PSYC1111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 30: Cupcake, Oedipus Complex, Cathexis
3 Components of the Psyche!
ID -> boiling cauldron of instinctual desires: sex, hunger thirst, comfort!•
this aspect of your personality has one goal: it wants to be gratified, no self-monitoring!◦
unbridled need for gratification, he calls it sexual gratification!◦
but his use of sexual means "appetitive" -> emotional, pleasure aspect, need to fill it!◦
its instinctual, don't have to learn it!◦
operates on primary process -> doesn't distinguish fantasy from reality!◦
the ID is just as happy to imagine its been gratified to believe it got a cupcake than if ‣
it actually did!
!
EGO -> mediates between the superego and the id, reality interface !•
2 fundamental functions: !◦
1) its the adaptive component of the psyche, interfaces our personality with surviving/‣
succeeding in real life!
takes everything going on, measures everything, and directs it so we can •
function!
2) moderate the battle between the id and the superego, keeps this under control!‣
makes sure one side doesn't dominate over the other!•
!
how does the ego do this?!•
it lies to the superego and the id!◦
it distorts the reality outside and within the psyche!◦
ego defense mechanisms -> its defending the psych, dealing with superego or the ‣
id to reduce the tension between them!
fooling them as to what's going on !•
!
SUPEREGO -> opposing the ID, a conscious, !•
wants us to be morally good -> obey the morals of the culture !◦
the superego is always in conflict with the id, thinks it wants to much!◦
it gets upset even when the little boy thinks about stealing the cupcake!◦
immoral thoughts or contemplation is just as immoral!‣
no superego in the first couple of years!‣
the parents serve as the superego !‣
the superego has the moral system of the parents when it comes in!‣
the kid identifies with the same sex parent, takes your same sex parent's ego and ‣
incorporating it into your own psyche!
the superego is limitless in its attack on the Id !◦
parents have a lot of guilt !‣
!
!
not born with the superego, you acquire it through the resolution of the Oedipal complex!•
each of these two entities have a very strong force!•
ID -> has a love energy, libido (connecting, emotionally connecting energy)!◦
allows individual to take libido and invest it in another object!‣
when you invest that emotional energy, you attach to them!‣
cathect -> to cathect is to take libidal energy and invest it in another energy!◦
cathexis -> noun form!◦
!
only have a finite amount of liberal energy -> if you cathect a lot of objects, you have less for •
others!
