Read the case below and answer the questions that follow:
A 22-year-old girl had been experiencing feelings of emptiness, lack of interest in all activities and sleep disturbances. She appears to be demanding, reckless, aggressive, and unable to delay gratification of needs. She has difficulty in managing anger and has emotional fluctuations. Her interpersonal relationships are also strained.
She believes she was doing reasonably well 3 years back and the problem worsened after her boards. She started to indulge in self-harm acts; the situation worsened whenever she had conflicts with her family. Eventually, she was advised to seek professional help for an adequate diagnosis of her mental health.
'She appears to be demanding, reckless, aggressive and unable to delay gratification of needs'. According to Freud's theory, identify the structure of personality being talked about:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → Id
Option (1) Id — Correct. The id is the source of a person’s instinctual energy and works on the pleasure principle: it seeks immediate gratification and does not care for moral values, society or other people. Being demanding, reckless, aggressive and unable to delay gratification of needs is the id at work.
Option (2) Ego — Incorrect. The ego works on the reality principle: it finds realistic ways of satisfying the id’s demands and can delay gratification until a proper time. The behaviour described lacks this very control.
Option (3) Superego — Incorrect. The superego is the moral branch of personality, the conscience that tells us what is right and wrong. It would hold the reckless impulses back, not drive them.
Option (4) Repression — Incorrect. Repression is a defence mechanism, not a structure of personality: anxiety-provoking behaviours or thoughts are pushed into the unconscious and forgotten.
NCERT (2025-26): “Structure of Personality … According to Freud’s theory, the primary structural elements of personality are three, i.e. id, ego, and superego.…” “Id : It is the source of a person’s instinctual energy. It deals with immediate gratification of primitive needs, sexual desires and aggressive impulses. It works on the pleasure principle, which assumes that people seek pleasure and try to avoid pain. Freud considered much of a person’s instinctual energy to be sexual, and the rest as aggressive. Id does not care for moral values, society, or other individuals. Ego : It grows out of id, and seeks to satisfy an individual’s instinctual needs in accordance with reality. It works by the reality principle, and often directs the id towards more appropriate ways of behaving. For example, the id of a boy, who wants an ice-cream cone, tells him to grab the cone and eat it. His ego tells him that if he grabs the cone without asking, he may be punished. Working on the reality principle, the boy knows that the best way to achieve gratification is to ask for permission to eat the cone. Thus, while the id is demanding, unrealistic and works according to pleasure principle, the ego is patient, reasonable, and works by the reality principle.…” |