The Ego and the Id

But stop, how is that possible-What does it mean when we say ‘making something conscious’

hrough becoming connected with the word-presentations corresponding to it.’

e already know the point from which we have to start in this connection. We have said that consciousness is the surface of the mental apparatus; that is, we have ascribed it as a function to a system which is spatially the first one reached from the external world-and spatially not only in the functional sense but, on this occasion, also in the sense of anatomical dissection.

consciousness but also from other forms of effectiveness and activity. In analysis these trends which have been shut out stand in opposition to the ego, and the analysis is faced with the task of removing the resistances which the ego displays against concerning itself with the represse

From this ego proceed the repressions, too, by means of which it is sought to exclude certain trends in the mind not merely from

e have found-that is, we have been obliged to assume-that very powerful mental processes or ideas exist (and here a quantitative or economic factor comes into question for the first time) which can produce all the effects in mental life that ordinary ideas do (including effects that can in their turn become conscious

dread of castration is probably the nucleus round which the subsequent fear of conscience has gathered

Psychoanalysis is an instrument to enable the ego to achieve a progressive conquest of the id.

After sublimation the erotic component no longer has the power to bind the whole of the destructiveness that was combined with it, and this is released in the form of an inclination to aggression and destruction

is remarkable that the more a man checks his aggressiveness towards the exterior the more severe-that is aggressive-he becomes in his ego ideal.