One of Freud’s most valuable insights involves the existence of the life instinct (Eros) and the death instinct (Thanatos). Freud believed that within each individual there is a constant struggle between the superego (the conscience) and the id (that dark, lurking mass of destructive and animal urges residing within each of us), and that the struggle is mediated by the ego (the self). One wit once referred to this situation as “a struggle in a locked, dark basement; between a homicidal sex-crazed monkey and a puritanical old maid; being mediated by a timid accountant.”
