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Psychoanalytic Theory 101: You Don't Know Yourself

Freuds Theory of Your Id, Ego, and Superego

TheBroCode Rule #7: If a girl gives you her number, read it back to her with one wrong digit. If she corrects you, it means she’s actually interested.

In case you missed last week’s edition, go here

Welcome to this week’s edition Champs 👑…I’m going to use the Hulk and the Joker to break down the psychoanalytic theory of personality, inner battles, the power of the mind. Then I’ll walk you through a great visualization exercise that I personally found very useful when used consistently. Let’s dive in gentlemen.

Let’s breakdown this image of a man’s structure of self based on the OG Sigmund Freud. Let’s run through the concept and then I’ll put into context with the HULK.

According to Freud, our mind is made up of 3 components: The id, ego, and superego. You’ve all seen and heard this before. Have you ever seen an image of a man with a devil and angel on his shoulder? That’s rooted in this concept of self.

  • The id is responsible for basic needs, desires, and impulses. The pleasure center whose main goal is to satisfy your basic needs and drives.

  • The ego is responsible for how you function and make sense of the external world around you. How you react to things that happen outside yourself. The ego is home to your consciousness and controls the impulsive demands of the id

  • The superego is responsible for housing al the rules you’ve ever learned throughout your life and uses these rules to control your ego. The superego is also where the expectations of your ego live; The way you “SHOULD” behave and think in your ideal reality.

There is also the conscious and unconscious (or subconscious) mind which you can see above illustrated by the iceberg. The unconscious mind is far more powerful than the conscious mind and can process huge amounts of information, compared to the conscious mind. It’s easiest to think of this like an iceberg. The tip of the iceberg is your conscious mind and the larger bigger portion of the iceberg that’s underway (that you can’t see) as the unconscious mind.

Unconscious thoughts, beliefs, and feelings can have a huge impact on your conscious behavior, especially things that are repressed. Sometimes you will see these things appear in your dreams or random slip of the tongues. Sometimes they appear as anger, compulsive behavior, relationship problems, or difficulty socializing.

The conscious mind is the part of your personality that helps you determine what’s right and wrong, controls your ethics and morals, and keeps you from acting on all your desires and urges. This is what makes you feel ‘guilty’ when you do something bad and makes you feel ‘good’ when you do something nice or kind.

Next, we have defense mechanisms. These are the unconscious psychological responses that protect you feeling high anxiety or feeling like shit about your self-esteem being low, or pretty much stop you from thinking about things or dealing with stuff that you don’t want to deal with.

They protect the conscious mind from battles between the animalistic id and the idealistic superego

Unhealthy defense mechanisms include: repression, projection, narcissism, acting out, and chronic denial.

Healthy defense mechanisms include: humor, self-care, exercise, mindfulness, social support, problem-solving,

The goal is always to try to convert your unhealthy defenses into healthy ones, so you can have better relationships, increased self-awareness, increased emotional regulation, and improved mental health and coping skills.

It’s not an easy process by any means and I’m nowhere near a master of this shit, but I can say that I’m trying. I’m willing to go on this journey because I want to be the best version of myself. I’m sure you do too.

Breaking down the Hulk:

You should all know the story of Dr. Bruce Banner and “The Hulk” by now, unless you’ve been livin’ under a rock your whole life. If you don’t know it, go learn it, go watch the movie, go get familiar, it’s your duty as a man.

For this purpose, I’ll give you a quick round down, so you have the context for Freud’s breakdown.

Bruce Banner was a genius kid who was bullied in school. He had an abusive alcoholic father who was an atomic physicist, who also murdered Bruce’s mom. Bruce was admitted to a mental hospital, became a nuclear physicist and was involved with experiments.

The Grey Hulk was created when Bruce was hit with a gamma bomb and ultimately the radiation triggered a mutant change resulting in a split personality and alter ego known to be a raging superhuman called the Hulk.

When it first started, Bruce would transform at sunset into the Grey Hulk, a monster full of rage, anger, and obsession. To Bruce, he resembled his angry abusive dad, and the anger toward is dad is what is sustained in his own subconscious mind. The Grey Hulk doesn’t know who Bruce is, and Bruce, the scared scientist, tries to control and repress the Hulk coming out.

Eventually, Bruce loses control. Anytime he gets excited, attacked, angry, or stressed out, he morphs into The Grey Hulk.

Now let’s break it down. His unconscious mind influences his actions and thoughts. His past shapes his future (much like your own). The unconscious mind contains the animalistic id (aggressive and impulsive), the ego (the balancer), and the superego (follows the rules, ideal ethics).

In the case of Bruce Banner the human, he is the superego that hides his pain from the world. The Grey Hulk is the ID that is angry as fuck and shows no mercy to the world, based on the abuse Bruce’s father did to him that sits in his subconscious mind. The ego is what we all know as The Green Incredible Hulk. 

This Green Hulk is created after Dr. Samson reaches Bruce’s separate incarnations by tapping into his subconscious mind. Through this hypnosis and talk through psycho therapy; Bruce Banner, The Grey Hulk, and The Green Hulk, were able to face their true inner demons, resolve the issues around his abusive father and murdered mother. Only then, was he able to fuse all three mentalities together and find peace of mind.

This is how the intelligent green incredible Hulk was finally born. He had the intelligence of Dr. Bruce Banner but the abilities of superhuman Hulk.

I’ve described how psychoanalytic theory applies to the Hulk….can you see how it also applies to Joker?

The id, ego, and superego?

I challenge you to an exercise of breaking down the Joker’s personality. If you can break down the Joker, you can break down yourself.

I know, that was a lot to fuckin’ digest…but read it again 👆🏽..the more you grasp the concept of the structure of self, the more you’ll be able to identify the different levels and depths of your personality. It’s hard for us men to really sit with ourselves and look into who we actual are. The self discovery process is one that many neglect or would rather drink and smoke and forget…but you can’t elevate yourself until you do.

I know, I’ve been there….and as much as I dread and hate the exercises, or the learnings, or the process, I do it because I know what’s on the other side. Every role model you can think of ever has done it. So I challenge you to do the same.

You need to follow this guy on Youtube. Dr. Andrew Huberman is someone I respect a lot and a neuroscientist by profession. He teaches some of the craziest things backed by science that will literally change your life. Check it out.

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Visualization Technique To Try

Tips: Picture the exact scene. Imagine each step. Visualize often. Close your eyes after you read it and imagine it. I’ve added an image below you help guide you.

Now picture yourself on top of a mountain. The highest mountain around. You just finished your trek uphill and you’re exhausted. You’re on top of a very tall mountain, the tallest in sight. You start looking down and you’re frozen.

You look over your shoulders and you look off to a distance, and see you people at the bottom…they’re looking up at you…there waiting for you to deliver a message…the ONE and ONLY message they came to hear…you realize that by now. there’s millions of people waiting and looking up at you…they are waiting for the message you were put here on earth to deliver. You can feel them waiting for you, and so you begin to speak, everyone is quiet listening….what message did you deliver? what’s the first thing that comes to mind?…that’s your purpose in life.

Practice this visualization until it becomes clear and your vision is the same every time you visual it…your message to be on earth is the same, the message you deliver to the world is the same. Then you can feel with confidence that you have found your purpose in life or at least give your life a direction to go in.