A currant WIP I’m working on. A humorous look at how a 60 something is trying to remember why & how she knows people, yet shares no past with them. Throw in the fact her Father wanted a boy not a girl, her Mother works on a strict…need to know basis…..& a long lost friend comes back into her life. Anything could happen……….Enjoy M. XXX

“And tonight Matthew, I’m going to be……….. Sigmund Freud!” How amazing would that be? Quite the worst thing on earth for most of you, but for me, the best. To have the knowledge, the understanding to fully immerse myself in my mind. To ultimately find the key to unlocking all my repressed thoughts. To finally be in control of, not controlled by, my memories. 

This is a subject I return to over & over again, the repressed memories of my childhood. Why are they repressed? I have some pretty awful ones that I remember, so why is it that some of the nicer, more exciting ones are repressed? Is that in itself some kind of self-imposed moral punishment? Was I after all, the out of control, morally loose, disappointing daughter my mother made me out to be, or was I the stay at home, do nothing boring, misfit I remember being? Only by releasing my repressed memories will I ever know. Getting to them is proving hard. I believe that Freud was correct in his theories about our conscious & unconscious mind. How the unconscious protects the conscious by locking away painful memories until a time when the conscious mind can fully process them. I feel I am ready now, but I have still so much to do to reclaim these repressed memories. Much is debated about Freud’s theories of the conscious, preconscious & unconscious mind, maybe that is why it interests me so much, Freud’s theories can not be proved or disproved. I believe in fate as well. Our journey in life having been pre planned if you like, just waiting for us to mess it up. Fate, coincidence & The Freudian Slip have long walked hand in hand through my life. We all have a choice, to do or not to do something. We all try to do the right thing. Take the choice that will benefit us, but do the least harm. This is our id, ego & superego working in harmony as they should do. Occasionally things go awry. We choose to do something even though we know it to be wrong. Maybe we tell a small white lie to prevent the truth coming out & hurting others. We know we have done wrong by the way we feel. Even if the choice we made gave us pleasure at the time, excited us, afterwards we may feel humiliated, embarrassed, hurt, stupid, guilty, or any number of other negative emotions. Only by feeling like this do we recognise we have done wrong. Whether we choose to heed the warning & not repeat our actions is all down to how strong our self control is. How much we respect our ideal self.

Freud likened the three levels of mind to an iceberg. The top of the iceberg that you can see above the water represents the conscious mind. The part of the iceberg that is submerged below the water, but is still visible, is the preconscious. The bulk of the iceberg that lies unseen beneath the waterline represents the unconscious. 

The preconscious consists of anything that could potentially be brought into the conscious mind, from the unconscious.

The conscious mind contains all our thoughts, memories, feelings, & wishes that we’re aware of all the time, have mentally processed & can think and talk about rationally. This also includes our memory, which is not always part of consciousness but can be retrieved easily and brought into awareness.

The unconscious mind is a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories that are outside of our conscious awareness, that are unacceptable or unpleasant, that cause feelings of pain, anxiety, or conflict. These memories are considered too painful for us to deal with at the time, so are hidden away until a time we are able to deal with them. They quite often need triggers to bring them out of the unconscious to the conscious.

Now link into this the id, ego & superego

According to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, the id is the primitive and instinctive component of personality. Consisting of all the inherited components of personality present at birth, including the sex instinct – Eros & the aggressive death instinct – Thanatos. Id is the impulsive, unconscious part of  us which responds directly & immediately to basic urges, needs, and desires, chaotic & unreasonable, not affected by reality, logic or the everyday world, operating within the unconscious part of the mind, on the pleasure principle …..every wishful impulse should be satisfied immediately, regardless of the consequences. When the id achieves its demands, we experience pleasure when it is denied we experience ‘unpleasure’ or tension.

The ego tries to assist id in achieving pleasure, but in a way that does not offend to avoid negative consequences. It considers social realities, norms, etiquette and rules in deciding how to behave. Seeking pleasure & avoiding pain.  Although it also has no concept of right or wrong, it is rational, realistic, and orientated towards problem-solving. If a plan of action does not work, then it is thought through again until a solution is found. This reality testing enables the person to control their impulses and demonstrate self-control.

The superego incorporates the values and morals of society which are learned from one’s parents and others. It’s function is to control the id’s impulses, IPersuading it to turn to moralistic goals rather than simply realistic ones, to strive for perfection. Not exactly a killjoy, more an archangel to ids devil. Behavior which falls short of the moral standards of society may be punished by the superego through guilt. When we behave ‘properly’ we are rewarded by feeling proud. This is our ideal self. If a person’s ideal self is too high a standard, then whatever the person does will represent failure. The ideal self and conscience are largely determined in childhood from parental values and how we were brought up.

So:……..Id= instincts, ego=reality & superego= morality

Here we can see how all the bits of our mind fit together, with the help of Freud’s iceberg. How they try to work together to keep us on the straight & narrow.

So, just how have Eros & Thanatos been treating me lately? Has my ego been able to keep id & superego in check or has it all, as usual, gone spectacularly wrong?