Sigmund Freud is the father of Psychoanalysis. He continued to modify his theory over a period of nearly half a century. Psychoanalysis focuses on the unconscious aspects of personality. According to Freud the human mind is like an iceberg. It is mostly hidden in the unconscious. He believed that the conscious level of the mind was similar to the tip of the iceberg which could be seen, but the unconscious was mysterious and was hidden. The unconscious also consists of aspects of personality of which a person is unaware. The conscious on the other hand is that which is within our awareness. The preconscious consists of that which is not in immediate awareness but is easily accessible.
In 1923 Freud described his constructs of the id, ego and the superego. The id is the most primitive part of our personality. It operates according to the pleasure principle and it simply seeks immediate gratification. Freud believed that every human had a life and death instinct. The life instinct is called eros while the death instinct is called thanatos. Both are integral parts of the id. And the energy for this mechanism is libido, a flowing, dynamic force.
The ego is different from the id as it is extremely objective. It operates according to the "reality principle" and deals with the demands of the environment. It regulates the flow of libido and keeps the id in check, thus acting as a "control center" of the personality. It is the superego which represents the values and standards of an individual's personality. It acts as an internal judge, it punishes the ego with feelings of guilt or it rewards, which lead to feelings of pride and heightened self esteem. The superego is a characteristic of the personality which strives for perfection. According to Freud, the disparity and development of the id, ego and the superego, determines an individuals behavior in a given situation,