Basic Concept Explained -- Id

When it comes to the Id, the fact is I (or we?) do not know much about it as it does not present itself to our consciousness in its original form as by nature the Id is completely unconscious and not accessible.  It is really hard to imagine how Freud formulated his theories about conscious / unconscious and personality in the first place which is capable of explaining the mental functioning of and even the possible development of abnormality within us.

"Chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations" 

This is the way Freud conceptualized the Id.

In Freud's days, the academic world was under the significant influence of two schools of knowledge, they are Darwin's Theory of Evolution and the School of Thermodynamics.  The former highlighted that man is evolved from animals and hence share many animalistic characteristics such as the possession of aggressive urges and sexual instincts, while the latter emphasized the nature and dynamics of energy flow.  Both school have posed an impact on Freud in his formulation of a number of theories.

To Freud, the Id is the reservoir of psychic energy that provides the power for all psychological functioning.  The psychic energy concerned cannot be created or destroyed, but transferred from one state to another which explains the formation of pathological symptoms and the concept of symptom substitution.  Besides, it is also claimed that every energy system, including our psychic energy system, has a tendency to attain a state of least energy where it is the most stable which the the base of "death instinct".

The Id includes instincts and drives, genetic inheritance and reflexes and it is where our basic needs and wishes lie.

In terms of functioning, the Id operates according to pleasure principle and employs primary processes.

According to the pleasure principle, the Id has an innate inclination to avoid painful tension and obtain pleasure by seeking immediate tension reduction whenever tension exists.  When libido, a term for psychic energy, builds up, it reaches an uncomfortable level of tension and the Id seeks all means to discharge the tension so as to return to a more comfortable level of energy.  Basically, the Id acts in an impulsive and non rational way without any rules or precautions and sometimes, it seeks to satisfy its needs through reflex actions.  One example is that when there is a need for more oxygen for the basic function of the body, one will yawn to intake a large amount of air to fulfill the need.

The primary processes employed by the Id could be very primitive and of a rather low level in dealing with the forces of impulses and drives.  For instance, when one feels starving, the Id would hallucinate and form an image of the object, a bowl of noodles in this case, that would satisfy its needs.  The problem is that the Id does not distinguish between its wish-fulfilling images and real objects in the external world that would satisfy the needs and thus not effective in reducing tension.  That means, in the example mentioned before, the hunger is still here, and the tension is still here regardless of the images created. 

References

Barlow, D. H., & Durand, V. M. (1999). Abnormal psychology :An integrative approach (2nd ed.). Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole Pub.

Engler, B. (2009). Personality theories :An introduction (8th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning.

Gabbard, G. O. (2010). Long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy :A basic text (2nd ed.). Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Pub.