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The Ego and the Id (The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud) | 
 enlarge | Authors: Sigmund Freud, James Strachey
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
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Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 19982
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 86
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.2 x 0.4
ISBN: 0393001423
Dewey Decimal Number: 150.1952
EAN: 9780393001426
ASIN: 0393001423
Publication Date: April 1962
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Product Description
In 1923, in this volume, Freud worked out important implications of the structural theory of mind that he had first set forth three years earlier in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. The Ego and the Id ranks high among the works of Freud's later years. The heart of his concern is the ego, which he sees battling with three forces: the id, the super-ego, and the outside world.
Of the various English translations of Freud's major works to appear in his lifetime, only one was authorized by Freud himself: The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud under the general editorship of James Strachey. Freud approved the overall editorial plan, specific renderings of key words and phrases, and the addition of valuable notes, from bibliographical and explanatory. Many of the translations were done by Strachey himself; the rest were prepared under his supervision. The result was to place the Standard Edition in a position of unquestioned supremacy over all other existing versions.
Newly designed in a uniform format, each new paperback in the Standard Edition opens with a biographical essay on Freud's life and work—along with a note on the individual volume—by Peter Gay, Sterling Professor of History at Yale.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 A Great Disappointment March 7, 2008
Timothy Robinson
I greatly admire Freud, and I have greatly benefited from psychotherapy. But however great his ideas, his writing is ABYSMAL. He writes like a philosopher who has never met a patient. He'd rather write four pages of abstract theory than a single paragraph of concrete example.
We all owe a mighty debt to those disciples who presented his work in a way that others could understand.
 The Ego and the Id September 6, 2007
Ericka M. Ball
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The book was delivered to me complete and in the condition that it was sold to me in. I would recommend and use this seller for future transactions.
Understand the self March 31, 2007
Michael A Neulander (VA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This was required reading for a graduate course in the Humanities. In 1923, Freud introduced new terms in his book "The Ego and the Id," to describe the division between the conscious and unconscious: 'id,' 'ego,' and 'super-ego.' He thought these terms offered a more compelling description of the dynamic relations between the conscious and the unconscious. The "id" (fully unconscious) contains the drives and those things repressed by consciousness; the "ego" (mostly conscious) deals with external reality; and the "super ego" (partly conscious) is the conscience or the internal moral judge.
The id is the source of our drives and Freud considered it to be the reservoir of libido. 'The libido' or simply 'libido', is the form of energy cathected upon objects or an effect received from objects, predominantly sexual, which underlies all mental processes. Our drives (Freud had very theoretically specific "-drives" such as the death-drive, but drives can often be equated to 'instincts') surge forth from the id and apply libidinal energy to objects, which may result in aggressive or erotic attachments/actions upon chosen objects. The drives of the id are considered to be inborn, operating within the primary psychical processes (those of the unconscious) and are absolutely determined according to the pleasure principle. It is said that the id behaves as though it were unconscious, the reason thought to be is that our ego and our super-ego's ideals and pressures are often in conflict with the id's, causing repression, as the gratification of the id's drives would often be devastating in terms of social- and self-image. The word "id" is taken from the nominative single neuter Latin demonstrative pronoun (is, ea, id) meaning "it" or "that thing."
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, morals, and reality while satisfying the id and superego. 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 internalization of these morals, norms, and taboos. Although in his early writings Freud equated the ego with the sense of self, he later began to portray it more as a set of psychic functions such as reality-testing, defense, synthesis of information, intellectual functioning, and memory. 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. Ego is the English translation for Freud's German term "Das Ich."
Freud's theory says that the super-ego is a symbolic internalization of the father figure and cultural regulations. The super-ego tends to stand in opposition to the desires of the id because of their conflicting objectives, and is aggressive towards the ego. The super-ego acts as the conscience, maintaining our sense of morality and the prohibition of taboos. Its formation takes place during the dissolution of the Oedipus complex and is formed by an identification with and internalization of the father figure after the little boy cannot successfully hold the mother as a love-object out of fear of castration. "The super-ego retains the character of the father, while the more powerful the Oedipus complex was and the more rapidly it succumbed to repression (under the influence of authority, religious teaching, schooling and reading), the stricter will be the domination of the super-ego over the ego later on -- in the form of conscience or perhaps of an unconscious sense of guilt" (The Ego and the Id, 1923). In Sigmund Freud's work Civilization and Its Discontents (1930) he also discusses the concept of a "cultural super-ego". The concept of super-ego and the Oedipus complex is subject to criticism for its sexism. Women, who are considered to be already castrated, do not identify with the father, and therefore form a weak super-ego, apparently leaving them susceptible to immorality and sexual identity complications.
Recommended reading for anyone interested in history, psychology, philosophy.
Why we call him Freud August 18, 2006
A. Manniste (Montreal)
I started reading this again and I can't believe how fresh and relevant Freud remains. The text is clear and considering how much the world has changed it remains as useful as it always has been. I suppose that it is not an accident that his writings are the foundation of an entire discipline.
One of Freud's major models January 11, 2005
Shalom Freedman (Jerusalem,Israel)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This work presents one of Freud's major theoretical models for understanding human personality. The three- fold division into ego- id- super-ego in some sense parallels the three fold division in Plato's thought. For Freud the Id is the unconscious instinctual animal element in us. It is our ' drives our hungers our lusts, our sexual lust centrally. The ego is the social self, the construct with which we meet the world. It is our rational self, our self as we present ourselves to the world through. The superego is the conscience, the what we should be. For Freud it is the voice of others, and especially of our parents telling and teaching us the difference between right and wrong. As Freud understood these three aspects of self are in constant interaction, and the kind of personality we are is determined by which of these faculties is predominant.
It is possible to regard this theory as insight and useful and draw conclusions from it.Or it is possible to simply put it aside as one more human construction aimed at understanding what must be understood in many different ways.
The book is small but not easy to read. A great mind is at work making order out of the minds of all of us. Whether he succeeds for you , you alone must judge.
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