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Sigmund Freud:Personality
Development
I – Sigmund Freud’s Major Hypotheses about
Personality
A. Man’s Psychic system:

Is a complex energy system and
obeys the scientific law that energy
cannot be lost or destroyed, but it
can be transferred from one part of
a system to another part, and it can
be transformed.

B.“The Topography of the
mind”
There are three levels or types of
mental (psychic) activity:

1) Conscious:
2) Preconscious:
3) Unconscious:

C.“The Intrapsychic System”
The personality structure consists of
three subsystems:

1) Id
2) Ego
3) Superego

D. The Psychosexual Stages
of Development

There are five major stages of
biological-psychological
development through which every
person must progress if he is to
become psychologically mature.
Freud called these levels to become
psychologically mature. Freud called
these levels of development.

Psychosexual Stageswhich
include:
1) Oral Stage (Birth – 18 months)
2) Anal Stage (18 months – 3

years)
3) Phallic Stage (3 years – 5 years)
4) Latent State (6 years – Puberty)
5) Genital Stage (Puberty -

)
E. Personality Development

Personality develops in response to four
major sources of tension. A person is
forced to learn methods of reducing
tension and this learning constitutes
personality development (new modes of
thought, feeling, and behavior).

1) Physiological growth processes

2) Frustration
3) Conflict
4) Threat

F. That ego develops methods
for reducing tension and self
protection:

1) Identification and displacement
are used to resolve conflicts and
frustrations.

2) Defense mechanisms are methods
that deny or distort reality and
that may impede the positive (or
mature) development or
personality or psychological
functioning.

G. The early years of infancy
and childhood are decisive
in laying down the basic
character structure and
personality of each
individual

Crazy Joe’s Psych 101 Notes II
Prof. T.R. Tharney: PSY101 Handout 2 pp. 1

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