Sigmund Freud developed, over the course of his work, various theories about the causes of psychic problems and the make-up of the human psyche. Among his best-known is the idea that the soul of a person is divided into three parts: the id, the ego and the super-ego. The id stands for the pleasure principle and for human drives — in a newborn, who simply cries when hungry or in pain, the id is still dominant. Later the id comes to include unconscious wishes and feelings too: jealousy, envy, love and hate.
The opposite. The stark opposite of this is the super-ego: Freud understood by it a kind of controller keeping the id in check. It consists of instilled guidelines, moral values and conscience. As children grow up, the super-ego forms ever more strongly. The super-ego, too, is in a sense unconscious. Between these two opposing parts of the soul stands the ego, which must constantly mediate between id and super-ego. The ego is our conscious personality, which thinks, feels and remembers. Freud's idea was that conflicts constantly arise between these three parts of the psyche, and that most psychic problems can be explained by them.
The ego. “The ego,” Freud writes in 1923, “is first and foremost a bodily ego; it is not merely a surface entity, but is itself the projection of a surface.”
Curated by Dr Edith Risse. In this series of works the artist C.F.J. König attempts to give these theories a face — with great success.