Tracing Freud's ideas
Sigmund Freud follows Nietzsche's thinking that modernity is the responsible cause for the repression of the consciousness of individuals in a society.
Psychotherapy TL;DR
Psychotherapy is a form of therapy that did not involve the popular "hypnosis" method prevalent in Freud's time and instead focuses on talking as an effective form of treatment. The role of the psychoanalyst is not to solve the patient's problem but merely to bring it out of the subconscious.
Interpretation of Dreams
The book published by Freud in 1899 was a groundbreaking work for its time because it shattered the myth that dreams are "dead time." Instead, he showed how the "dreaming" state is one of the few moments we can connect with our subconscious (information he used with therapeutic ends in mind).
Repression
For Freud, the act of repression is where the subject pushes painful/bad experiences and memories from their conscious to the subconscious as a coping mechanism of dealing with "undesired" experiences.
Ego, Id, and Superego
Our subconscious is regulated by three different powers: the ego, the id, and the superego.
The ego is the main driver for our conscious actions, a kind of "mental agency" that can supervise and control parts of our thinking process. Moreover, the ego acts as a powerful driver for individual repression.
The id refers to the instinctual drivers, the biological drivers that have yet to be repressed.
The superego is our internalized moral compass that allows us to decide on what is "right" or "wrong" based on the values instilled into us by our parents and society as a whole.
Relation of the ego and the id
The metaphor that best describes the relationship between these two variables is that of the "man on a horseback." In this metaphor, the ego is the person riding (and steering) the horse in the desired direction, and the id is the horse itself. Moreover, as is the case with horse riding, the horseback can steer the horse in the desired way, but it can also be the case that the horse overpowers the rider, and without its approval, go untamed. We can imagine a scenario where the instinctual drivers stemming from the id overwhelm the ability of the ego to steer the actions of the individual in a socially acceptable way (biological driver overpowering the proper conduct of a man).
Libido and Death instinct
Freud broke down the types of biological/instinctual drivers into two categories: "libido" and the "death instinct." Libido is our sexual desire concerned with reproduction and self-preservation, while the death instinct is our drive for destructiveness, one that's in stark contrast with the concept of libido.
Pleasure principle