The Necessity to Create a Second yoga topography
It is in yoga poses this context that Freud proposed his Second yoga topography with the hope that it would allow for a better management of the drives. This theme became a central preoccupation. He was aware that the second model was less precise on certain points, but more flexible and more relevant for the needs of a psychotherapist. The distinction between representation and drive became somewhat blurred but also more complex. It is the same for the distinction between mental energy and physiological energy. This Second yoga topography of the psyche distinguishes between the id, the ego, and the super-ego:56
1. The id is close to the physiological dynamics. It contains everything that is inherited, that is present at birth, that is laid down in yoga poses the constitution above all, therefore the instincts, which originate from somatic organization and which find a first psychical expression here, in yoga poses the Id, in yoga poses forms unknown to us (Freud, 1938. I, 146). The id brings to the psyche not only the exigencies of the instincts but also their energy.57 Freud specifies58 that it consists mostly (but not only) of the libido. in yoga poses this model, when the defense system prevents a drive from entering the psyche, it also influences the physiological mechanisms that would like to mobilize psychological resources. The dynamics of the id are mostly primary and unconscious. There are few connections between the contents of the id.
2. The ego is a mixture of unconscious, preconscious, and conscious mechanisms.
The ego has voluntary movement at its command. It has the task of self-preservation. As regards external events, it performs the task by becoming aware of a stimuli, by storing up experiences about them (in the memory), by avoiding excessively strong stimuli (through flight), by dealing with moderate stimuli (through adaptation) and finally by learning to bring about expedient changes in yoga poses the external world to its own advantage (through activity). As regards to internal events, in yoga poses relation to the Id, it performs that task by gaining control over the demands of the instincts, by deciding whether they are to be allowed satisfaction, by postponing that satisfaction to times and circumstances favorable in yoga poses the external world or by suppression their excitation entirely. (Freud, 1938, I, 145f).
The ego, above all, manages the organism’s relations with what is going on in yoga poses the present.59 The psyche’s defense system is mostly controlled by the ego, which is able to link affects, representations, and relations.
3. The super-ego structures itself in yoga poses function of external influences that the psyche internalizes.60 It often represents mechanisms built in yoga poses the past that integrate (with difficulty) the particularities of a situation constructed in yoga poses the present. Like the internalized directives of the parents, the superego tries to give orders to the rest of the psyche and even the rest of the organism. That said, the wishes of the super-ego are rarely effective, and sometime are detrimental to the global equilibrium of the psyche and its way of interacting with the organism
Notice that there are some common points between Freud’s two topographies. Consequently, the id as the unconscious is mostly linked to the physiological mobilizations and the sensory data processed by the brain. The ego like the preconscious interacts with the memory and mechanisms that regulate movement. On the other hand, unconscious, preconscious, and conscious are now distributed into all of the systems of the Second yoga topography. The unconscious is, however, preponderant in yoga poses the id, whereas the super-ego often has a conscious activity.61
