The origin of……………… work of Sigmund Freud

Types of Anxiety

Not all types of anxiety are created equal. Nor do these anxieties stem from the same sources.
Freud identified three types of anxiety:

1. Neurotic anxiety is the unconscious worry that we will lose control of the id's urges,
resulting in punishment for inappropriate behavior.

2. Reality anxiety is fear of real-world events. The cause of this anxiety is usually easily
identified. For example, a person might fear receiving a dog bite when they are near a
menacing dog. The most common way of reducing this anxiety is to avoid the threatening
object.

3. Moral anxiety involves a fear of violating our own moral principles.

What Exactly Is a Defense Mechanism?

Most notably used by Sigmund Freud in his psychoanalytic theory, a defense mechanism is a
tactic developed by the ego to protect against anxiety.

Defense mechanisms are thought to safeguard the mind against feelings and thoughts that are too
difficult for the conscious mind to cope with.

In some instances, defense mechanisms are thought to keep inappropriate or unwanted thoughts
and impulses from entering the conscious mind.

How Do Defense Mechanisms Work?

In Sigmund Freud's model of personality, the ego is the aspect of personality that deals with
reality. While doing this, the ego also has to cope with the conflicting demands of the id and the
superego.

The id is the part of personality that seeks to fulfill all wants, needs, and impulses. It is the most
basic, primal part of our personalities and does not consider things such as the social
appropriateness, morality, or even reality of fulfilling our wants and needs.

The superego tries to get the ego to act in an idealistic and moral manner. This part of personality
is made up of all of the internalized morals and values we acquire from our parents, other family
members, religious influences, and society.
In order to deal with anxiety, Freud believed that defense mechanisms helped shield the ego from
the conflicts created by the id, superego, and reality.

 Repression: when a feeling is hidden and forced from the consciousness to the
unconscious because it is seen as socially unacceptable.

 Regression: falling back into an early state of mental/physical development seen as "less
demanding and safer"

 Projection: possessing a feeling that is deigned as socially unacceptable and instead of

facing it, that feeling or "unconscious urge" is seen in the actions of other people.

 Reaction formation: acting the opposite way that the unconscious instructs a person to
behave, "often exaggerated and obsessive". For example, if a wife is infatuated with a
man who is not her husband, reaction formation may cause her to – rather than cheat –
become obsessed with showing her husband signs of love and affection.

 Sublimation: seen as the most acceptable of the mechanisms, an expression of anxiety in

socially acceptable ways.

 Denial: Refusal to accept external reality because it is too threatening; arguing against an
anxiety-provoking stimulus by stating it does not exist; resolution of emotional conflict
and reduction of anxiety by refusing to perceive or consciously acknowledge the more
unpleasant aspects of external reality.

 Distortion: A gross reshaping of external reality to meet internal needs.

 Displacement: Defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses to a more

acceptable or less threatening target; redirecting emotion to a safer outlet; separation of
emotion from its real object and redirection of the intense emotion toward someone or
something that is less offensive or threatening in order to avoid dealing directly with what
is frightening or threatening.

 Dissociation: Temporary drastic modification of one's personal identity or character to

avoid emotional distress; separation or postponement of a feeling that normally would
accompany a situation or thought.
 Intellectualization: A form of isolation; concentrating on the intellectual components of
a situation so as to distance oneself from the associated anxiety-provoking emotions;
separation of emotion from ideas;

thinking about wishes in formal, affectively bland terms and not acting on them; avoiding
unacceptable emotions by focusing on the intellectual aspects (isolation, rationalization,
ritual, undoing, compensation, and magical thinking.

 Reaction formation: Converting unconscious wishes or impulses that are perceived to

be dangerous or unacceptable into their opposites; behavior that is completely the
opposite of what one really wants or feels; taking the opposite belief because the true
belief causes anxiety.

 Repression: The process of attempting to repel desires towards pleasurable instincts,

caused by a threat of suffering if the desire is satisfied; the desire is moved to the
unconscious in the attempt to prevent it from entering consciousness; seemingly
unexplainable naivety, memory lapse or lack of awareness of one's own situation and
condition; the emotion is conscious, but the idea behind it is absent.

 Altruism: Constructive service to others that brings pleasure and personal satisfaction.

 Anticipation: Realistic planning for future discomfort.

 Humor: Overt expression of ideas and feelings (especially those that are unpleasant to
focus on or too terrible to talk about directly) that gives pleasure to others. The thoughts
retain a portion of their innate distress, but they are "skirted around" by witticism, for
example self-deprecation.

 Sublimation: Transformation of unhelpful emotions or instincts into healthy actions,

behaviors, or emotions, for example, playing a heavy contact sport such as football or
rugby can transform aggression into a game.

 Suppression: The conscious decision to delay paying attention to a thought, emotion, or

need in order to cope with the present reality; making it possible later to access
uncomfortable or distressing emotions whilst accepting them
Other defense mechanisms

Pathological

o Conversion: The expression of an intrapsychic conflict as a physical symptom;

some examples include blindness, deafness, paralysis, or numbness. This
phenomenon is sometimes called hysteria.

o Splitting: A primitive defense. Both harmful and helpful impulses are split off
and unintegrated, frequently projected onto someone else. The defended
individual segregates experiences into all-good and all-bad categories, with no
room for ambiguity and ambivalence. When "splitting" is combined with
"projecting", the undesirable qualities that one unconsciously perceives oneself as
possessing, one consciously attributes to another.

Immature

o Idealization: Tending to perceive another individual as having more desirable

qualities than he or she may actually have.

o Introjections: Identifying with some idea or object so deeply that it becomes a

part of that person. For example, introjections occurs when we take on attributes
of other people who seem better able to cope with the situation than we do.

o Passive aggression: Aggression towards others expressed indirectly or passively,

often through procrastination.

o Projective identification: The object of projection invokes in that person a

version of the thoughts, feelings or behaviors projected.

o Somatization: The transformation of uncomfortable feelings towards others into

uncomfortable feelings toward oneself: pain, illness, and anxiety.

o Wishful thinking: Making decisions according to what might be pleasing to

imagine instead of by appealing to evidence, rationality, or reality.
Neurotic

o Isolation: Separation of feelings from ideas and events, for example, describing a
murder with graphic details with no emotional response.

o Rationalization (making excuses): Convincing oneself that no wrong has been

done and that all is or was all right through faulty and false reasoning. An
indicator of this defence mechanism can be seen socially as the formulation of
convenient excuses.

o Regression: Temporary reversion of the ego to an earlier stage of development

rather than handling unacceptable impulses in a more adult way, for example,
using whining as a method of communicating despite already having acquired the
ability to speak with an appropriate level of maturity.

o Undoing: A person tries to 'undo' an unhealthy, destructive or otherwise

threatening thought by acting out the reverse of the unacceptable. Involves
symbolically nullifying an unacceptable or guilt provoking thought, idea, or
feeling by confession or atonement.

o Upward and downward social comparisons: A defensive tendency that is used

as a means of self-evaluation. Individuals will look to another individual or
comparison group who are considered to be worse off in order to dissociate
themselves from perceived similarities and to make themselves feel better about
themselves or their personal situation.

o Withdrawal: Withdrawal is a more severe form of defence. It entails removing

oneself from events, stimuli, and interactions under the threat of being reminded
of painful thoughts and feelings.

Mature

o Acceptance: A person's assent to the reality of a situation, recognizing a process

or condition (often a difficult or uncomfortable situation) without attempting to
change it, protest, or exit. Religions and psychological treatments often suggest
the path of acceptance when a situation is both disliked and unchangeable, or
when change may be possible only at great cost or risk.
o Courage: The mental ability and willingness to confront conflicts, fear, pain,
danger, uncertainty, despair, obstacles, vicissitudes or intimidation. Physical
courage often extends lives, while moral courage preserves the ideals of justice
and fairness.

o Emotional self-regulation: The ability to respond to the ongoing demands of

experience with the range of emotions in a manner that is socially tolerable.

Emotional self-regulation refers to the processes people use to modify the type,
intensity, duration, or expression of various emotions.

o Emotional self-sufficiency: Not being dependent on the validation (approval or

disapproval) of others.

o Forgiveness: Cessation of resentment, indignation or anger as a result of a

perceived offence, disagreement, or mistake, or ceasing to demand retribution or
restitution.

o Gratitude: A feeling of thankfulness or appreciation involving appreciation of a

wide range of people and events. Gratitude is likely to bring higher levels of
happiness, and lower levels of depression and stress. Throughout history,
gratitude has been given a central position in religious and philosophical theories.

o Humility: A mechanism by which a person, considering their own defects, has a

humble self-opinion. Humility is intelligent self-respect which keeps one from
thinking too highly or too meanly of oneself.

o Identification: The unconscious modeling of one's self upon another person's

character and behavior.

o Mercy: Compassionate behavior on the part of those in power.

o Mindfulness: Adopting an orientation (characterized by curiosity, openness, and

acceptance) toward one's experiences in the present moment.

o Moderation: The process of eliminating or lessening extremes and staying within

reasonable limits. It necessitates self-restraint which is imposed by oneself on
one's own feelings, desires etc.
 o Patience: Enduring difficult circumstances (delay, provocation, criticism, attack
etc.) for some time before responding negatively.

o Respect: Willingness to show consideration or appreciation. Respect can be a

specific feeling of regard for the actual qualities of a person or feeling being and
also specific actions and conduct representative of that esteem. Relationships and
contacts that are built without the presence of respect are seldom long term or
sustainable. The lack of respect is at the very heart of most conflict in families,
communities, and nations.

o Tolerance: The practice of deliberately allowing or permitting a thing of which

one disapproves.

According to Sigmund Freud, human personality is complex and has more than a single
component. In his famous psychoanalytic theory of personality, personality is composed of three
elements. These three elements of personality known as the id, the ego, and the superego work
together to create complex human behaviors.

Each component not only adds its own unique contribution to personality, but all three elements
interact in ways that have a powerful influence on each individual. Each of these three elements
of personality emerges at different points in life.

According to Freud's theory, certain aspects of your personality are more primal and might
pressure you to act upon your most basic urges. Other parts of your personality work to
counteract these urges and strive to make you conform to the demands of reality.

Take a closer look at each of these key parts of personality, how they work individually, and how
they interact.

The Id

The id is the only component of personality that is present from birth.

This aspect of personality is entirely unconscious and includes the instinctive and
primitive behaviors.

According to Freud, the id is the source of all psychic energy, making it the primary
component of personality.

The id is driven by the pleasure principle, which strives for immediate gratification of all desires,
wants, and needs. If these needs are not satisfied immediately, the result is a state anxiety or
tension. For example, an increase in hunger or thirst should produce an immediate attempt to eat
or drink.
The id is very important early in life because it ensures that an infant's needs are met. If the
infant is hungry or uncomfortable, he or she will cry until the demands of the id are satisfied.
Because young infants are ruled entirely by the id, there is no reasoning with them when these
needs demand satisfaction.

Imagine trying to convince a baby to wait until lunchtime to eat his meal. Instead, the id requires
immediate satisfaction, and because the other components of personality are not yet present, the
infant will cry until these needs are fulfilled.

However, immediately fulfilling these needs is not always realistic or even possible. If we were
ruled entirely by the pleasure principle, we might find ourselves grabbing the things that we want
out of other people's hands to satisfy our own cravings.

This sort of behavior would be both disruptive and socially unacceptable. According to Freud,
the id tries to resolve the tension created by the pleasure principle through the primary process,
which involves forming a mental image of the desired object as a way of satisfying the need.

Although people eventually learn to control the id, this part of personality remains the same
infantile, primal force all throughout life. It is the development of the ego and the superego that
allows people to control the id's basic instincts and act in ways that are both realistic and socially
acceptable.

The Ego

The ego is the component of personality that is responsible for dealing with reality.

According to Freud, the ego develops from the id and ensures that the impulses of the id
can be expressed in a manner acceptable in the real world.

The ego functions in the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious mind.

The ego operates based on the reality principle, which strives to satisfy the id's desires in realistic
and socially appropriate ways. The reality principle weighs the costs and benefits of an action
before deciding to act upon or abandon impulses. In many cases, the id's impulses can be
satisfied through a process of delayed gratification the ego will eventually allow the behavior,
but only in the appropriate time and place.

Freud compared the id to a horse and the ego to the horse's rider. The horse provides the power
and motion, yet the rider provides the direction and guidance. Without its rider, the horse may
simply wander wherever it wished and do whatever it pleased. The rider instead gives the horse
directions and commands to guide it in the direction he or she wishes to go.
The ego also discharges tension created by unmet impulses through the secondary process, in
which the ego tries to find an object in the real world that matches the mental image created by
the id's primary process.

For example, imagine that you are stuck in a long meeting at work. You find yourself growing
increasingly hungry as the meeting drags on. While the id might compel you to jump up from
your seat and rush to the break room for a snack, the ego guides you to sit quietly and wait for
the meeting to end. Instead of acting upon the primal urges of the id, you spend the rest of the
meeting imagining yourself eating a cheeseburger. Once the meeting is finally over, you can seek
out the object you were imagining and satisfy the demands of the id in a realistic and appropriate
manner.

The Superego

The last component of personality to develop is the superego.

The superego is the aspect of personality that holds all of our internalized moral standards
and ideals that we acquire from both parents and society—our sense of right and wrong.

The superego provides guidelines for making judgments.

According to Freud, the superego begins to emerge at around age five.

There are two parts of the superego:

1. The ego ideal includes the rules and standards for good behaviors. These behaviors
include those which are approved of by parental and other authority figures. Obeying
these rules leads to feelings of pride, value, and accomplishment.

2. The conscience includes information about things that are viewed as bad by parents and
society. These behaviors are often forbidden and lead to bad consequences, punishments,
or feelings of guilt and remorse.

The superego acts to perfect and civilize our behavior. It works to suppress all unacceptable
urges of the id and struggles to make the ego act upon idealistic standards rather that upon
realistic principles. The superego is present in the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious.

The Interaction of the Id, Ego, and Superego

When talking about the id, the ego, and the superego, it is important to remember that these are
not three totally separate entities with clearly defined boundaries. These aspects of personality
are dynamic and always interacting within a person to influence an individual's overall
personality and behavior.
With so many competing forces, it is easy to see how conflict might arise between the id, ego,
and superego. Freud used the term ego strength to refer to the ego's ability to function despite
these dueling forces. A person with good ego strength is able to effectively manage these
pressures, while those with too much or too little ego strength can become too unyielding or too
disrupting.

What Happens If There Is an Imbalance?

According to Freud, the key to a healthy personality is a balance between the id, the ego, and the
superego.

If the ego is able to adequately moderate between the demands of reality, the id, and the
superego, a healthy and well-adjusted personality emerges. Freud believed that an imbalance
between these elements would lead to a maladaptive personality. An individual with an overly
dominant id, for example, might become impulsive, uncontrollable, or even criminal. This
individual acts upon his or her most basic urges with no concern for whether the behavior is
appropriate, acceptable, or legal.

An overly dominant superego, on the other hand, might lead to a personality that is extremely
moralistic and possibly judgmental. This person may be very unable to accept anything or
anyone that he or she perceives as "bad" or "immoral."

An excessively dominant ego can also result in problems. An individual with this type of
personality might be so tied to reality, rules, and appropriateness that they are unable to engage
in any type of spontaneous or unexpected behavior. This individual may seem very concrete and
rigid, incapable of accepting change and lacking an internal sense of right from wrong.

Freud's theory provides one conceptualization of how personality is structured and how these
different elements of personality function. In Freud's view, a healthy personality results from a
balance in the dynamic interaction of the id, ego, and superego.

While the ego has a tough job to do, it does not have to act alone. Anxiety also plays a role in
helping the ego mediate between the demands of the basic urges, moral values, and the real
world. When you experience different types of anxiety, defense mechanisms may kick in to help
defend the ego and reduce the anxiety you are feeling.
Oral Stage (0-1 year)

In the first stage of personality development, the libido is centered in a baby's mouth. It gets
much satisfaction from putting all sorts of things in its mouth to satisfy the libido, and thus its id
demands. Which at this stage in life are oral, or mouth orientated, such as sucking, biting, and
breastfeeding.

Freud said oral stimulation could lead to an oral fixation in later life. We see oral personalities
all around us such as smokers, nail-biters, finger-chewers, and thumb suckers. Oral personalities
engage in such oral behaviors, particularly when under stress.

Anal Stage (1-3 years)

The libido now becomes focused on the anus, and the child derives great pleasure from
defecating. The child is now fully aware that they are a person in their own right and that their
wishes can bring them into conflict with the demands of the outside world (i.e., their ego has
developed).

Freud believed that this type of conflict tends to come to a head in potty training, in which adults
impose restrictions on when and where the child can defecate. The nature of this first conflict
with authority can determine the child's future relationship with all forms of authority.

Early or harsh potty training can lead to the child becoming an anal-retentive personality who
hates mess, is obsessively tidy, punctual and respectful of authority. They can be stubborn and
tight-fisted with their cash and possessions. This is all related to pleasure got from holding on to
their faces when toddlers, and their mum's then insisting that they get rid of it by placing them on
the potty until they perform!

Not as daft as it sounds. The anal expulsive, on the other hand, underwent a liberal toilet-
training regime during the anal stage. In adulthood, the anal expulsive is the person who wants
to share things with you. They like giving things away. In essence, they are 'sharing their s**t'!'
An anal-expulsive personality is also messy, disorganized and rebellious.

Phallic Stage (3 to 5 or 6 years)

Sensitivity now becomes concentrated in the genitals and masturbation (in both sexes) becomes a
new source of pleasure. The child becomes aware of anatomical sex differences, which sets in
motion the conflict between erotic attraction, resentment, rivalry, jealousy and fear which Freud
called the Oedipus complex (in boys) and the Electra complex (in girls).
This is resolved through the process of identification, which involves the child adopting the
characteristics of the same sex parent.

Oedipus Complex

The most important aspect of the phallic stage is the Oedipus complex. This is one of Freud's
most controversial ideas and one that many people reject outright.

The name of the Oedipus complex derives from the Greek myth where Oedipus, a young man,
kills his father and marries his mother. Upon discovering this, he pokes his eyes out and becomes
blind. This Oedipal is the generic (i.e., general) term for both Oedipus and Electra complexes.

In the young boy, the Oedipus complex or more correctly, conflict, arises because the boy
develops sexual (pleasurable) desires for his mother. He wants to possess his mother exclusively
and get rid of his father to enable him to do so. Irrationally, the boy thinks that if his father were
to find out about all this, his father would take away what he loves the most. During the phallic
stage what the boy loves most is his penis. Hence the boy develops castration anxiety.

The little boy then sets out to resolve this problem by imitating, copying and joining in
masculine dad-type behaviors. This is called identification, and is how the three-to-five year old
boy resolves his Oedipus complex. Identification means internally adopting the values, attitudes,
and behaviors of another person. The consequence of this is that the boy takes on the male
gender role, and adopts an ego ideal and values that become the superego.

Freud (1909) offered the Little Hans case study as evidence of the Oedipus complex.

Electra Complex

For girls, the Oedipus or Electra complex is less than satisfactory. Briefly, the girl desires the
father, but realizes that she does not have a penis. This leads to the development of penis envy
and the wish to be a boy.

The girl resolves this by repressing her desire for her father and substituting the wish for a penis
with the wish for a baby. The girl blames her mother for her 'castrated state,' and this creates
great tension. The girl then represses her feelings (to remove the tension) and identifies with the
mother to take on the female gender role.
Latency Stage (5 or 6 to puberty)

No further psychosexual development takes place during this stage (latent means hidden). The
libido is dormant. Freud thought that most sexual impulses are repressed during the latent stage,
and sexual energy can be sublimated (re: defense mechanisms) towards school work, hobbies,
and friendships.

Much of the child's energy is channeled into developing new skills and acquiring new
knowledge, and play becomes largely confined to other children of the same gender.

Genital Stage (puberty to adult)

This is the last stage of Freud's psychosexual theory of personality development and begins in
puberty. It is a time of adolescent sexual experimentation, the successful resolution of which is
settling down in a loving one-to-one relationship with another person in our 20's. Sexual instinct
is directed to heterosexual pleasure, rather than self-pleasure like during the phallic stage.

For Freud, the proper outlet of the sexual instinct in adults was through heterosexual intercourse.
Fixation and conflict may prevent this with the consequence that sexual perversions may
develop.

For example, fixation at the oral stage may result in a person gaining sexual pleasure primarily
from kissing and oral sex, rather than sexual intercourse.