2/23/2021

A MITY I NSTITUTE O F B EHAVIORAL A ND A LLIED S C IENCES

( AIBAS)

Foundations of Human
Personality
Course Code: PSY2401

Module II: Introduction to Psychodynamic

Approaches
Classic Psychoanalysis: Sigmund Freud
Basic Assumptions of individual psychology, analytical psychology
Erikson’s Psychosocial stages of development
Karen Horney: View on anxiety, neurotic needs.
Object relations theory by Melanie Klein

The term “psychodynamic” refers to the approach of understanding human behavior that focuses on
the role of unconscious thoughts, feelings, and memories.
This is the oldest perspective of understanding personality.
This approach is based on work of the most prominent name in the field of
psychology………………………
YES.!!!!
Its Sigmund Freud.
Psychodynamic approach/Psychoanalytic approach

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2.1: Classic
Psychoanalysis: Sigmund
Freud

An overview of S. Freud’s life:

Freud was born in an Austrian town, now a part of Czechoslovakia.

He was a Jew, and thus had to face many problems as Hitler was ruling during that era.

Ernst Brucke- living organisms are dynamic systems obeying laws of physical universe.

Basically a physician, he worked a lot on a disease called “hysteria”, now popularly known as conversion reactions.

During the early days of his career, he worked under prominent physicians like Jean Charcot (he was famous for treating
hysteria through hypnotic suggestions) and Josef Breuer ( he had achieved some success with hysterical patients by
encouraging them talk freely about their symptoms).

Ernest Jones wrote his biography “The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud”.

Recently, in March 2020, Netflix released a web series on his life “Freud”, there was another one, with similar name, back
in 1984 as well.

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The Psychological
Wednesday Society

• Later known as Vienna

Psychoanalytic Society

“UNCONSCIOUS EMOTIONS WILL NEVER DIE. THEY

ARE BURIED ALIVE AND WILL COME FORTH LATER
IN UGLIER WAYS”
-DR. SIGMUND FREUD

Basic view of human nature:

Animalistic
Selfish motives
Sexual & Aggressive desires
Role of unconscious

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Concept of mind
Conscious mind 10%

Unconscious mind 90%

Present Thoughts
Perceptions

Aggressive wishes Sexual instincts

Selfish desires Shameful
Fears
Painful memories experiences
Unacceptable Painful Childhood
wishes memories

Topographical model : Also called as

Levels of consciousness

Conscious mind

Preconscious mind

Unconscious mind

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Levels of consciousness:
Things that you are
currently aware of.
Eg., what is happening
around you at present?
Things that you can recollect
with some efforts.
Available memory
Eg., what did you eat for
yesterday’s lunch?
Eg., how did you celebrate
your birthday last year?
Things that you have
suppressed and don’t want to
remember. You have forgotten
these unwanted memories
due to painful emotions
attached to it.
Eg., childhood memories of
sexual abuse

Conscious Preconscious
mind mind
Unconscious
mind

Structural Model:
ID EGO
Pleasure
SUPEREGO
principle
Reality
principle Moral
principle

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• Id is a kid.
• Instinctive, inherited aspects of behavior.
• Oldest and original structure of mind, primary principle of human life-
immediate discharge of psychic energy produced by biologically rooted
drives. If not expressed, creates tension and disturbance.
• Raw, animalistic, chaotic, knows no laws, obeys no rules, free from
inhibitions.
• Immediate tension reduction.
• Impulsive, irrational, narcissistic.
• Takes over instinctual needs from somatic processes and gives them
mental expression
• Doesn’t care for consequences
• Does not recognize fear/anxiety
• Takes no precautions in expressing its purpose- dangerous for individual
and society.

SUPEREGO
• Acquired through socialization
• Societal norms and standards of behavior
• No one is born with it.
• Develops through parental interaction, teachers and
significant other formative figures.
• Right-wrong, good-bad, moral- immoral, etc. starts at
around 3-5 yrs.

SUPEREGO
• Child’s efforts to liveup to parental expectations to avoid
conflict and punishment, to fit in the child’s later broadened
social circle, etc.
• Individualized reflection of collective conscience
• Superego is fully developed when self control replaces
parental control.
• Guides person towards absolute perfectionistic goals.

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EGO:
• Decision making component
• Ensures safety and self-preservation.
• Battles for survival against both external world and instinctual demands.
• Preserves one’s integrity.
• Releases id’s raw energy within the bounds of social restrictions.
• Tolerates moderate amount of tension, changes as a function of new experience.
• Rational cognitive activity.
• Executive of personality.

Instincts

Eros:

Life instincts

Thanatos:
Death Instincts

Law of conservation of energy

Life instinct
Basic survival
Pleasure
Reproduction
Essential for sustaining the life of the individual as well as the continuation of the species
Behaviors commonly associated with the life instincts include love, cooperation, and other ​prosocial
actions.​
The energy created by the life instincts is known as libido/libidinal energy.
Erogenous zones

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Death instinct

“The goal of all life is death.”

People hold an unconscious desire to die but the life instincts largely temper this wish
People who experience a traumatic event would often reenact that experience
Death instincts were an extension of that compulsion wherein all living organisms have an instinctive
"pressure toward death“
Fear, hate and anger, which lead to anti-social acts from bullying to murder

Anxiety

Anxiety is a consequence of inadequate discharge of libido

“an ego function which alerts a person to sources of impending dangers that must be
counteracted or avoided. It enables a person to react to threatening situations in adaptive
way” : Freud (1926)

Neurotic anxiety
Moral anxiety
Realistic anxiety

• Neurotic anxiety:
• Threat that unacceptable id
impulses will become
conscious.
• Fear of severe negative
consequences resulting
from doing something
terrible.
• Occurs when instinctual id
impulses threaten to break
through ego controls.

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• Moral anxiety:
• Ego threatened by punishment from
superego
• Response from superego with feelings of
shame, guilt, self-condemnation over
expression of id .
• Objective fear of parental punishment for
doing/thinking something wrong.
• Fear of exclusion from social groups, fear of
death, fear and anticipation of afterlife
punishments.

• Realistic anxiety
• Emotional response to threat,
perception of real dangers in external
world.
• Terminates as the source of threat
subsides.
• Self preservation
• Helps to cope with dangers

Ego defense mechanisms

Way of reducing anxiety by blocking or distorting reality.
Mental strategy to defend against open expression of id and opposing superego pressures.
Help to avoid conscious recognition of unacceptable instinctual impulses, and allow gratification in
appropriate ways at appropriate times
Protect from overwhelming anxiety, intensity is markedly reduced.
Operate at unconscious level, are self-deceptive.
Distort, deny, or falsify perception of reality to make anxiety less threatening.
Ego defense mechanisms either block the impulse or distort it to reduce the intensity of it.

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Denial
Denial involves blocking external events from
awareness. If some situation is just too much
to handle, the person just refuses to
experience it inspite of overwhelming
evidence.
Most typical of young children or immature
adults

Repression
Excluding distressing thoughts and feelings
from consciousness.
These thoughts though remains active in
unconscious and require constant psychic
energy to prevent from emerging into
consciousness.
Dreams, jokes, slips of tongue etc.

Projection
Attributes unacceptable internal thoughts, feelings and behaviors
to other people or environment.
Blame someone/ something for own shortcomings.

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Displacement
Redirecting impulses from more threatening object to something less threatening.

Rationalization
fallacious reasoning
Irrational behavior to rational
Sour grapes

Reaction formation
Opposite of original thoughts
First: unwanted impulse repressed to unconscious
Second: exact opposite expressed in conscious

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Sublimation
Healthy constructive strategy against objectionable impulses.
Socially acceptable

PSYCHOSECUAL STAGES OF
DEVELOPMENT
•Puberty
Genital stage onward
s
•Genital
s.
•6-12 years
Latency stage
•None.
(sexually
inactive)

•3-6 years
Phallic stage
•Genitals

•1.5-3 years
Anal stage
•Anus

•0-18 months
Oral stage:
•Mouth

Oral stage
0-18 months

Mouth: sucking chewing biting, oral cavity is focus, this is first region that experiences pleasure of tension
reduction

weaning., separation from mom

Dependent on caregivers

Gum chewing, nail biting, smoking, kissing, overeating: attachment of libido to oral zone

Sexuality: intake of food, breasts, bottle.

The infant cant distinguish between his own body and mother’s breasts, thus, gratification of hunger and
affection are confused., after some time, mother’s breasts are replaced by infant’s own body part, eg, thumb

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Anal Stage
18 months-3yrs.
Anus: retaining or expelling feces, delay bowel
movements, toilet training.
Most of the libido detaches from the oral zone
and now focused to the anus, with the child
gaining erotic gratification from the bodily
sensations involved in excretion. First
exposure to id-superego conflict.
Defecation produces erotic pleasure for the
child, but with the onset of toilet training, the
child must learn to postpone or delay this
pleasure. For the first time, gratification of an
instinctual impulse is interfered with as
parents attempt to regulate at the time and
place for defecation.

3-6 yrs.
Phallic Stage
Genitals are focus of libido.
Task: identifying with same sex role model.
Children at the phallic stage display considerable interest in exploring and
manipulating the genitals, their own and those of their playmates. Pleasure is
derived from the genital region not only through behaviors such as masturbation,
but also through fantasies. The child becomes curious about birth and about why
boys have penises and girls do not. The child may talk about wanting to marry the
parent of the opposite sex. Children usually understand sexual relations more than
what their parents may suspect
Phallic conflicts are the most complex ones to resolve. They are difficult for many
people to accept because they involve the notion of incest, a taboo in many
cultures.
Children might have witnessed their parents having an intercourse, or may have
fantasized it based on what they understand about sex. Most children view sex as
the father’s aggressive act against the mother.
Boys: Oedipus complex
Girls: Electra complex

LATENCY

The three major structures of the

personality—the id, ego, and superego—
have been formed by approximately the age
of 5, and the relationships among them are
being solidified
The latency period is not a psychosexual
stage of development.
The sex instinct is dormant, temporarily
sublimated in school activities, hobbies, and
sports and in developing friendships with
members of the same sex.

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Genital stage
The genital stage, the final psychosexual stage of
development, begins at puberty.
The body is becoming physiologically mature, and if no
major fixations have occurred at an earlier stage of
development, the individual may be able to lead a normal
life. Freud believed that the conflict during this period is
less intense than in the other stages. The adolescent must
conform to societal sanctions and taboos that exist
concerning sexual expression, but conflict is minimized
through sublimation. The sexual energy pressing for
expression in the teenage years can be at least partially
satisfied through the pursuit of socially acceptable
substitutes and, later, through a committed adult
relationship with a person of the opposite sex. The genital
personality type is able to find satisfaction in love and
work, the latter being an acceptable outlet for sublimation
of the id impulses.

Application
Psychoanalytic therapy
Base of psychodynamic therapies
Base of projective techniques of personality assessment
Dream interpretation

Evaluation
First organized theory of personality
Applicable
Based on extensive clinical observations of neurotic patients as well as self analysis.
Comparatively less empirical validity

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