Freud discussed this model in the 1920 essay Beyond the Pleasure Principle , and fully elaborated upon it in The Ego and the Id ( 1923 ) . Freud discussed this model in the 1920 essay Beyond the Pleasure Principle , and fully elaborated upon it in The Ego and the Id ( 1923 ) , in which he developed it as an alternative to his previous topographic schema ( i.e. , conscious , unconscious , and preconscious ) .