Ego That rational part of the personality. Although it has many conscious components, many of its functions are learned and automatic. In the normal waking state, an adult thinks automatically in a reality-oriented, rational, and logical manner nearly all of the time.
According to analytic theory, libidinal and agressive drives provide the basic motivation for human behavior (normal and abnormal), and are the source of
psychological conflict. Self preservation is merely a manifestation of Ego-directed labidinal instincts under the dominion of
«Secondary Process Thinking.»
The Ego occupies an orchestrative position between the primal instincts (pleasure principle) and the demands of the outer world (reality principle), and consiquently mediates between the personal and external reality by performing the important functions of perceiving the needs of the self, both physical and psychological, and those qualities and attributes of the environment.
It evaluates, coordinates, and integrates these perceptions so the internal demands can be adjusted to external requirements, and is also responsible for certain defensive functions to protect the person against the demands of the Id and SuperEgo.
Ego has a variety of defense mechanisms linked to anxiety, in keeping with the Signal Theory of Anxiety. Another of its basic functions is that of Synthesis. The Synthesis Function is concerned with the organization of the self and its operations into a consistent and coherently adaptive pattern of behavior, thereby allowing the individual to be able to feel, think, and act in an integrated and organized fashion. 
In psychoanalytic theory, the Ego can be either active or passive. The idea of Ego-receptivity was first introduced by Deikman in 1971. Rapaport distinguished Ego activity and passivity from active and passive behavior. The feeling of choicelessness is the main element of passivity. The Ego is active (or autonamous) when the individual can make choices, in accordance with his own "Free Will." It is passive (lacking autonomy), when the individual is overpowered either by his own instinctual drives, demands arising from the environment, or by the SuperEgo.
Ego-Activity and Ego-Passivity are concepts that are attatched to coping skills. Ego-activity, secondary process thinking, reality orientation, and conceptualization are produced by the Left Hemisphere of the brain. There are two forms of Ego coping skills: creative coping and defensive or protective coping. In both forms the Ego is active and maintains a certain level of autonomy. In creative coping, the Ego actively meets the demands arising from the instincts, from reality, or from the SuperEgo, and handles them with a certain level of authority, (i.e., at its own leasure and pace). In defensive coping, the Ego of the individual protects himself against the demands, however, the action lacks freedom, smoothness, and authority.
The individual, when Ego is passive, submits to those demands arising from instincts, SuperEgo, or the external environment; and acts in accordance, even though such actions are Ego-Desynchronus, (i.e., going along against his true will). Or he may find himself so helpless, in the face of demands, that he freezes and cannot act at all, (he is overwhelmed)! The latter case is pathognomonic for cases of psychoses, catastrophic reactions, and bad psychedelic trips.
In contradistinction to Ego-passivity, there are states in which active control and voluntarism are relinquished and are not Ego-desynchronus. These are known as Ego-Receptive
states.
Ego-Receptivity, primary process thinking, fantasy, imagery, and unfocused free-floating attention are produced by the Right Hemisphere of the brain. In such cases, critical judgement, strict adherence to reality orientation, and active goal-oriented thinking are held at bay and at a minimum, while the person allows himself to freely experience unconscious and preconscious material to float into his conscious mind. He displays an openness to experience, almost as if he is an observer.
Ego-receptivity is the operative state found in many adaptive forms of altered states of consciousness. Some such states are those of profound cognitive relaxation, as seen in mystical transcendental revelatory states attained through meditation, and deep trance states of hypnosis. This state also occurs spontaneously in daydreaming, hypnagogic or hypnopompic reverie, and states of free association.
(See 
Altered States )
Id -
That place where Sigmud Freud (1900) placed sexual and agressive instincts , and also where he believed to be a completely unorganized, primordial resevoir of
instinctual energies under the dominion of
« Primary Process Thinking. »
The Id is therefore completely in the unconscious mind. Instinctual drives are biologically given, hereditary, and concerned only with seeking immediate discharge or gratification.
The Id is viewed as the source of instincts or drives, which are experienced in our waking consciousness by the Ego as emotions and fantasies. It is the total of all psychic energy available from the innate biological hungers, appetites, bodily needs, drives and impulses, found in the new born infant.
SuperEgo - is an outgrowth of the Ego that has unconsciously identified itself with important persons, such as parental figures from early life, and which results from internalized values and wishes of these persons (and subsequently societal norms), as part of one's own standards; forming a Conscience.
The SuperEgo, a developmental offshoot of the Ego, is the locus of Egoic ideals, the individual's set of images for the kind of person he would like to be. It gives rise to unconscious guilt, (a process of «Introjection» or Narcissistic Identification).
Vested in the SuperEgo is the capacity to observe oneself and one's behavior and to judge whether that behavior accords with one's ideals. The SuperEgo causes the Ego to experience a rising or lowering of self-esteem as the individual does or does not live up to those ideals - a phenomenon commonly referred to as a Conscience.
Every Psychologically Important Event, whether a sensation, perception, memory, thought, or emotion is conceived to be the flow of activity within a given Neural Network !
The Conscious System: That region of the Mïnd in which perceptions derived from external stimuli are integrated and brought into awareness. It is the state of Mïnd at a given time which is in full awareness. The objects of such perceptions include bodily processes, mental processes, thoughts, and affects.
The Preconscious System: Consists of mental events, processes, and contents that enter conscious awareness relatively easily when an individual focuses his attention on them. Preconscious thought organization ranges from relatively reality-based or problem-solving thought sequences (Secondary Process organization) to more primative fantasies, daydreams, or dreamlike images, which reflect Primary Process organization. It is the home of the Hidden Observer and is influenced by both the conscious and unconscious minds. One function of the preconscious is to maintain a repressive barrier (or censorship) against unconscious wishes or desires.
The Unconscious System: The term "unconscious" has been used as early as the 1880's, even before the time of Freud's intrest in the unconscious. Pierre Janet was first to use the term "Subconscious." In their time Freud and Janet had differing views concerning the unconscious. Janet thought that only pshchologically unhealthy individuals possessed an unconscious mind. Freud, however, demonstrated the normal activity of the unconscious mind through everyday experiences such as slips of the tongue, dreams, humor and creativity. Freud considered the unconscious mind as the storehouse for unacceptable impulses and thoughts.
Certain aspects of right hemispheric functioning (... thinking) are congruent with the mode of cognition psychoanalysts have termed Primary Process Thinking; the form of thought Freud originally assigned to the unconscious system. These include the extensive use of images, lesser involvement in the perception of time and sequence, and a limited language of the sort that appears in dreams and slips of the tongue. Contents of this system consist of drive representation or wishes that are in some sense unacceptable, threatening, or incongruous with the intellectual or ethical standards of the individual. These mental constituents, affects and memories, are resistant to full conscious awareness.
Electronic computers have many features in common with the human nervous system. First, they all have input circuits that are comparable to the sensory portions of the nervous system and output circuits that are comparable to the motor portions of the nervous system. In the conducting pathway between the inputs and the outputs are the mechanisms for performing the different types of computations,
(ie. the Motherboard).
In the simple computer, the output signals are controlled directly by the input signals operating in a manner similar to that of the simple reflexes of the spinal cord. However, in the more complex computers, the output is determined both by the input signals and by information that is already stored in memory in the computer, which is analogus to the more complex reflexes and processing mechanisms of our higher nervous system.
Additionally, as the computers become even more complex it is necessary to use yet another unit, called the central processing unit (CPU), which determines the sequence of all operations. This unit is analogous to the mechanism in our brain that allows us to direct our attention first to one thought or sensation or motor activity, and then to another, and so on, until complex sequences of thoughts or actions take place.
The fact that the basic components of the general purpose computer are analogous to those of the human nervous system demonstrates that the brain is organized basically like a computer that continuously collects sensory information and uses this along with stored information to compute the acceptibal course of behavioral activity.
«Unconscious Mental Processing»
This Mïnd contains within it our biocomputer soft-ware program. Most of us have acquired this programming in much the same was as we acquired our basic language skills ...without our conscious choice. This is also the way in which many of our beliefs have been scripted (...subliminally).
Research has demonstrated that the conscious mechanism is not a necessary part of information processing. In fact, the unconscious can and quite often does operate without, or at least unknown to, the conscious mechanism. This preconscious discernment has long been studied. 
Just because an individual is not acutely aware of taking in information does not mean that the individual has not internalized it. Information that is integrated at an unconscious level can be as potent as that same information processed at a conscious lever, and often even more so! While a person is in a trance state, his conscious mind will inevitably wander about from one thought to the next during those periods of time that can be long or short. Howerer, the person's unconscious mind continues to take in the hypnotist's suggestions; and is still quite capable of responding to them. Generally, the individual will not remember those suggestions (amnesia), but they are still active and being acted upon in his unconscious mind anyway.
The unconscious mind processes information on a more symbolic, metaphorical level than the concious mind. While your conscious mind is occupied with rationally analyzing the words being listened to, it is the unconscious mind that is more concerned with thier meanings.
Where preconscious predisposition is concerned, the conscious intention only facilitates or inhibits the actions initiated by the preconscious process. In fact, correlations between EEG patterns and conscious experience reveal that 350 milliseconds before the subjective experience of, say, wanting to move, very distinct activity in brain-wave patterns occur. This is a manifestation of choice. We choose to act or not to act, but we do not necessarily choose what to act upon!
In this human biocomputer,
The Subconscious Mïnd,
is the most sophisticated neuroautomechanism ever seen.
Its capabilities are absolutely astonishing. Nevertheless, most of us have never programmed this wonderful human atribute with programs of our own choosing. The result all too often is self-doubt, fear, rejection, and many other paralyzing attitudes and expectations. These attitudes are so powerful that for some they become addictions - and as with any addiction, each addictive experience portends another of the same kind.
Hypnosis can rescript the Preconscious Mïnd, stripping away negative expectations and/or self-doubt and replacing these destructive patterns with positive input, thereby bringing about desired behavioral changes in an effortless and natural way ...from the inside out!
Perceptual Defense Mechanisms play an important role in why we sometimes fail to recognize consciously what we see. Defense Mechanisms are the patterns of feelings, thoughts, or behavior that are relatively involuntary and arise in response to perceptions of psychic danger. They are designed to hide or to alleviate the conflicts that give rise to anxiety, and are distinctively autonamous. Some defense mechanisms, such as sublimation and humor are adaptive. Others such as projection, splitting, and acting-out, are almost invariably maladaptive. Finally, depending upon their severity, inflexibility, and the context in which they occur, others defense mechanisms, such as suppression and denial may be maladaptive or adaptive. All, however, are reversible!
Symptoms
are generally the subjective experience of a pathological condition, but occasianally , they may include objective signs of pathological conditions as well. Symptoms should be thought of as Unconscious Metaphors for the patient. Just as symptoms are the symbols or metaphors of experience, they too are the coping or defense mechanisms that may have made a great deal of sense to the patient in the proper context from which they arose.
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