That (psychoanalysis)

The That (das Es ) is a psychoanalytical concept . Initially imagined by Georg Groddeck, which Freud will recognize from the start, the development that the latter will make some in 1923 moves away it considerably from its origins groddeckiennes: located in the authority Unconscious of the First topics, it indicates one of the three Instance S of the Seconde topics, Freud calling the two others the Me and the Surmoi.

Development of the concept of That

Following its work on the impulses and repression ( circa 1915), Sigmund Freud works out as from 1920 the second topics, which does not replace the first but is superimposed on this one. It then introduces into It Me and it That (1923) a new interpretation of the operation of the psychic apparatus resting on three authorities.

“We give to oldest of these psychic provinces or authorities the name of That ; its contents include/understand all that the being brings while being born, all that was constitutionally given, therefore before all the impulses emanated from the somatic organization and which find in That, in forms which remain to us unknown, a first psychic mode of expression. ”

Sigmund Freud, Shortened of psychoanalysis , 1938.

Nature and function of That

Conceptually, it That represents the instinctual part of the human Psyché, it knows neither standards (interdicts or requirements), nor reality (time or space) and is governed only by the only pleasure principle, immediate and unconditional satisfaction of biological needs. It is thus the center of the Pulsion S, of the desires which constitute the psychic energy of the individual. That is entirely an authority Inconscient E. It is the dominant authority in an infant who does not make the share between reality and imaginary and has a feeling of absolute power.

It generally runs up, and most violently, with the Surmoi which is the center of the imposed standards (by outside, the company, the Déontologie…), of the Interdit S. the Super-ego prohibits the satisfaction of the impulses of That and drives back them.

This interior fight generates conflicts which express by the Me, the result become conscious and in contact with outside.

That is thus the resultant:

on the one hand of an Innate capital and hereditary, nap of the characters of the species (sexuality, aggressiveness);
in addition of the Acquired of the individual, result of his experiment and the repression of the impulses which could not be expressed (and which reappears in another form).

Bibliography and bonds

the that, the Me, the Super-ego: Personality and its authorities , Sand & Tchou, 1997, ISBN 2710705923
Sigmund Freud, Introduction to the psychoanalysis , 1916
It That by Christophe Bormans, psychoanalyst (see also his article: “It That: considering on TV! ”).

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