The Psychical Apparatus

Title

The Psychical Apparatus

Description

I should like to portray the structural relations of the mental personality, as I have described them to you, in the unassuming sketch which I now present you with.As you see here, the super-ego merges into the id; indeed as heir to the Oedipus complex it has intimate relations with the id; it is more remote than the ego from the perceptual system. The id has intercourse with the external world only through the ego – at least, according to the diagram. It is certainly hard to say today how far the drawing is correct. In one respect it is undoubtedly not. The space occupied by the unconscious id ought to have been incomparably greater than that of the ego or the preconscious. I must ask you to correct this in your thoughts.And here is another warning, to conclude these remarks, which have certainly been exacting and not, perhaps, very illuminating. In thinking of this division of the personality into an ego, a super-ego and an id, you will not, of course, have pictured sharp frontiers like the artificial ones drawn in political geography. We cannot do justice to the characteristics of the mind by linear outlines like those in a drawing or in primitive painting, but rather by areas of colour melting into one another as they are presented by modern artists. After making the separation we must allow what we have separated to merge together once more. You must not judge too harshly a first attempt at giving a pictorial representation of something so intangible as psychical processes.

Designer

Freud, Sigmund

Date

1933

Source

"The Dissection of the Psychical Personality"

Bibliographic Citation

Freud, Sigmund. 1933. "Lecture XXXI The Dissection of the Psychical Personality." In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XXII (1932-1936): New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis and Other Works. Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis. Pages 77-78.

Freud, Sigmund. 1933. ""Die zerlegung der psychischen Persönlichkeit." In Neue Folge der Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse. (New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis). Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag G.M.B.H. Pages 84-85.

is depiction of attribute

Ellipse

is composed of

Parallel Lines

has attribute

Curve

Dash Line

Solid Line

depict things of type

Structural or Hierarchical

Conceptual

Alternative Title

The Anatomy of the Mental Personality

Structural Relations of the Mental Personality

Coverage

mind

psychoanalysis

pyschology