According to Sigmund Freud, das Über-Ich (which is generally known as the "super ego") reflects the internalization of cultural rules, mainly derived from one's parents, and controls such attitudes as conscience that criticizes and prohibits one's drives, fantasies, feelings, and actions. In his words, "a child's super-ego is in fact constructed on the model not of its parents but of its parents' super-ego; the contents which fill it are the same and it becomes the vehicle of tradition and of all the time-resisting judgements of value which have propagated themselves in this manner from generation to generation." He contrasted this with das Es ("the ego"), the organized part of the personality structure that includes defensive, perceptual, intellectual-cognitive, and executive functions and is the home of conscious awareness (although not all of the operations of the ego are conscious) and das Ich ("the id"), the "dark, inaccessible part of our personality ... a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations. ...It is filled with energy reaching it from the instincts, but it has no organization, produces no collective will, but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs subject to the observance of the pleasure principle." Freud's early translator James Strachey ignored Freud's own terms (which were the German words for "I above" [or the Over-I], "the I," and "the it") for these basic components of the human mental structure and latinized them. He also mistranslated "instinct" as "drive," thus seriously misrepresenting the underlying concepts. Though Freud referred to Strachey as his "excellent English translator," Strachey himself was more modest, claiming only a "discreditable academic career with the barest of B. A. degrees, no medical qualifications...no experience of anything except third-rate journalism." Nevertheless, a German publisher considered retranslating his translations back into German because they were themselves notable works of art and scholarship, with additional footnotes, introductions, and bibliographical and historical information. Nevertheless, Bruno Bettelheim was sharply critical, saying, "anyone who reads Freud only in Strachey's English translation cannot understand Freud's concern with man's soul."
According to Sigmund Freud, das Über-Ich (which is generally known as the "super ego") reflects the internalization of cultural rules, mainly derived from one's parents, and controls such attitudes as conscience that criticizes and prohibits one's drives, fantasies, feelings, and actions. In his words, "a child's super-ego is in fact constructed on the model not of its parents but of its parents' super-ego; the contents which fill it are the same and it becomes the vehicle of tradition and of all the time-resisting judgements of value which have propagated themselves in this manner from generation to generation." He contrasted this with das Es ("the ego"), the organized part of the personality structure that includes defensive, perceptual, intellectual-cognitive, and executive functions and is the home of conscious awareness (although not all of the operations of the ego are conscious) and das Ich ("the id"), the "dark, inaccessible part of our personality ... a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations. ...It is filled with energy reaching it from the instincts, but it has no organization, produces no collective will, but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs subject to the observance of the pleasure principle." Freud's early translator James Strachey ignored Freud's own terms (which were the German words for "I above" [or the Over-I], "the I," and "the it") for these basic components of the human mental structure and latinized them. He also mistranslated "instinct" as "drive," thus seriously misrepresenting the underlying concepts. Though Freud referred to Strachey as his "excellent English translator," Strachey himself was more modest, claiming only a "discreditable academic career with the barest of B. A. degrees, no medical qualifications...no experience of anything except third-rate journalism." Nevertheless, a German publisher considered retranslating his translations back into German because they were themselves notable works of art and scholarship, with additional footnotes, introductions, and bibliographical and historical information. Nevertheless, Bruno Bettelheim was sharply critical, saying, "anyone who reads Freud only in Strachey's English translation cannot understand Freud's concern with man's soul."
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