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Introduction. Freud (17) described the ego (the I) as that part of the mind of man which is interposed between his sensory stimuli and the perception of his bodily needs, on the one hand, and his motor actions, on the other, and which mediates between them with purposeful action.
According to him (17, 18, 19, 20) the ego has the following purposeful characteristics:
The ego is apparently a part of the id which has undergone special development under the influence of external events and acts as an intermediary between the id and the external world.
The ego is therefore, first and foremost, a body ego. That is to say, it is ultimately derived from bodily sensations, chiefly from those springing from the surface of the body. It may thus be regarded as a mental projection of the surface of the body (17).
The processes in the ego, in contrast to those in the id, may become conscious. Thus, there may be a conscious ego, a preconscious ego (that which may become conscious) and an unconscious ego. Part of the unconscious ego is unconscious without being repressed and may remain unconscious indefinitely (17).
The characteristics of the ego are primarily determined by the individual's own experience, that is, by accidental and current events.
The ego is in control of voluntary movements. It represents reason, in contrast to the id, which represents the passions.
The ego has the task of self-preservation.
The ego responds to external events in the following way: It becomes aware of stimuli from the external world. It stores up experiences of them in the memory. It avoids excessive stimuli through flight. It deals with moderate stimuli through adaptation. And, finally, it learns to bring about appropriate modifications in the external world to its own advantage through muscular activity.