The id
The term id is a Latinised derivation from Groddeck’s das Es.[2] It stands in direct opposition to the super-ego. It is dominated by the pleasure principle.
The newborn child is regarded as being completely ‘Id-ridden’, in the sense that it is a mass of instinctive drives and impulses, and demands immediate satisfaction. This view equates a new born child with an id-ridden individual - often humorously - with this analogy: an alimentary tract with no sense of responsibility at either end.
The id is responsible for our basic drives such as food, sex and aggressive impulses. It is amoral and egocentric, ruled by the pleasure-pain principle; it is without a sense of time; completely illogical; primarily sexual; infantile in its emotional development; will not take ‘no’ for an answer. It is regarded as the reservoir of the libido or “love energy”.
A popular interpretation of the id is not that it is “convincing” the mind to ignore social norms, but rather in itself just does not take social norms into account when ‘thinking’ or ‘acting’. The id is the primal, or beast-like, part of the brain, determined to pursue actions that are pleasurable, such as eating or copulation. The prime motive of the id is self-survival, pursuing whatever necessary to accomplish that goal.
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