Difference between revisions of "Id"
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[[Freud]] borrowed the term ''[[das Es]] (which the ''[[Standard Edition]]'' translates as "[[the Id]]") from Georg Groddeck, one of the first [[German]] [[psychistrists]] to support [[psychoanalysis]], although [[Freud]] also noted, Groddeck himself seems to have taken the term from Nietzche.<ref>{{F}} 1923b. SE XIX. p.23. p.3; Nietzsche. 1886. p.47</ref> | [[Freud]] borrowed the term ''[[das Es]] (which the ''[[Standard Edition]]'' translates as "[[the Id]]") from Georg Groddeck, one of the first [[German]] [[psychistrists]] to support [[psychoanalysis]], although [[Freud]] also noted, Groddeck himself seems to have taken the term from Nietzche.<ref>{{F}} 1923b. SE XIX. p.23. p.3; Nietzsche. 1886. p.47</ref> | ||
| − | Groddeck argued that "what we call the ego behaves essentially passively in life, and ... we are "lived" by known and uncontrollable forces,"<ref> | + | Groddeck argued that "what we call the ego behaves essentially passively in life, and ... we are "lived" by known and uncontrollable forces,"<ref>{{F}} 1923b. SE XIX. p.23</ref> and used the term ''das Es'' to denote these forces. |
The term first appears in [[Freud]]'s work in the early 1920s, in the context of the second model of the pysche; in this model, the psyche is divided into three agencies: the id, the ego and the superego. | The term first appears in [[Freud]]'s work in the early 1920s, in the context of the second model of the pysche; in this model, the psyche is divided into three agencies: the id, the ego and the superego. | ||
| − | The id corresponds roughly to what Freud called the unconsicous system in his first model of the psyche, but there are also important differences between these two concepts. | + | The [[id]] corresponds roughly to what Freud called the unconsicous system in his first model of the psyche, but there are also important differences between these two concepts. |
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| − | One of Freud's most famous statements concerns the id and its relationship with psychoanalytic treatment; ''Wo Es war, soll Ich werden (which the Standard Edition renders "Where id was, there ego shall be.")<ref> | + | One of Freud's most famous statements concerns the id and its relationship with psychoanalytic treatment; ''Wo Es war, soll Ich werden (which the Standard Edition renders "Where id was, there ego shall be.")<ref>{{F}} 1933a. [[SE]] XXII. p.80</ref> |
One common reading of this cryptic statement has been to take it as meaning that the task of psychoanalytic treatment is to enlarge the field of consicousness; it is just such a reading that is crstyallized in the original French translation of Freud's statement - ''le moi doit dEloger la Ca'' (the ego shall dislodge the id). | One common reading of this cryptic statement has been to take it as meaning that the task of psychoanalytic treatment is to enlarge the field of consicousness; it is just such a reading that is crstyallized in the original French translation of Freud's statement - ''le moi doit dEloger la Ca'' (the ego shall dislodge the id). | ||
Revision as of 06:27, 21 August 2006
| French: ça |
Sigmund Freud
Freud borrowed the term das Es (which the Standard Edition translates as "the Id") from Georg Groddeck, one of the first German psychistrists to support psychoanalysis, although Freud also noted, Groddeck himself seems to have taken the term from Nietzche.[1]
Groddeck argued that "what we call the ego behaves essentially passively in life, and ... we are "lived" by known and uncontrollable forces,"[2] and used the term das Es to denote these forces.
The term first appears in Freud's work in the early 1920s, in the context of the second model of the pysche; in this model, the psyche is divided into three agencies: the id, the ego and the superego.
The id corresponds roughly to what Freud called the unconsicous system in his first model of the psyche, but there are also important differences between these two concepts.
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Lacan's main contribution to the theory of the id is to stress that the "unknown and uncontrollable forces" in question are not primitive biological needs or wild instinctual forces of nature, but must be conceived of in linguistic terms:
The Es with which anlaysis is concerned is made of the signifier which is already there in the real, the uncomprehended signifier. It is already there, but it is made of the signifier, it is not some kind of primitive and confused property relevant to some kind of pre-established harmony...[3]
Lacan conceives of the id as the unconscious origin of speech, the symbolic "it" beyond the imaginary ego.
Thus whereas Groddeck states that "the affirmation 'I live' is only conditionally correct, it expresses only a small and superficial part of the fundamental principle 'Man is lived by the It.'"[4], Lacan's view could be summed up in similar terms, only replacing the verb "to live" with the verb "to speak"; the affirmation "I speak " is only a superifical part of the fundamental principle "Man is spoken by it."
Hence the phrase which Lacan frequently uses when discussing the id; "it speaks" (le ca parle).[5]
The symbolic nature of the id, beyond the imagianry sense of self-constituted by th eego, is what leads Lacan to equate it with the term 'subject.'
this equation is illustrated by the homophony between the German term Es adn the letter S, which is lacan's symbolc for the subject.[6]
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One of Freud's most famous statements concerns the id and its relationship with psychoanalytic treatment; Wo Es war, soll Ich werden (which the Standard Edition renders "Where id was, there ego shall be.")[7]
One common reading of this cryptic statement has been to take it as meaning that the task of psychoanalytic treatment is to enlarge the field of consicousness; it is just such a reading that is crstyallized in the original French translation of Freud's statement - le moi doit dEloger la Ca (the ego shall dislodge the id).
Lacan is completely opposed to such a reading.[8], arguing instead that the word soll is to be understood as an ethical injunction, so that the aim of analysis is for the ego to submit to the autonomy of the symbolic order.
Thus lacan prefers to translate Freud's statment as "there where it was, or there were one was ... it is my duty that I should come into being [La ou c'etat, peut-on dire, la ou s'etatit... c'est mon devour que je vienne a etre]'.[9]
The end of analysis, according to this view, is thus a kind of "existential recognition" of the symbolic determinants of one's being, a recognition of the fact that "You are athis" ( you ar ethis symbolic chian, and no more).[10]
See Also
References
- ↑ Freud, Sigmund. 1923b. SE XIX. p.23. p.3; Nietzsche. 1886. p.47
- ↑ Freud, Sigmund. 1923b. SE XIX. p.23
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre IV. La relation d'objet, 19566-57. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p.49
- ↑ Groddeck. 1923. p.5
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-60. Trans. Dennis Porter. London: Routledge, 1992. p.206
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p.129
- ↑ Freud, Sigmund. 1933a. SE XXII. p.80
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book I. Freud's Papers on Technique, 1953-54. Trans. John Forrester. New York: Nortion; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. p.195
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p.129, 299-300; Ec p.417-8
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book I. Freud's Papers on Technique, 1953-54. Trans. John Forrester. New York: Nortion; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. p.3
