Freud viewed 'the id' -- a concept he created to help people better understand the nature and basically every type of energy and behavior emulating from the 'bottom' of the psyche -- but here we arrive at a logical inconsistency in the way Freud described the id.
Specifically, Freud defined and described the id as being like a 'container' or a 'reservoir' that contained 'the polar life and death instincts or drives' -- not as the energy within the container that is the combined mixture of the life and death forces that propel the human organism forward, and/or self-sabotage the organism backward towards its/our ultimate death and/or (self)-destruction...
Over time, the id -- beyond all definitional technicalities -- came to be viewed as this energy source anyway -- and to boot (here he introduced another definitional technicality) -- unconscious energy and ideational as well as affective and impulsive motivational material that provided the 'foundational building blocks' for everything developing in the conscious human personality or psyche.
That is, Freud viewed the human personality in its infancy as being 'all id' which -- to introduce another logical inconsistency in the way Freud viewed the id and the personality as a whole -- can, if you read other parts of Freudian theory (1914, 'On Narcissism') basically be equated with what I will call 'the primal, narcissistic ego' even though Freud never created such as term-concept (although he did briefly create the term-concept 'pleasure-ego' and contrasted it against 'the reality ego' around the same time-period as 'On Narcissism' (in another one or more of his 'metapsychological papers', 1915, five years before Freud wrote 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle, 1920, where he introduced the life and death instincts, and eight years before Freud wrote 'The Ego and The Id', 1923, where he introduced 'the ego', 'the id', and 'the superego').
What I am getting at is this. Freud started to get himself and psychoanalysis into 'conceptual trouble' when he started to 'reify' and 'objectify' and 'dehumanize' the human personality -- which many critics would complain about over the years -- because Freud 'dissociated' the id from the ego -- as opposed to 'splitting the ego' into two opposing or simply different 'ego-states': 1. 'the id-ego (or primal-narcissistic ego)'; 2. 'the mediating, central ego'; and 3. 'the restraining ego' -- or 'righteous-critical superego'.
In one of Freud's earliest work (1894, 'The Neuro-Psychoses of Defence'), Freud was struggling with Janet's idea of 'the splitting of consciousness'.
Why would Freud take issue with this idea of Janet's of 'the splitting of consciousness'? Well, probably, at least significantly, because it was Janet's idea -- and not his own; if I be so bold to say, Freud wanted to 'stake out' his own theoretical territory that was different than Janet's, contrasted against Janet's; (as well as everyone else's work -- Charcot, Breuer -- who he had learned from, was working with, and/or competing against.
However, more than this, I can see Freud struggling with Janet's idea of 'the splitting of consciousness' because what Freud had in mind was something either a tad bit different, or very different -- and that was a 'splitting between consciousness and unconsciousness'.
Let us be aware that in 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson had first published his classic book, 'Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde'.
So the idea of 'split personalities' and 'egos' vs. 'alter-egos' was alive and percolating in this time period -- actually before this time period in 1894 (Breuer and Charcot in the 1880s with Freud learning from them both in the late 1880s).
Now, would we view 'Mr. Hyde' as an 'id personality' or an 'alter-ego personality' or as a 'primal, narcissistic personality' -- or all of the above.
I opt for all of the above.
Which tells us that the term-concept of 'id-ego' is not that far removed from any of the writers and/or theorists mentioned above: Robert Louis Stevenson, Charcot, Breuer, Janet, Freud...) 'A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.' A thorn by any other name would still hurt if you unknowingly contacted it. And 'the id' by any other name -- the 'alter-ego', 'the primal narcissistic ego' or 'the id-ego' would still be 'the id'.
It is just a matter of 'conceptual primacy'.
We could talk about 'the splitting of the ego' (in the process of 'civilization and its discontents') into: 1. 'the (primal-narcissistic) id-ego'; 2. 'the central mediating ego'; and 3. 'the ego-ideal and critical-righteous superego'.
Or we could talk about 'the splitting of the id' into: 1. the id; 2. the ego; and 3. the superego.
A name is just a name. And concepts are just concepts. And roses by any other name would still smell sweet, while thorns if you touched them unknowingly, would still hurt.
I will advance these ideas tomorrow morning...
