oppression and non-fulfillment as the repressed memories, which reside in the unconscious, spontaneously tend to return to consciousness, but since they would be inconvenient for the psychic stability of the subject, the super-ego rejects them by opposing all possible resistances.

The Super-ego is indirectly observable when one does not perform an action that one would like to perform, even if there are no coercions that prevent it. The operating logic of this instance is one of absolute duty which aims to totally control the Id, to the point of systematically opposing it. This instance, according to Freud, is also the source of feelings such as shame, sense of guilt, anguish, fear of punishment.

The super-ego is also connected to the “ego ideal”, representative of the highest ethical and moral ideals that human beings cultivate in a sort of self-referential narcissism, whose character will be modeled on the subjects who have contributed to forming the Superego, first of all the parents and then later other figures who represent their continuum. It is a supernatural entity to which one appeals to appease one’s anxieties, inducing a permanent self-hypnotic illusory state in one’s mind. It represents the origin of the moral conscience, but not the moral conscience, which is formed through a long process of development and revision, of criticism and overcoming of the codes of behaviour internalized in the superego.

According to Freud, the child internalizes and constructs his/her Super-ego, relating to his/her parents and to the Super-ego messages that they express not only through language, but also through gestures, expressions and attitudes. 

The stages of construction of the super-ego are:

0-1 year: Maternal relationship, origin of the super-ego, early childhood;

2-3 years: Sphincter control;

3-5 years: Oedipal phase of second childhood, complete formation of the Super-ego;

5-10 years: Third childhood;

10-15 years: Pre-adolescence, towards the development of moral conscience.

Since what we call the Super-ego, the source of a continuous sense of oppression and non-fulfilment, was acquired from the parents and then introjected, it has become part of ourselves, which means that in fact we ourselves become the source of our sense of frustration, of oppression, of non-fulfilment. It is therefore necessary to understand and accept that the codes of behaviour introjected in childhood are the best expression of what parents have been able to offer of what they themselves had acquired from their own parents and from their life experiences and that in no way depended on the characteristics of their child, because by making peace with our parents we will make peace with the contents of the Super-ego and therefore with ourselves and, finally, we will be able to free ourselves from our feelings of insufficiency and guilt, which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to reach our goals and the full expression of our human potential.