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Before elaborating on the crucial ambiguity of the definitions of the id, I shall discuss some formulations of the id's over-all importance in mental life, its functions, its energy, and its genesis.
Freud always emphasized that the three “structures” (“provinces”) of the mental apparatus were meant to be constructs and were not to be taken literally (1933, p. 79). Although not given to drawing many diagrams,1 Freud drew two of these to illustrate the “place” of the id in the mental apparatus, one in The Ego and the Id (1923), the other in the New Introductory Lectures (1933). Significantly, neither diagram showed a strict delineation between the two structures id and ego. This fluid transition conforms to the concept of a continuum which, taken in conjunction with the concept of a complementary series, is so essential for an understanding of all formulations of mental functioning.2
While the two diagrams were basically identical, it is interesting