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The content of the Ego of the 1923 Structural Model/Second Topography is mostly preconscious, but its significant portion is dynamically unconscious. This notion, too, has its precursors in the (first) Topographic theory, when, in the 1915 paper on ”The Unconscious”, Freud had already remarked that, ” A very great part of this preconscious originates in the unconscious ” (Freud, 1915, p. 191). In an elaboration, Freud noted the thoughts he referred to as having all the earmarks of having been formed unconsciously, but ”were highly organized, free from self-contradiction, have made use of every acquisition of the system Cs., and would hardly be distinguished in our judgment from the formations of that system ” (ibid, p. 190). Here, even before the Structural theory of 1923, Freud presented a thought formed in the unconscious and having the qualities of secondary process thinking. However, the systematic elaboration of such observations of various components of the Ego had to wait until ”The Ego and the Id” (Freud, 1923a), the text, which inaugurated the Structural Theory/Second Topography. “The Ego and The Id” (1923a) is often viewed as Freud’s last major theoretical work. Here, he postulated two types of unconscious: the latent unconscious and the dynamic one. The ‘ latent unconscious’ is capable of becoming conscious (through connections with words) and should be considered strictly a descriptive term. The ‘ dynamic unconscious’ is the part of the unconscious that, on account of primary repression, is not capable of becoming conscious. Freud adds that the term ‘ unconscious ’ should be preserved for the ‘ dynamic unconscious’ even though, according to him, it is impossible to avoid the ambiguity between the descriptive and the dynamic unconscious . The Ego, the content of which is mostly preconscious, has two surfaces, an internal one and an external one. In contrast to his original association of Ego with consciousness, in the Structural Model only the external perceptual surface, also called “ the coherent ego ” is conscious. Meanwhile, the internal surface, the surface that faces the Pcs is dynamically unconscious. Here, Freud came to the issue of unconscious resistances , which became one of the most important factors in his move to the Structural Model, and was central in addressing the difficulty of restricting primary process to the repressed unconscious. He wrote: “Since, however, there can be no question but that this resistance emanates from his ego and belongs to it, we find ourselves in an unforeseen position. We have come upon something in the ego itself which is also unconscious, which behaves exactly as the repressed – that is, which produces powerful effects without itself being conscious and which requires special work before it can be made conscious” (p.17). Freud conceptualized “the antithesis between the coherent ego and the repressed which is split off from it” (p.17), and he added that the unconscious no longer coincides with the repressed; all that is repressed is unconscious but, not all that is unconscious is repressed. Furthermore, as a mental projection of the surface of the body, “The ego is first and foremost a body-ego” (p.27). The Ego is the representative of the external world (reality) while the Superego becomes the representative of the internal world, i.e., the representative of the Id. Superego is a special grade of the Ego, representing internalized moral prohibitions and ideals of the society, and an heir to the Oedipus Complex. The two classes of instincts from 1920, Eros and Thanatos, “fused, blended, and alloyed with each other” (ibid, p.41) are here located in the Id. Freud wrote: “The dangerous death instincts are dealt within the individual in various ways: in part they are rendered harmless by being
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