Role of Freud’s Id

Sigmund Freud proposed, in his psychoanalytical approach to behavioral
energy, that psychic energy is the source of human behaviors. The id is the
reservoir of instinctual energy presumed to derive directly from the somatic
processes. This energy is unorganized, illogical, and timeless, knowing “no
values, no good or evil, no morality,” according to Freud in 1933. The id operates
according to the pleasure principle, using the primary process to discharge
its energy as soon as possible, with no regard for reality. When the
discharge is hindered by reality, however, the ego handles the situation according
to the reality principle, using a secondary process to pursue realistic
gratification. The ego mediates between the id on one hand and reality on
the other.
Freud thus conceptualized the id to be the energy source and the ego to
manage behavior in terms of reality. Learning is manifested in the way the
ego manages behavior for gratification under the restriction of the environment
and the superego. In this model, the drive is seen as the energizer of
behavior. The similarity between the Freudian and Hullian concepts of drive
is obvious. Food deprivation would generate homeostatic imbalance, which
is the somatic process, and the need, which is similar to the energy of the id.
The organism cannot obtain immediate gratification because of environmental
constraints to obtain food, so behavior is generated to negotiate with
the environment. Drive is much like the ego because it energizes the behavioral
potentials into behaviors to seek reality gratification, which is equivalent
to drive reduction. The concept of pleasure and behavioral changes
commonly appears in various theories that incorporate a subtle influence of
Freudian thought.