Introduction to Psychology (350-102-LF) Psychodynamic Perspective (Freud’s Theory of Personality)

1. Note the passages that demonstrate the action of each component of Jules’s personality and
identify the element in question (Id, ego, superego, and defense mechanism “x”).

Jules has studied full-time at university for five years, but has not yet finished his degree in biology, having failed course
after course. However, his friends and professors are convinced that he has the necessary talent to succeed. Jules
feels bad: he would like his parents to finally be proud of him, they who greatly encouraged him to study (the word
“forced” also comes to mind, but he chases it away). He would have preferred less intellectual work, ideally as an
auto-mechanic, cars being his great passion. The hardest times are when he returns home for the holidays, when he
has to face his parents and explain his apparent inability to obtain his undergraduate degree. Often, when his
parents’ barely veiled reproaches upset him, he takes refuge in the garage and calms down by taking apart one of
the old engines he accumulated when he was a teenager. He feels sorry that he’s so angry with his parents, but he
can’t help himself. Recently, he remembers a day when, boiling with rage, he almost broke everything in the house
thinking that it would be what his parents deserved.

2. What component of personality is dominant in Arthur? Justify your response.

Arthur sees himself as a “good” man, and able to control himself under any circumstance. He enjoys and cultivates this
self-image, in accordance with the very strict education he received from his parents. Arthur even sees himself as
being close to achieving perfection (which is his aim), and feels bad that he sometimes has impure thoughts (often
graphic) of Florence, a colleague at work. When these thoughts arise, he punishes himself severely to drive away the
shame.

3. Identify the defense mechanism at work in each of the following situations.

a. Since his last fight with his parents, Jules has developed an interest in studying the relations between parents
and children; he even sees himself writing a book on the subject to help families with these types of problems.
b. At family gatherings, Jules rejects out of hand the fears of his relatives who are afraid his repeated failures will
end up discouraging him. “I don’t have a problem and I never get discouraged—that will never happen to me,”
he repeats.
c. When his parents invited Tom to the house, Jules was always careful around him. At school, as soon as
someone said the slightest word or made the slightest action against his friend, who was the first in the class,
Jules got very angry and defended him on the spot. But in reality, Jules would be the first to want to “disfigure”
Tom, whom to himself he had nicknamed “a goody two shoes’’ (maudit parfait).
d. Recently, when his parents bring up the subject of his failure at school, Jules responds that each human has
his own destiny, that there exist no criteria for judging the success of others, and that it’s necessary to
question the meaning of happiness.
e. Jules believes that his repeated failures are due to the fact that his professors do not like him, which explains
why he doesn’t like them either.

© ERPI Tous droits réservés. Adaptation de G. Morin, Emilie Chow. Psychologie, Département des Sciences
Humaines, Collège Laflèche.
Introduction to Psychology (350-102-LF) Psychodynamic Perspective (Freud’s Theory of Personality)

© ERPI Tous droits réservés. Adaptation de G. Morin, Emilie Chow. Psychologie, Département des Sciences
Humaines, Collège Laflèche.
Introduction to Psychology (350-102-LF) Psychodynamic Perspective (Freud’s Theory of Personality)

© ERPI Tous droits réservés. Adaptation de G. Morin, Emilie Chow. Psychologie, Département des Sciences
Humaines, Collège Laflèche.