f “Instinctual cathexis seeking discharge.” The id makes no distinction between what is good or bad, what is moral or immoral, or what is realistic or unrealistic; it only seeks to pleasure the myriad cathexes in its instinctual, animal-like impulse reservoir.
The ego represents the scales-of-wholeness in the sense that its function is to monitor the id and reality in such a fashion as to protect the individual from harm based on the instinctual, irrational nature of the id. It attempts to unify the id and the super-ego into a whole that is reality-based without completely sacrificing individual identity. This is important because the nature of the id, if we are talking about the continuum of a pendulum, is completely at one extreme of the pendulum swing. Were it not for the affects of the ego upon the id’s completely instinctual nature we would surely self-destruct, “The ego has taken over the task of representing the world for the id, and so of saving it; for the id blindly striving to gratify its instincts in complete disregard of the superior strength of outside forces, could not otherwise escape annihilation” (Freud, 1998: 3). The super-ego rests at the other end of the pendulum swing. In the center is situated the ego. Surrounding all three of these mental dimensions arranged on a pendulum continuum is another dimension to which the id’s monitoring powers are subjected-the external environment (i.e. reality). This environment completely surrounds and affects all three dimensions, but it is the ego’s function to shift the id and the super-ego to middle-ground, a position that allows individual behavior to have greater potential for security and success. For the ego must “dethrone the pleasure-principle, which exerts undisputed sway over the processes of the id, and substitutes for it the reality-principle, which promises greater security and greater success” (Freud, 1998: 3).
The ego is in eff...