The main trio of Star Trek, the orginal series -- McCoy, Kirk, and Spock -- make for an interesting analogy of human personality as they each show characteristics of Freud's concepts of the id, ego, and superego.
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THE ID - James T. Kirk, always enjoyed a good fight, risked his ship and crew often, and always fed his libido with an assortment of females.
THE SUPEREGO - Doctor Leonard (Bones) McCoy, always reminding his Captain of the rules and morality of any situation. He also is known for his arguments with Spock, just as the superego and ego are often in conflict.
THE EGO - Mr. Spock, the bringer of balance by his use of logic and understanding of his Captain's needs as well as understanding the morality base of Bones. While, Spock and Bones were often at odds, they always were working toward the same end -- a correct and feasable solution to any given situation.
Sigmund Freud's analysis of human personality and subconscious drives feature three main components - id, ego, and superego. Together, these mechanisms combine to aid us in our decision making and guide us to become the unigue individual that we all are.
The idcontains the psychic content related to the primitive instincts of the body, notably sex and aggression, as well as all psychic material that is inherited and present at birth. It functions entirely according to the pleasure-pain principle, its impulses either seeking immediate fulfillment or settling for a compromise fulfillment. The superegois the ethical component of the personality and provides the moral standards by which the ego operates. The ego coexists, in psychoanalytic theory, with the id and superego...it is the integrator between the outer and inner worlds, as well as between the id and the superego. The ego gives continuity and consistency to behaviour by providing a personal point of reference, which relates the events of the past (retained in memory) and actions of the present and of the future (represented in anticipation and imagination)
(SOURCE: Britannica.com)
Kirk, with his passion for gratification in terms of aggression and sex, displays characteristics of the id. McCoy, with his ethics and morality, represents the superego as he is constantly reminding his Captain of the consequences of his actions. Spock, with his logic and dispassionate approach to life characterizes the ego, the balance between the impulses of the id and the extreme caution of the superego. Together -- Kirk, McCoy, and Spock represent the triadic conflict within all humans, thus three distinct characters, taken together to form an understanding of the human condition.
