PERSONALITY: WHAT
MAKES US DIFFERENT?
An individual’s characteristic
pattern of thinking, feeling,
and acting
PSYCHOANALYTIC
PERSPECTIVE OF
PERSONALITY: FREUD
SIGMUND FREUD
 Austrian physician
 Worked with patients who had nervous
disorders
 Complaints could not be explained by physical
causes
 A patient who lost all feeling in their hand, yet had
no nerve damage
 Could neurological disorders have psychological
causes?
 Created the first comprehensive view of
personality
 Major components of his theory:
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Unconscious mind
Psychosexual stages
Defense mechanisms
Free association and psychoanalysis
BELIEVED THAT..
 A person’s thoughts and behaviors emerge from tension
generated by unconscious instincts/drives and
unresolved childhood conflicts
 Sexual instinct = ANY form of pleasure
 Nothing is accidental
 Freudian slips: A financially stressed patient (when
given pills to take) – “I don’t want any large bills,
because I cannot swallow them.”
VIEW OF THE MIND
 Conscious Mind - the thoughts and feelings one is
currently aware of
 Preconscious Mind - region of the mind holding
information that is not conscious but is retrievable
into conscious awareness
 Unconscious Mind - region of the mind that includes
unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories
 These have been repressed (forcibly blocked) because
they would be too unsettling to acknowledge
 Most of the mind is hidden
 Could be tapped through free association
MODEL OF MIND
The mind is like an iceberg. It is mostly hidden, and
below the surface lies the unconscious mind. The
preconscious stores temporary memories.
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EXPLORING THE UNCONSCIOUS
 Free Association: saying whatever comes to mind; a chain of
thoughts that leads to painful, embarrassing, unconscious
memories
 This is psychoanalysis (Freud’s form of therapy)
 Dream Analysis: Interpreting manifest and latent content of
dreams
 Manifest: actual happenings of dream
 Latent: unconscious wishes present in the dream
PERSONALIT Y STRUCTURE
Our personalities arise from a conflict
between impulse and restraint
 Need to express impulses in ways that bring
satisfaction without also bringing guilt or punishment
Composed of three interacting systems: id,
ego, superego
THE “ID” (“IT” IN LATIN)
Part of personality that consists of unconscious
energy that strives to satisfy one’s drives to
survive, reproduce, and aggress
Operates on the “pleasure principle” - demands
immediate gratification
“Seat” of our impulses
 Present from birth
Completely unconscious
 Not in contact with the real world!
THE “EGO”
 Part of personality that mediates the demands of
the id without going against the restraints of the
superego
 Controls all thinking and reasoning activities
 Personality executive
 Negotiates with the id, pleases the superego
 Follows the reality principle – intelligent
reasoning
 Operates consciously, preconsciously, and
unconsciously
 Seen by others
THE “SUPEREGO”
Part of personality that consists of internalized
ideals and standards
One’s conscience; focuses on what the person
“should” do
 Moral watchdog/compass
Strives for perfection
Judges decisions and produces positive
feelings of pride or negative feelings of guilt
Not present at birth (children are amoral – do
whatever is pleasurable)
IN A HEALTHY PERSON, THESE ARE
BALANCED
PERSONALIT Y DEVELOPMENT
Focuses on how we satisfy sexual instinct
during the course of life
How does one deal with the sexual impulses of
the id? (sexual…probably closer to “sensual”) `
Energy (the libido) becomes focused on
various sensitive parts of the body (erogenous
zones) during development (it is sequential)
Personality is the product of conflict during
these stages
PSYCHOSEXUAL STAGES
OEDIPUS COMPLEX
 Develops during the phallic stage
 Children develop an attachment to the parent of
the opposite sex
 Also become jealous of the same-sex parent
 Oedipus for boys
 Electra for girls (this was named post -Freud)
 Most children resolve this conflict by identifying
with the parent of the same sex (adopting values
and characteristics of them)
 Thus forming the superego
FIXATION
 If a child is deprived of pleasure or allowed too much
gratification from the part of the body that
dominates a certain stage, some energy remains tied
to that part of the body
 Person then doesn’t move on in a normal sequence (which
would give the person a fully integrated personality)
 This (fixation) leads to immature forms of sexuality
or certain personality characteristics later in life
 Could lead to neurosis (anxiety disorder)
Stage
Can result in…
Oral (birth –
18 months)
Oral fixation: thumb-sucking, smoking, fingernail biting, over eating
Too much: Overly optimistic, dependent, lacking in confidence, gullible
Too little: Pessimistic, hostile, sarcastic, argumentative
Anal (18 m – Too much pressure: excessive need for order or cleanliness, stingy
3.5 yrs)
Too little pressure: messy, self-destructive habits, unorganized
Phallic (after Fixation: vanity and egotism, men treat women with contempt,
3)
women become promiscuous and flirtatious, low-self esteem,
shyness, and worthlessness
Latency
(5/6-12/13)
Boys play with boys, girls play with girls; lose interest in sexual
behavior
Genital (at
puberty)
Libido comes active again; Interest in opposite sex; If development
has been successful up to this point, the individual will continue to
develop into a well-balanced person
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
 Threats to the balance of the id, ego, and superego can result in
anxiety
 Protective behaviors (defense mechanisms) are used to cope
with anxiety
 Repression
 Sublimination
 Rationalization (not in your book)
 Excuses are made for anxiety -producing behavior
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Displacement
Reaction Formation
Projection
Denial
Regression
Identification
 These allow us to channel self -destructive/painful energy into
constructive/ managable behavior