#  Ego/Id/Super Ego, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1932)  

 



   ![Freud's Diagram of The Ego, The Super Ego & The Id.](/sites/g/files/omnuum6316/files/styles/hwp_1_1__960x960_scale/public/chsi/files/ego-id-super_ego_new_introductory_lectures_on_psychoanalysis.jpg?itok=9DM5d_7T) 

 

This page includes preparatory drawings for the final, published version of the topographic model that would be included in *The New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis*. The diagrams demonstrate Freud’s work process as he experiments with how to hierarchize the functional divisions of the psyche. Freud here uses a brain-like template to map a series of relations between the three main agencies of mind that are today recognizably “Freudian”: the Ego, the Id, and the Super-Ego. In these *Lectures*, Freud describes the “poor Ego” as “hemmed in on all sides,” serving three “tyrannical masters” leveling incompatible demands: the external world, the exacting Super-Ego and the pleasure-loving Id. Beginning with the lower left template and moving clockwise, Freud slowly shifts the relative ratio of the Super-Ego, the plane of repression, the relation between the pre-conscious and the Ego, as well as the portion given to the Ego and the Id. These drawings mark the pinnacle of Freud’s capacity for abstraction in their display of data alluding to anatomy, while at the same time avoiding any reference to specific spatial or functional localization within the brain.



 

##  Keep scrolling to explore this image in more detail. 

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### **Figure 1**

Running clockwise from the empty circle at the bottom left, we see here a rare instance of Freud experimenting with how to best describe the psyche in five iterations.

 ![A section of Freud's notes with an empty circle highlighted.](/sites/g/files/omnuum6316/files/2025-06/Screenshot%202025-06-02%20at%2015-32-02%20Key%20Image%20Ego_Id_Super%20Ego%20New%20Introductory%20Lectures%20on%20Psychoanalysis%20%281932%29.png)

 

**Figure 1**---

### **Figure 2**

The five versions differ primarily with respect to the relation between the Ego (Ich) and the Preconscious (Vorbewusst or VBW), as well as the relation between the Ego and the Id (Es).  
In each diagram, Freud slightly alters the space allotted to each element in the psyche.  
Repression (Verdrängung) is represented as a truncated double line on each diagram’s right side.

 ![A section of Freud's sketches with five areas highlighted.](/sites/g/files/omnuum6316/files/2025-06/Screenshot%202025-06-02%20at%2015-50-07%20Key%20Image%20Ego_Id_Super%20Ego%20New%20Introductory%20Lectures%20on%20Psychoanalysis%20%281932%29.png)

 

**Figure 2**---

### **Figure 3**

The dotted lines that run vertically through three of the diagrams mark the divide between the perceptual consciousness (Wahrnehmungs-Bewusstein or W-Bw) and the unconscious.

 ![A section of Freud's sketches with three areas highlighted.](/sites/g/files/omnuum6316/files/2025-06/Screenshot%202025-06-02%20at%2015-50-28%20Key%20Image%20Ego_Id_Super%20Ego%20New%20Introductory%20Lectures%20on%20Psychoanalysis%20%281932%29.png)

 

**Figure 3**---

### [**Return to exhibit.**](https://chsi.harvard.edu/current_exhibitions/freud-interp-drawings/freud-analyst-london)