According to Freud’s many theories of religion, the Oedipus complex is utilized in the understanding and mastery of religious beliefs. In Freud’s psychosexual stages, he mentions the Oedipus complex and the Electra complex and how they affect children and their relationships with their same-sex parental figure. According to Freud, there is an unconscious desire for one’s mother to be a virgin and for one’s father to be an all-powerful, almighty figure. Freud’s interest in Greek mythology and religion greatly influenced his psychological theories. The Oedipus complex is when a boy is jealous of his father. The boy strives to possess his mother and ultimately replace his father as a means of no longer having to fight for her undivided attention and affection. Along with seeking his mother’s love, boys also experience castration anxiety, which is the fear of losing their genitalia. Boys fear that their fathers will retaliate and castrate them as a result of desiring one’s mother. While the Oedipus complex presents itself in males, females experience a different form of incestuous rivalry known as the Electra complex. Girls become jealous of their mothers and begin to feel desire towards their fathers. Females also experience penis envy which is the parallel reaction to the male experience of castration anxiety. Females are jealous of their fathers’ penis and wish to have one as well. Girls then repress this feeling and instead long for a child of their own. This suppression leads to the girl identifying with her mother and acquiring feminine traits.
According to Freud, the id is the part of the unconscious that seeks pleasure. His idea of the id explains why people act out in certain ways, when it is not in line with the ego or superego. The id is the part of the mind which holds all of humans' most basic and primal instincts. It is the impulsive, unconscious part of the mind that is based on desire to seek immediate satisfaction. The id does not have a grasp on any form of reality or consequence. Freud explains that the pleasure principle is controlled by the id because it makes people engage in need-satisfying behavior without any accordance to what is right or wrong. Freud compares the id and the ego to a horse and a rider. The id is compared to the horse, which is directed and controlled by the ego (the rider). This example goes to show that although the id is supposed to be controlled by the ego, they often interact with one another according to the drives of the id.
Freud defines the id as: “The id, cut off from the external world, has a world of perception of its own. It detects with extraordinary acuteness certain changes in its interior, especially oscillations in the tension of its instinctual needs, and these changes become conscious as feelings in the pleasure-unpleasure series. It is hard to say, to be sure, by what means and with the help of what sensory terminal organs these perceptions come about. But it is an established fact that self-perceptions—coenesthetic feelings and feelings of pleasure-unpleasure—govern the passage of events in the id with despotic force. The id obeys the inexorable pleasure principle”.
In order for people to maintain a realistic sense here on earth, the ego is responsible for creating balance between pleasure and pain. It is impossible for all desires of the id to be met and the ego realizes this but continues to seek pleasure and satisfaction. Although the ego does not know the difference between right and wrong, it is aware that not all drives can be met at a given time. The reality principle is what the ego operates by in order to help satisfy the id’s demands as well as compromising according to reality. The ego is a person’s “self,” composed of unconscious desires. The ego takes into account ethical and cultural ideals in order to balance out the desires originating in the id. Although both the id and the ego are unconscious, the ego has close contact with the perceptual system. The ego has the function of self-preservation, which is why it has the ability to control the instinctual demands from the id.
“The ego is first and foremost a bodily ego; it is not merely a surface entity, but is itself the projection of a surface. If we wish to find an anatomical analogy for it we can best identify it with the ‘cortical homunculus’ of the anatomists, which stands on its head in the cortex, sticks up its heels, faces backwards and, as we know, has its speech-area on the left-hand side. The ego is ultimately derived from bodily sensations, chiefly from those springing from the surface of the body. It may thus be regarded as a mental projection of the surface of the body, besides, as we have seen above (Figure 3), representing the superficies of the mental apparatus.”
The superego, which develops around age four or five, incorporates the morals of society. Freud believes that the superego is what allows the mind to control its impulses that are looked down upon morally. The superego can be considered to be the conscience of the mind because it has the ability to distinguish between reality as well as what is right or wrong. Without the superego Freud believes people would act out with aggression and other immoral behaviors because the mind would have no way of understanding the difference between right and wrong. The superego is considered to be the “consciousness” of a person’s personality and can override the drives from the id. Freud separates the superego into two separate categories: the ideal self and the conscious. The conscious contains ideals and morals that exist within society that prevent people from acting out based on their internal desires. The ideal self contains images of how people ought to behave according to society's ideals.
Freud believed that the answers to what controlled daily actions resided in the unconscious mind, despite alternative views that all our behaviors were conscious. Notions of the unconsciousness, gaps in the consciousness, can be explained by other acts of which the consciousness affords no evidence. The unconscious mind positions itself in every aspect our life whether one is dormant or awake. It is more than just a habitat for our undesired memories, we are at loss to what truly exists here. Though unaware of the effect of the unconscious mind, it influences the actions we engage it. Human behavior should be understood by searching for analysis of mental processes in expressions of individual states. This explanation gives significance to verbal slips and dreams; they are caused by hidden reasons in the mind displayed in concealed forms.
Verbal slips of the unconscious mind are referred to as a Freudian slip. This is a term coined by Freud to explain a spoken mistake derived from the unconscious mind. Traumatizing information of thoughts and beliefs are blocked from the conscious mind, slips expose our true thoughts stored in the unconscious. Sexual instincts or drives have deeply invested roots in the unconscious mind. Instincts act by giving vitality and enthusiasm to the mind through meaning and purpose. The ranges of instincts are in great numbers; therefore, Freud expressed them in two categories. Eros is the self-preserving life instinct containing all erotic pleasures. In contrast, thanatos is the death instinct, full of self-destruction of sexual energy. The main part of human behavior and actions is tied back to sexual drives. Since birth the existent of sexual drives can be recognized as one of the most important incentives of life.
Freud’s theory of psychosexual development is represented amongst five stages. According to Freud, each stage occurs within a specific time frame of one’s life. If one becomes fixated in any of the five stages, he or she will develop personality traits that coincide with the a specific stage and its focus.