Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory of Self-Reflection

Psychoanalytic theory is a theory derived by Sigmund Freud, one of the most famous
psychologists from the 20th century, that analyzes personality development. It focuses on the
conflicts people go through during their childhood to better understand their current behavioral
and emotional problems. He came up with three parts of the personality: the id, our regressed
aggressive desires, the superego, our sense of right and wrong and follows the rules of society,
and the ego, the balance between the id and superego (Tyson, 25). These three characters are
unconsciously going through a struggle to influence our decisions and our behavior. Freud also
came up with a complex theory of child development with five psychosexual stages that every
person goes through: the oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latency stage, and the genital
stage. Freud believed that personality is formed by the process and results from the struggles
and defenses we experience in these stages. Using this theory, I am able to reflect on my own
identity and evaluate the types of struggles and defenses I have unconsciously used during my
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childhood development to analyze my personality and psychological problems I have today.

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Thinking back to my childhood, it was full of joyful and vibrant memories, but there are many
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conflicts that I can remember. My parents would fight and argue quite often, and at some times
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the talk of divorce would come up. Playing sports was one of the ways I dealt with this conflict.
I’ve been playing basketball since I was six years old, and playing was one of the ways I could
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release my stress and any aggressive emotion I had built up. This is one of Freud’s defensive
structures, called sublimation. Sublimation is the act of satisfying an impulse with a substitute
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object, in a socially acceptable way, like playing sports. Rather than giving into my id and
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releasing my anger on my parents or displacing it on someone else, I relied more on my

superego, which told me that treating other people poorly was unacceptable. Through
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sublimation, I was able to turn these id impulses into a healthy and productive way. I’ve also
experience conflict with my brother throughout my childhood. He would repeatedly tease and
ridicule me, and I would often feel defenseless against him. As a result, I developed one of
Freud’s core issues: low self-esteem. Low self-esteem is the belief that “we are less worthy
than other people and, therefore, don’t deserve attention, love, or any other of life’s rewards”
(Tyson, 16). Growing up, I would always put others’ needs in front of mine, and at times felt like
my opinion and voice didn’t matter. This resulted in being shy and less outgoing around others
and would often feel like people would walk all over me. Today, I feel like I have overcome this
struggle and put an effort into being more outgoing, however, I still see myself more as an
introvert than an extrovert as a result of this childhood conflict.

Even though Freud’s psychoanalytic theory has been widely discredited and criticized,
especially for his explicit focus on sex and sexism towards women, and the fact he didn’t use
empircal research or studies to back up his theories like most psychologists, the psychoanalytic
perspective remains as one of the top personality theories to date. According to Tyson, through
psychoanalysis “we can begin to see the ways in which these concepts operate in our daily
lives in profound rather than superficial ways, and we’ll begin to understand human behaviors
that until now may have seemed utterly baffling.” Using psychoanalysis as a self-reflection for
myself has revealed some of the defenses and conflicts that I was unaware I’ve used and gone
through. I can now see the experiences and unconscious struggles that have made up my
personality and the person I am today.

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