The Starving man might form an image of a meal, but that won't satisfy his needs.The ego emerges out of the id because we need to deal with the real world. Thus, the ego can be said to obey the Reality Principle, for example controlling the sex drive until conditions are right in the real world for its gratification. You can think of the ego as being the id’s controller. Freud likens the ego to a man on the horseback of the id. The horse is the stronger than the rider, but the rider controls it. Inevitably, however, the horse’s strength will predominate and the rider will sometimes lose control or will sometimes have to content himself with guiding the horse to where it wants to go.

---

Home

---