Health ministry of republic of moldova the university of medicine and pharmacy nicolae testemiţanu

 
 
THE BASIC PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCEPT RELATED TO 
MEDICINE: THE HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
Structure: 
1.
The human consciousness. 
2.
The Structural Model of Personality: ID, EGO, Super-EGO. 
3.
Altered states of consciousness. 
 
Key terms:
 
consciousness, conscience, the conscious, the precon-
scious, the unconscious, ID, EGO, Super-EGO, sleep, hypnosis, 
meditation, biofeedback. 
1. The human consciousness 
Psychology studies the human behavior and mental processes. The 
connection between mental processes (sensation, perception, memory, 
thinking, language, creativity, etc) and behavior is due to consciousness.
 
The good conscious control of behavior and mental processes helps the 
person to control his life’s activities. 
Generally, 
consciousness
is defined as the awareness of the 
thoughts, images, sensations, and emotions that flow through one’s 
mind. Consciousness is awareness of external stimuli and of one’s own 
mental activity. Consciousness integrates our experience into a whole, 
but it also can be highly selective, allowing us to focus upon important 
information.
Conscience 
is the moral dimension of human consciousness, the 
means by which humans modify instinctual drives to conform to laws 
and moral codes. Sigmund Freud
 
viewed the conscience as one of two 
components of the 
super-ego,
the other being the 
ego-ideal.
The 
conscience prevents people from doing things that are morally wrong, 
and the ego-ideal motivates people to do things that are considered 
morally right. This theory suggests that the conscience is developed by 

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parents, who convey their beliefs to their children. They in turn interna-
lize these moral codes by a process of identification with a parent. Other 
psychologists have proposed different theories about the development of 
the conscience.
Sigmund Freud