Q.

Psychic triad

Ans : Sigmund Freud proposed a psychic triad to explain human mind, that is composed of 3
parts.

1. ID - Its a reservoir of instinct.

- Strives for immediate pleasure or based on pleasure principle.
- Present at birth.
- Resides in unconscious minds
- Eg. shameful experiences, violent motives, selfish needs, unacceptable sexual
desires etc

2. EGO
- Deals with reality or reality principle.
- Develops after birth, in 2nd to 6th month of life.
- Interacts with world to satisfy id’s demands.
- Concerned with memory and judgement.
- Resides in conscious and unconscious level.
- It expands with age and controls id impulses on a realistic level.
- It is a mediator between id and super ego, mediating id’s impulses and super
ego’s inhibitions.
- EGO GRATIFICATION- Ego will eventually allow the behaviour at
appropriate time and place.

3. SUPER EGO
- Based on moral principles.
- Develops at age of 5.
- It is a sense of right or wrong.
- It deals with prohibitions, regulations imposed by parents, authorities, society,
culture(ethics, morals)
- Produces feeling of shame and guilt.
- Strives for PERFECTION
- ( Child will fear judgements, authorities, parents and his conscience, and wont
fight for he fears his prestige, and morals)

The Iceberg Phenomenon

- Frued compared the human mind to an iceberg.

- The small part that is shown above the water is the conscious experience and the larger
base below the water level is the unconscious store house of impulses,passions and
inaccessible memories that affects thoughts and behaviours.
- The conscious mind is what one is aware of at any particular moment, present
perceptions, memories, thoughts and fantasies.
- Working closely with the conscious mind is what Freud called the preconscious mind or
available memory.
- Anything that can be easily made conscious like the memories one is not thinking at the
moment but can readily bring to mind.
- Unconsciousness is the source of our motivations and yet we are often driven to deny or
resist becoming conscious of certain motives.
- In the iceberg metaphor the entire id and part of both the superego and the ego are
submerged in the underwater portion representing the unconscious region of the psyche.
The remaining portions of the ego and superego are displayed above water in the
conscious region.