PYSCHOLOGY FOUNDATION OF EDUCATION

WELNIE S. DETECIO AUGUST ___, 2019

MSE-I MATH MSU-NAAWAN

PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF SIGMUND FREUD

Brief Background
May 6, 1856 – Sigmund Freud was born in Freyberg town, Czech Republic
1881 – He graduated from medical faculty, university of Vienna
1896 – Sigmund Freud was officially recognized
1900 – He released ‘interpretation of dreams’
Overview of Psychoanalysis
 Philosophical of human nature
 Approach to therapy and a theory of personality
 Unconscious motivation
The Divisions of the Mind
1) Preconscious
 Facts stored in a part of the brain, which are not conscious but are available for possible use in the future. It
includes al the thoughts and events that a person is not aware of right now. For instance, your cell number
would be in your preconscious. Your full address is also in your preconscious. The moment someone asks for
your cell number and your blurt it out; you bring the preconscious information into your conscious part. When
you need to write down your address on a raffle ticket, then your preconscious knowledge is again brought to
your conscious.
2) Conscious
 It is the only level of mental life that is directly available to us.
3) Unconscious
 What then, is the unconscious part made up of? Try to think of the last time you felt so embarrassed or so hurt.
What happened then? How did you feel? Do you want to keep remembering everything that happened at that
moment? Now think about the time when you cried so hard. What made you feel that way? Who made you feel
that way? Do you want to keep remembering how it felt?
 All thought that brought us pain, anger, embarrassment and hurt is part of our unconscious mind when we push
it there in order to forget. This is the division of mind that remains hidden. It only shows up in our dreams.
However, what is in our unconscious, according to Freud, greatly affects how we think, feel and act in our
conscious state.
The Divisions of the Personality
According to Freud, our personalities can also be divided into three parts:
Situation: There is a television ad for a famous brand of bath soap. A lady is at a supermarket and she needs new
bath soap. She sees a cheap brand (BRAND A) and she sees another brand (BRAND B). She is about to put
BRAND A in her basket when, her “konsensya” suddenly talks to her. Her conscience tells her to buy BRAND B
because it removes 99.99% of germs. In this ad, “konsensya” acted like the angel. Let’s put another character in the
ad. Let’s put a good-looking woman with a great body and let’s make her convince the lady to buy her brand (BRAND
C). The beautiful lady will tell the lady that she can look like her if she buys BRAND C. If the lady ends up buying
BRAND C, then it is as if the beautiful woman acted like the devil.
In the example above, the lady who is trying to buy the bar of soap is the EGO. The “konsensya” is the SUPEREGO
and the beautiful lady is the ID.
1) Id
 It is part of our unconscious. It contains all our basic drives like hunger, thirst, sex and aggression. It is also
known as the “pleasure drive”. According to Freud, the ID seeks pleasure all the time. If we are the type who
gives in to pleasure all the time, then that means we listen to our ID very often.
2) Superego
 Is the moral center. It tells us right from wrong. It is what controls the EGO from always following the ID. It is
where our conscience is found. It is what makes us feel guilty about some of our actions.
3) Ego
 It is the reality center. It is the part of personality that deals with the here and now. It is the conscious and logical
part of our personality. It tells the ID that NOT everything it wants it can get because in reality, life is not lived that
way. You need to control your urges. You cannot eat all the time.
 PSYCHOSEXUAL STAGES
 (3) Each stage poses for individuals a unique conflict that they must resolve before they go to the next higher stage.
 (4) Individuals may become so addicted to the pleasure of a given stage that they are unwilling to move on to the later
stages.
1) Oral STAGE – At this stage, the baby drinks milk from the mother’s breast. If the baby is weaned (moved from
breast-feeding and transferred to bottle-feeding) at a very early or very late stage, then the child grows up to have a
fixation at this stage. Those who are fixated at this stage can be those who are overeaters, chain smokers,
alcoholics, nail biters or gum chewers. Those who talk too much are also orally fixated. As adults, those who were
weaned late become too dependent and optimistic. Those who were weaned too early become too independent and
too pessimistic.
2) Anal Stage – at this stage, children are taught to control their bowel movements. Too much control and training may
lead children to become adults who have an anal-retentive personality. Those who were not taught to control their
bowels, tend to become anal-expulsive. Anal-retentive people are very particular about order and cleanliness. Anal-
expulsive people are the exact opposite. Their work spaces are always messy and unorganized.
3) Phallic Stage - It is at this stage when, according to Freud, boy children fall in love with their mothers and are
jealous of their fathers. This was termed as the Oedipus (ee-di-poos) Complex. Another psychologist, named Carl
Jung, gave the term Elektra Complex to refer to the girl child who falls in love with the father and become jealous of
the mother.
 What happened next? According to Freud, the child discovers that he/she cannot have his/her parent as a
love interest. The child then represses (to not allow yourself to do or express) feelings and begins to identify
with the parent of the same sex. According to Freud, it is at this point that the superego develops.
 What happens when the parent encourages the love the child has for him or her? According to Freud, a
fixation develops. Males grow up to be a “mama’s boy” and females grow up to be promiscuous (when one
jumps from one sexual relationship to the next/having or involving many sexual partners). Also, people who
are fixated at this stage tend to become very vain (too proud of one’s own appearance, abilities and
achievements). They have low self-worth and they compensate (to make up for some weakness) by being
vain. Moreover, Freud added that the fixation at this stage may be a root of homosexuality.

Prepared by:

WELNIE S. DETECIO
MSE-I MATH