I’ve been meaning to get to this for some time but my schedule has been mighty full!

In Part 2 of this series, we looked at the outermost layer of a personality and how transparent it can be. This time, we’re going to jump to the center of the “onion” and start to work our way out. It’s a lot easier to explain and understand that way.

Let’s begin with a crash course in a little Freudian theory. Freud has fallen into disrepute with many psychologists and psychiatrists but, nonetheless, he has posited one idea that works well for our purposes. That is, three factors which govern many aspects of a personality: id, ego and superego. I’m going to blow past most of the conscious and subconscious mind stuff Freud wrote about because once we go down that rabbit hole, things start to get pretty convoluted. But, as we go through this process I’ll be using those terms from time to time just for the sake of clarity. That’s because much of the time we humans behave in ways we’re not aware of.

We’ll start with id. The id is our inner pleasure seeker. The id is not always rational. It just wants what it wants, period. It also seeks out our basic human needs. When you’re feeling “needy” or feeling “frisky” that’s your id talking.

Then there’s ego. Ego gets a bad rap. Its purpose is commonly limited to one’s self image but it does more than that. The ego is more organized. It seeks ways to satisfy the id’s drive to the benefit of the long term and utilizes defensive mechanisms to justify its means. Those mechanisms will become really important in your acting work.

Finally, there’s super-ego. Your super-ego is your inner cop or judge. It decides whether choices you make are appropriate or not.

So, being just about as basic as possible, let’s sum up. The ego attempts to satisfy the id under the supervision of the super-ego. It could be said that criminals have weak super-egos. Hedonists possibly have overactive ids. Selfish people might have more active egos.

Those three components are at the center of the onion. They’re huddled in our subconscious for the most part. We don’t think about them. They just keep on doing what they do, like a heart beating. When they work in harmony, they help form the foundation for an emotionally healthy individual. When they don’t, things get interesting.

We’ll start playing around with the “Subconscious Trio” next time.