PSYCHOANALYTIC

THEORY
(SIGMUND FREUD)

By:
TRIXIE A. MALINAO
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction…………………………………………….……… 1
Concept of Psychoanalytic Theory…………………………….. 2
Common Features of Psychoanalytic Theory………………….. 4
Conclusion………………………………………….………….. 4
References…………………………………………….……….. 8
INTRODUCTION

Personality is an individual’s characteristic pattern of feeling, thinking and

acting. Psychodynamic theories of personality view human behavior as a dynamic
interaction between the conscious mind and unconscious mind, including associated
motives and conflicts (Myers & Dewall, 2015).

These theories focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood

experiences. Psychodynamic theories are descended from Sigmund Freud’s
psychoanalysis, which is his ideology of personality and the associated treatment
techniques. Psychoanalysis attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives
and conflicts.

This theory also includes the techniques used in treating psychological

disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions. He proposed that
childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence personality. Freud’s
historically significant psychoanalytic theory became part of the human cultural
legacy. Sigmund Freud seems to be the most popular and notable deceased
psychologist. Freud’s influence not only lingers in psychiatric and clinical
psychology, but also in literary and film interpretation.

Freud’s search for a cause for such disorders set his mind running in a direction
destined to change human self-understanding. He believed that some neurological
disorders could have psychological causes. By observing patients with these
disorders, Freud was led to his discovery of the unconscious. Furthermore, he
theorized that the lost feeling in the individual’s hand might have been caused by a
fear of touching.

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Concept of Psychoanalytic Theory

Psychoanalytic theory postulates a multitude of different change mechanisms,

and a host of new ways of conceptualizing the change process continue to emerge
as psychoanalytic theories themselves evolve and proliferate.

Psychoanalytic theory divides the psyche into three functions: the id—
unconscious source of primitive sexual, dependency, and aggressive impulses; the
superego—subconsciously interjects societal mores, setting standards to live by; and
the ego—represents a sense of self and mediates between realities of the moment
and psychic needs and conflicts.

The id acts according to the pleasure principle, demanding immediate

gratification of its needs regardless of external environment; the ego then must
emerge in order to realistically meet the wishes and demands of the id in accordance
with the outside world, adhering to the reality principle. Finally, the superego
(conscience) inculcates moral judgment and societal rules upon the ego, thus forcing
the demands of the id to be met not only realistically but morally. The superego is
the last function of the personality to develop and is the embodiment of
parental/social ideals established during childhood. According to Freud, personality
is based on the dynamic interactions of these three components.

Levels of Awareness Conscious, Preconscious, and Unconscious. Conscious,

current contents of your mind that you actively think of, what we call working
memory and easily accessed all the time. Preconscious, contents of the mind you are
not currently aware of such us thoughts, memories, knowledge, wishes, feelings, and
available for easy access when needed. Unconscious, contents kept out of conscious

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awareness, not accessible at all, and processes that actively keep these thoughts from
awareness.

Freudian stages were oral, anal, oedipal, latency, genital. Observation of

infant reveled to him the preoccupation with feeding and nurturance; excretion and
toilet training, discovery of genitals and sensation from erogenous zones. Following
is a period of when the child is less preoccupied with their bodily functions and
concerned about relations in the social world. When adolescence presents another
radical physiological change, once more the person is preoccupied with the body and
sexual feelings and activities now, they are living in an adult body.

Defense mechanisms operate unconsciously to protect the ego from threats

from the id and from external reality. Denial, refusal to accept external that your
realities physician's because too diagnosis of threatening to cancer is enter awareness
correct and seeking a second opinion. Repression i.e forgetting impulses and sexual
abuse memories too from your threatening so childhood due bared from to the
trauma entering and anxiety awareness. Projection, attribute unacceptable thoughts
or impulses onto others (project these inappropriate thoughts etc onto others) and i.e
when losing an argument, you state "You're just Stupid;". Displacement, shifting
attention from one target that is no longer available to a more acceptable or “safer”
substitute, i.e slamming a door instead of hitting as person, yelling at your spouse
after an argument with your boss. Regression, returning to i.e sitting in a corner and
a previous crying after stage of hearing bad development news; throwing a temper
tantrum when you don't get your way. Rationalization, supplying a logical or rational
reason as opposed to the real reason i.e stating that you were fired because you didn't
kiss up to the boss, when the real reason was your poor performance.

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Common Features of Psychoanalytic Theory

Psychoanalytic theory developed by Sigmund Freud is arguably the most

famous amongst the personality theories. According to Freud, family life has a
subconscious influence on a human’s sexual drive. Family also affects the
individual’s nonsexual development. According to the psychoanalysis carried out by
Freud, there are other effects that affect our thoughts (Carver and Scheier, 2011).

The thoughts and the motivation we have around us are such factors that affect
the way we act, as well as the way we do things. According to Freud, the main drives
or motivators of an individual’s personality are related to the sexual and
aggressiveness. The theory further explains that the problems experienced during a
person’s adult life are as a direct result of the conflicts during their childhood
experiences.

As a result, the theory breaks down the process of childhood growth according
to the psychosexual motivators as a child develops. These stages of growth seek to
show that at various stages during growth, a person (child) has various motivators
that shape their behavior, and keep changing as they move to the next stage of
psychosexual growth. Any faulty growth or unsuccessful/unhealthy passage of any
of the stages is said to result in the adult life conflicts, which eventually determines
a person’s personality.

Conclusion

To learn about Freud’s theory, it is important to understand the basics the

developer of the theory lays down first. One of the things he puts across is existence
of a conscious and a non-conscious mind. The conscious portion of the mind is all
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about anything that we are knowledgeable about. Since this portion includes things
we know of, it is usually easy to retrieve them whenever they are needed. Therefore,
retrieving information from this part of the memory is usually very easy.

The section of the body that contains this information is referred to in Freud’s theory
as the preconscious portion of the brain. The unconscious mind is like a reserve that
contains thoughts, the feelings a person has as well as the memories that the human
mind is not aware of. The main content of information of this portion is feelings of
pain and anxiety. However, though we may be unaware of these feelings, it is evident
that they are also involved in controlling our behavior (Beystehner, 2001).

Freud highlights three elements that are contained in a person’s personality; the
super ego, the Ego, and the Id are the three elements that affect an individual’s
personality. When a person is born, the id element of personality is in him/her. The
id element is unconscious and contains primitive and instinct behavior of the person.

It is simply what would be considered as the primary component of a person’s

personality. Notable about this element is the fact that it uses the pleasure principle
(Carver and Scheier, 2011). The pleasure principle focuses on how the needs of a
person are met. If for instance the needs are not met within the required time, anxiety
and tension results. Id is important especially when it comes to children in their
young age as it allows them to express their feelings through crying so that their
demands are met.

However, satisfying the demands that we may have is not always possible. The
pleasure principle is therefore not always applicable. However, according to Freud,
a primary process results in a bid to ensure that the tension created by the pleasure
principle is resolved. The second principle in this theory is the Ego. The ego

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component is all about the reality of life and it tends to express the Id element in the
real world. Ego encompasses all the parts of the mind previously discussed.

On the other hand, conscience is inclusive of engaging in actions that are considered
not right by the society or the parents. When a person does these wrong acts, the
resultant is a feeling of guilt.

Interaction between these elements is different amongst different individuals. For a

person to live what would be considered healthy living there is need to ensure that a
balance of the three elements is reached. One must have what Freud referred to as
Ego strength so that he can fight the competition brought about by these three
elements.

Individuals who have good ego strength are able to strike a balance between these
forces, while those people with low ego strength may succumb to this pleasure.
Research shows that there exists a balance between explorations of the child with
their safety for the exploration to be there. According to International Journal of
Psychoanalysis, psychoanalysis therapy may be in single consultation therapy and
may as well take about one year or more to achieve success on a person.

Psychoanalytic theory uses free association as a way of measuring the personality in

humans. Free association entails the patient speaking out on a certain subject and
then an analysis carried out from what the he says. It is from this analysis that a
conclusion is later derived. However, there have been issues of reliability of this tool
of measuring someone’s personality.

For one, it is hard for the analyst to be sure that the memories that he accesses are
representing the actual memories or what the patient is imagining. Sharp criticism
was bestowed upon this method of inferring conclusions. Those opposing the theory

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argued that by having patients talk out their issues to a professional and having them
draw conclusion based on the information, there were no precise guidelines and
predetermined checklist or comparing and measuring the information given so as to
make reliable conclusions.

Progress has been achieved in treatment of mentally ill patients through the bases of
Freud’s work outlined in his theory. It would therefore be unfair to discard it since
it offers much contribution to modern day science. Though some people dismissed
psychoanalytic theory as not belonging to the science field based on its lacking
methodology, the theory brought about a new branch in the science field called
experimental psychology.

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References:
Beystehner, K. M., (2001). Psychoanalysis: Freud’s Revolutionary Approach to
Human Personality. Retrieved
from http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/beystehner.html

Carver, C. S., & Scheier, M. F., (2011). Perspectives on Personality (7th Edition).
Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Pervin, L. A., (1996). The Science of Personality. New York: John Wiley & Sons.