Vistopia
To Your Unique Self: 40 Lessons in Personality Psychology
Wang Fang

Introduction

Hello, I’m Wang Fang. Last time we discussed Freud’s three levels of mental life: conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. The unconscious teems with dynamic primitive impulses and desires rejected by social morality. As his research and thought developed, Freud saw a limitation in this model: psychic topography described different levels of awareness, but psychic energy also has functions, and those functions may operate both consciously and through unconscious processes.
So in The Ego and the Id, published in 1923, he proposed another model: id, ego, and superego. Each performs a distinct psychological function, and later thinkers treated the division as Freud’s account of personality structure. Today we will discuss these three selves and the psychological outcome of their conflicts: anxiety.。

Personality Structure: Id, Ego, and Superego

First, the id. The word is simply Latin for “it.” The renowned Chinese historian of psychology Gao Juefu once rendered it poetically as yidi, drawing on a line from the Book of Songs: “I consider these plans—where will they ever end?” It conveys the id’s chaotic, primitive nature.
The id is the vast reservoir of innate, primitive psychic energy: a boiling cauldron of excited desire in the unconscious. It contains basic biological impulses—the need to eat and excrete, to escape pain, and, more importantly, to obtain sexual pleasure and release aggression: the life and death instincts. Sex and aggression are thus fundamental parts of human nature. They need not be learned; both forces drive behavior.
An aside: this shows Freud’s belief in humanity’s innately darker nature, sharply different from a representative Western traditional view: Adam and Eve were born innocent in Eden and corrupted by the world’s temptations. In psychoanalysis, sex and aggression are natural and seek satisfaction; society instead restrains these biological tendencies.This rebellion against traditional views of human nature—and such heretical ideas as infant sexuality—predictably provoked enormous controversy and condemnation when first proposed.
Episode editor: 夏夏
2022.02.10
Audio in Chinese

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Featured comments

48 comments
  • Neo
    2022-02-10 12:57:46

    这是我听过“三我”最易懂的解说，而且容易记住。赞。

  • 大茶的行星
    2022-02-11 14:37:44

    王芳老师每次结尾的祝福都不一样，甚是有趣和用心呢。

    Z- ：同意🙆！

  • 张连起
    2022-02-10 10:30:21

    否定回避“本我” 虚假表达“自我” 神话扭曲“超我” 以上三点，为当代人的通病！

  • kelly
    2022-02-10 11:59:42

    感觉王芳老师很可爱又幽默，说到“在外面打人，回家被父母混合双打。”超喜欢听王芳老师的课。

    鸟山鸟山 ：我也觉得很好笑，画面感满满

    布衣 ：哈哈

  • 苏匿
    2022-02-11 08:16:30

    太感谢王芳老师了😭我才发现从初中开始自己一直处于严重“神经焦虑”和“道德焦虑”中，觉得自己一直是分裂的。听了王芳老师的解释后放下了心里的一块大石头，释然了许多。知道自己哪里出问题了就更好“对症下药”。不希求“三我”的和解，只希望不要过于“分裂”，让这个现实中的“我”好过一点....

  • JQW
    2022-12-01 23:40:26

    想吃不想起床，是本我 选择吃或者赖床或者去上班，是自我 吃了有罪恶感，赖床不安，是超我

  • 1379号监听员
    2022-02-11 13:02:59

    因为焦虑，我买了这套心理学课程。

  • April
    2023-11-21 02:51:17

    只改变认知不改变环境，所以佛学算是一种自我防御吗？

  • 130****3268
    2023-11-25 08:59:29

    超我和快乐不矛盾吧？

  • 唐
    唐康
    2023-04-01 14:36:25

    王老师的声音、语速很有特点！当年的心理学老师是个外表老成的文学青年，不激动说话不连贯，字斟句酌，激动则说话天马行空，可怜课桌前的同学，面面相觑“老师，你还是说人话吧”

  • 1
    135****5183
    2023-02-16 12:47:16

    本人经常有道德焦虑的原因：超我对自律的道德规范，本我经常想躺平的心和行为。。

  • 1
    189****9988
    2022-12-18 11:31:32

    很明白

  • 山竹真好吃
    2022-10-31 22:52:12

    老虎油~

  • 故
    故事
    2022-08-24 20:46:46

    哇，你的声音好可爱呀

  • 1
    162****6872
    2022-06-24 18:45:25

    请问什么时候出书啊？

    192****6864 ：好像出了