- A Freudian idea in the field of psychology, it is the part of our psyche to which we refer as “I”
- Freud argued that the ego plays a role of a mediator between the Id and reality and is often “obliged to cloak the (unconscious) commands of the Id with its own preconscious rationalisations to conceal id’s conflicts with reality”
- Originally, Freud used the word ego to mean the sense of self but later expanded it to include psychic functions such as judgment, tolerance, reality testing, control, planning, defence, synthesis of information, intellectual functioning, and memory. The ego is the organising principle upon which our thoughts and interpretations of the world around us are based
- The ego employs several self-defence mechanisms to protect us from harm through repression or sublimation