By: Katrin Steinert
Freud’s personality theory saw the psyche in three parts; the id, ego and superego, which develop during different stages of the life cycle. According to Freud, the id is the primitive and instinctual part of the mind. The id contains the sexual and aggressive drives and hidden memories. The superego operates as the moral conscience and the ego is the realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the superego. The three parts work together to create human behavior. Freud believed that in order to become a healthy person, the ego should be the strongest element. When the ego is the strongest out of the three, it can satisfy the need of the id, not upset the superego and still take into consideration the reality of every situation.
3 ways to strengthen your ego:
3 ways to strengthen your ego:
- Acceptance: Start by accepting something small. It can either be accepting the rain, that person who cut you off in traffic or forgetting to take the trash out.
- Adjusting expectations: Every unrealistic expectation we create sets us up for disappointment. By adjusting what the expectations are regarding us and other people in our lives it lower our frustrations when expectations aren’t met.
- Consciously raising our frustrations and stress tolerance level: The strength of your self develops by framing things in empowering meanings. Positive framing and reframing allows us to take a new view of things, which then effects how we actually feel about things. In this way, framing and reframing things can enhance our ego-strength to face, cope with, and even master the challenges of life.