Purpose Of The Ego's Criticism

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The second of the three, is the Ego. The Ego starts to develop during the first year of an individual's life, and it operates on the reality principle. The purpose of the Ego is to gratify the impulses of the Id in ways that are in the context with reality. According to Sharf (2015), the purpose of the Ego is to assess reality by logical thinking, and to make plans to gratify needs. The Ego does not demand that gratification is met immediately at the request of the Id, but it reasons in logically to get the desires met. The Ego does not measure behaviour by right or wrong; it bases action on social norms and things that are feasible. A good example of the Ego at work is in the story of the watch. The Ego would not stop the person from stealing …show more content…
Freud believed that these anxieties might be too strong for an individual to take in, so the mind would find a way to quiet itself. An individual would use defence mechanisms to distort reality in order to reduce frustrations and anxieties. The most basic defence mechanism is repression. Repression seeks to push unacceptable behaviours outside the awareness of individuals to avoid tensions. An example of repression is an individual forgetting about a dental appointment because of the fear of going to the dentist. In like manner the Ego uses other defence mechanisms such as reaction formation and projection. Reaction formation uses behaviours that are opposite to the true impulses in order to keep the true impulses repressed. For example, a person who hates someone will show excessive love to the person in order to mask the true emotions. Projection is used to regard unacceptable as belonging to another individual. For example, individuals who are being unfaithful in their relationships often accuse their partner of cheating. The use of defence mechanisms is one of the main reasons that cause Frued's theory of the personality structure to be