Psychoanalytic theory

of personality
development
HELLEN WANGUI
20/01/2023
What is personality?

No agreed upon definition

Root word is persona – mask used by actors in a play
Hence could mean our external and visible characteristics, what others
can see.
The visible aspect of one’s character, as it impresses on others.
Consistent behavior patterns and intrapersonal processes originating
from within the individual Consistent behavior patterns of an individual
across time and situations
 Psychoanalytic theory of personality: Freudian concepts and Id
psychology
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) – Id psychology
•His family background influenced his theory
•Childhood hostility toward his father - authoritarian
•Childhood sexual feelings for his mother – attractive, loving, and
protective
•Experienced severe emotional problems
• Explored meaning of his dreams, gave him insight to personality
development
•His theory emerged from the clinical treatment of his patients
• Had little tolerance for people who did not agree with him
Key Concepts
• The view of human nature
• Structure of personality
• Consciousness and unconsciousness
• Anxiety
• Ego defense mechanisms
• Psychosexual stages of personality development
1. View of Human Nature
• Deterministic
• Instincts – life (libido) and death (thanatos)
• Instincts are for survival of individual and human race
(sexual?)
• Life goal – gaining pleasure and avoiding pain
• Death instincts – aggressiveness: hurting self and others;
challenge to all
• Behavior determined by sexual and aggressive drives
2. Personality Structure
• Consists 3 energy systems that function as a whole
❖ Id – biological component
❖ Ego - psychological
❖ Superego – social
Behavior determined by how psychic energy is distributed
either to the id, ego, or superego
ID
Original sys – all id at birth
• Seat of instincts
• No organization, blind, demanding and insistent
• Operates on pleasure principle - increasing pleasure and avoiding pain
• Is selfish, pleasure-seeking, can’t tolerate tension, primitive, illogical,
unprincipled etc
• Never matures, only wishes/acts
• Unconscious/out of awareness
EGO
C.E.O. – governs, controls and regulate personality
• Mediates instincts and external world of reality
• Operates on reality principle – realistic and logical thinking
• Seat of intelligence and rationality – controls blind id
SUPEREGO
• Judicial system – moral codes: is action good or bad, right or wrong?
• Ideal rather than real; strives for perfection, not pleasure
• Represents internalization of parental and societal values and
standards
• Rewards and punishment
• Can lead to moral anxiety (shame and guilt) for failing to reach
standards no human can meet
Illustration of Freud’s model of Personality
Structure
Conscious and Unconscious
Unconscious – inferred from behavior but is the larger part of the mind
and is below the surface of awareness
• Repressed material, memories and all experiences are stored there
• Unconscious material is responsible for much of our everyday behavior
• Unconscious - focus of psychoanalytic therapy
• Conscious – thin slice of the total mind
Anxiety
Feeling of dread due to repressed feelings, memories, desires and
experiences
• Tension that motivate us to act, warns us about danger
• 3 types of anxiety:
◦ ➢ Reality anxiety - fear of tangible dangers in the real world
◦ ➢ Neurotic anxiety - fear that instincts will get out of control and cause
one to do something for which one will be punished
◦ ➢ Moral anxiety - fear of one’s conscience (guilt for going against own
moral code)
• If ego can’t control anxiety logically and directly, it relies on indirect
ones i.e. ego-defense mechanisms
Ego-Defence mechanisms

•Strategies ego uses to defend itself against the anxiety provoked by the
conflicts of everyday life.
• Help individual cope with anxiety and prevent the ego from being
overwhelmed
•Involve denials or distortions of reality and operates on unconscious level
•Include: repression, denial, reaction formation, projection, displacement,
rationalization, sublimation, regression, introjection, identification, and
compensation
Defense Mechanisms
6. Psychosexual Stages of Personality
Development
Controversial contribution
• Adult personality formed by experiences from the first 6 years of life
• Sometimes a person is reluctant or unable to move from one stage to
the next due to unresolved conflict – brings about fixation at a particular
stage of development
• Fixated individuals behave in psychologically immature ways later on
in life
• According to Freud, the unresolved conflicts from the first 3 stages is
what bring people to counseling
• 5 stages – oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital
Oral Stage-First year of life
Ranges from birth to one year
Infant derives pleasure by sucking, biting, and swallowing
Oral fixation is due to deprivation of oral gratification. If fixation occurs at this stage,
Freud believed the person would have issues with dependency or aggression.
Children who over indulge their needs at this stage turn into oral personalities later on
and develop oral character problems as a result
Oral personalities - excessively concerned with oral activities like eating, drinking,
smoking, and kissing or those who constantly put their hands to their mouth
Other problems that can arise include: mistrust of self and others, fear of loving and
inability to form intimate relationships, low self-esteem etc
Anal Stage: 1 – 3 years
Anal region - most important erogenous zone during this period (stage of toilet training)
• Child learning independence, personal power, expressing negative feelings like rage
and aggression
• Traumatic toilet training may result in fixation and an anal personality
• People with an anal personality may be excessively disorderly, stubborn, stingy,
cruel, rigid, compulsively neat, or generous, depending on how their toilet training
progressed
• Also, an individual may end up with inability to recognize and express anger, leads
to denial of own power and lack of a sense of autonomy.
Success at this stage depends on the way toilet training is done. Parents/caregiver who
utilize praise and rewards for using the toilet at the appropriate time encourage positive
outcomes and help the children to feel capable and productive.
Anal Stage
Freud believed that positive experiences during the toilet training stage
serve as the basis for people to become competent, productive and
creative adults.
However, not all parents provide the support and encouragement that
children need during this stage. Some parents punish, ridicule or shame a
child for accidents.
According to Freud, inappropriate parental responses can result in
negative outcomes. If parents take an approach which is too lenient,
Freud proposed that an anal-expulsive personality can develop in which
the individual has a messy, wasteful or destructive personality.
If parents are too strict or begin toilet training too early, Freud believed
that an anal retentive personality develops in which the individual is
stringent, orderly, rigid and obsessive.
Phallic stage: 3-6 years
• Penis/clitoris becomes the most important erogenous zone
• Pleasure derived from the genital region not only through
masturbation, but also through fantasies
• Oedipus and Electra complexes
• Castration anxiety and penis envy
• If not properly handled, individual end up with inability to accept his
sexuality and sexual feelings, and also difficulty in accepting oneself as a
man or woman
• Also, phallic personality – sexual conquests (men); exaggeration of
femininity plus uses her talents and charms to overwhelm and conquer
men (female)
Freud believed that during the Phallic stage, the primary focus of the libido
is on the genitals. At this stage, children also begin to discover the
differences between male and female.
Freud further believed that boys begin to view their fathers as a rival for
the mothers affections. The Oedipus complex describes these feelings of
wanting to possess the mother and the desire to replace the father.
However, the child also fears that he will be punished by the father for
these feelings, a fear Freud termed as castration anxiety.
Eventually, the child begins to identify with the same sex parent as a means
of vicariously possessing the other parent. For girls however, Freud
believed that penis envy was not fully resolved and that all women remain
somewhat fixated at this stage.
Psychologists such as Karen Horney disputed this theory and termed it as
both inaccurate and demeaning to women. Instead, Horney proposed that
men experience feelings of inferiority because they cannot give birth to
children, a concept she referred to as womb envy.
The term Electra Complex has been used to describe a similar
set of feelings experienced by young girls. Freud believed that
girls experienced Penis envy.

During this stage, the superego continues to develop while the

Id’s energies are suppressed. Children develop social skills,
values and relationships with peers and adults outside of the
family.
Latency Stage
The age range is 6 years to puberty.
The development of the ego and superego contribute to this period of
calm.
This stage begins around the time when children enter into school and
become more concerned with peer relationships, hobbies and other
interests.
Latent period is a time of exploration in which the sexual energy is
repressed or dormant. This energy is still present, but it is sublimated into
other areas such as intellectual pursuits and social interactions.
This stage is important in the development of social and communication
skills and confidence.
Freud believed it was possible for children to become fixated or stuck at
this stage. Fixation can result in immaturity and an inability to form
fulfilling relationships as an adult.
Genital Stage
Ranges from puberty to death.
Onset of puberty causes the libido to become active once again. During the final stage
of psychosexual development, the individual develops a strong sexual interest in the
opposite sex.
This stage begins during puberty but lasts throughout the rest of a person’s life.
Whereas in earlier stages the focus was solely on individual needs, interest in the
welfare of others grows at this stage.
The goal of this stage is to establish a balance between the various areas of life.
If the other stages have been completed successfully, the individual should become
well balanced, warm and caring.
Unlike the other earlier stages of psychosexual development, Freud believed that the
ego and superego were fully developed and functioning at this stage.
While younger children are ruled by the ID, which demands immediate satisfaction
of the most basic needs and wants, teens in the genital stage of development are able
to balance their most basic urges against the need to conform to the demands of
reality and social norms.
Goals of Psychoanalytic Therapy
Make unconscious conscious- resolve intrapsychic conflicts
Strengthen the ego so that behavior is based on reality and less on
instincts or irrational guilt.
• Deeper level probing of past to develop understanding of one self in
order to change one’s character
• Childhood experiences are discussed, reconstructed, interpreted, and
analyzed
• Personality reconstructing/reorganization
• Therapist – blank-screen approach
• Transference – projection/transfer of feelings to therapist
Techniques and Procedures
1. Maintaining analytic framework – anonymity, regular and consistent
meetings, starting and ending sessions on time etc
2. Free association – “basic rule”: say whatever comes in mind regardless
of how painful, silly, insignificant, illogical, or irrelevant it may be; door
to unconscious
3. Interpretation – pointing out, explaining, and teaching the client the
meanings of behavior manifested in dreams, free association, resistances,
and in therapy relationship
4. Dream analysis – royal road to the unconscious where wishes, needs,
and fears are expressed; latent and manifest
Goals cont…
5. Analysis and interpretation of resistance – pointing out any hindrance to therapy
work and make interpretation of the same
6. Analysis and interpretation of transference – helps clients understand influence of the
past on the present functioning