The Realms of Self
Hello all,
Welcome back to our beautiful, chaotic, and peaceful shores. Thank you so much for taking your time and energy to sail these violent seas back here, to me. I hope you’re feeling healthy, happy, and peaceful this week. I, personally, have had a very reflective week. I’m currently in the middle of my fifth week of my classes and in one of my psychology classes, we’re learning about Sigmund Freud’s Iceberg Model of the Mind. I have taken several psychology classes for many years now, since my sophomore year of high school actually, so I have always been very familiar with this theory. However, as I have been diving into this theory more due to school, I have found myself uncovering specific areas and factors about myself that relates heavily to this theory. For this week’s journal, we’re embarking on a voyage into the adobes of the consciousness and the hidden chambers of the mind.
Sigmund Freud is known as the “father of psychoanalysis”. As an Austrian neurologist, Freud developed a mountain-moving theory of the unconscious mind, the importance of childhood experiences in shaping adult behavior, and how they relate. Due to Freud’s work, he revolutionized the field of psychology by introducing concepts such as the id, ego, superego, and defense mechanisms, which are the topics we are diving into. As we set sail on the waters of this conversation, I began thinking about how over a year ago when I was attending therapy, I had an entire therapy session about uncovering my own id, ego, and superego, as well as the core belief that triggers my defense mechanisms. Our id the impulsive and unconscious part of our brain. It is solely responsible for responding to our basic human needs, urges, and desires. However, our conscious part of the brain, and the place where we build thoughts upon ourselves and project them towards others is the ego. Our superego is where lines can become a bit more blurred. The superego develops during our early childhood and basically teaches or helps us to incorporate the morals and values of society in ourselves. However, lines become blurred because our superego are the unconscious thoughts to our conscious voice. Also, I think it’s important to note that the superego actually has two systems, which are the consciousness and the ideal self.
Early I mentioned how this conversation was also brought up in a therapy session I attended. Since I always strive to be as open and honest on here as I can be, I think it would only be fair if I give you more insight into this topic from my own personal experience in learning about it, from an actual therapist. This session happened on May 8th, 2023 and here is what I took away from it:
My therapist pointed out that I could possibly have two id’s. The first being “Mason”, which is the person I am today and how I want to shape my life. While the second id being “Mase”, which is the inner child who dealt with life situations (trauma). The ego of myself is my being, meaning it is “reality” (real life) version of me, while my subconscious is '“Mason”. I know, it seems confusing and only seems like surface-level information. However, this all goes so much deeper. For example, throughout my life I have always pictured “Mase” as this person I want to be, and “Mason” as the person I want to abandon. This is something we all do, create an imaginary better version of ourselves that we strive towards. However, in this therapy session, it was pointed out to me that “Mase” is the version of myself that I need to let go of because he actually went through the most, dealt with the most, and needed more nurturing at the time. It’s almost like having an “alter ego”, but the alter ego is your child-self, and you’re still unconsciously trying to nurture and heal that version. To better understand this, my therapist told me to think of it like this: cartoons always depict an angel and devil on a characters shoulder when facing conflict or a tough situation. In a cartoon the character is myself, the devil on my shoulder is my inner child, and the anger on my right should is my safe version of myself, while the child as the devil is also the id.
Thank you so much for taking your time and energy to read this week’s journal. I appreciate it more than I can honestly express and I appreciate you more than you could ever imagine… Make sure to sail these beautiful, chaotic, messy shores back here next week for more.
With great love always,
M.H. John