The Ego and the Id by Sigmund Freud
In what is considered one of his most prominent ideas, Austrian psychiatrist, Sigmund Freud explains the dynamic of the human psyche in terms of the roles and conflicts produced by the id, ego, and super-ego. Freud suggests that all human behaviors and traits, including personality disorders, are created by the complex conflicts and workings of these three components of human personality.
Despite being a very small book, with good introduction and preface, this is not an easy book to read and in my opinion the more the reader is well acquainted with the evolution of Freud's terminology the better. In this regard The Interpretation of Dreams is a prior reading which will give substance for the later reading of The Ego and the Id.
Some concepts already presented in earlier books are developed more soundly in this opus, despite some confusion between the terminology, a situation acknowledge by the editor and even by the author.
The Ego and the Id was written in 1924 and, contrary to some earlier books by Freud which could be read by the lay person (" The Interpretation of Dreams" , "The Psychopathology of Every Day Life" , "Jokes and Their Relations with the Unconscious" , " Totem and Taboo" and many others), this one was not written for the non-scientific person, due to a lot of psychanalitical lingo he uses in the text and the difficulty faced in the conceptualization.
Despite all this, I think it is an useful reading to everyone interested in the history and theory of psychanalisys. The figth between the Id (which equals the Unconscious plus some conscious departments), the Ego (mainly inputed by senses perception) and the Ideal Ego (or Super-ego), who represents a kind of moral agency who reviews and criticizes all the actions by the Ego, is of special beauty and are quintessential Freudian. A pretty much intereting reading for anyone interested in the history of psychanalisys and in concepts already of working value.
