THEORIES OF PERSONALITY
C-PSYM213 | Ma’am De Ala | DLSU-D
PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY BY SIGMUND FREUD
OUTLINE
I.
Sigmund Freu
II.
Psychoanalytic Theory
III.
Structures of Personality
IV.
Dynamics of Personality
V.
VI.
Defense Mechanism
Psychosexual Stages of Personality
development
PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
●
Psychodynamic theory is a large and still evolving
school of thought. While it is most closely associated
with Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), the founder of
psychoanalysis, much of today’s psychodynamic
theory differs vastly from Freud’s original ideas.
●
Two basic premises of this theory:
○
Freud believed that innate drives could explain
human behavior.
○
He accepted the power of unconscious forces to
mold and shape behavior
SIGMUND FREUD
●
Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 in the Czech
Republic. He was the first born child of Jacob and
Amalie Nathanson Freud, but his father had two
grown up sons from his previous marriage. He spent
most of his life in Vienna. His mother gave birth to
Julius when Sigmund was about 1 ½ years old. He
unconsciously wished for his younger brother’s
death and when Julius was 6 months, he died. This
event left an impact on his psychic development
(Feist, Feist & Roberts, 2018).
●
He studied medicine at the University of Vienna
Medical School but preferred to teach and do
research in physiology. He was forced to practice
medicine nevertheless. In his practice as a
psychiatrist, he focused on learning about his
patients’ unconscious motives.
●
Freud had a strong desire to be famous and failed on
several occasions to attain that fame until he finished
Interpretation of Dreams in 1899. Initially, the book
was ignored by all but a few (Engler, 2014, p.42).
This book, however, brought him the fame that he
was seeking.
●
●
●
The years of WWI were difficult for Freud. In 1938,
with the Nazi invasion of Austria, Freud reluctantly
left his home and took up residence in London,
where he died on Sept. 23, 1939.
Breuer taught Freud about catharsis, the process of
removing hysterical symptoms through “talking them
out.” While using catharsis, Freud gradually and
laboriously discovered the free association
technique, which soon replaced hypnosis as his
principal therapeutic technique.
In 1910, Freud and his followers founded the
International Psychoanalytic Association with Carl
Jung of Zürich as president
C-PSYC 213
CREATED BY: ESPOLE BSY21
●
Psychoanalytic theories describe development
primarily in terms of unconscious (beyond
awareness) processes that are heavily colored
by emotion. Psychoanalytic theorists emphasize
that behavior is merely a surface characteristic and
that a true understanding of development requires
analyzing the symbolic meanings of behavior and
the deep inner workings of the mind
●
Psychodynamic theory, despite criticism that it is
unproven, continues to be a popular and influential
approach to explanation and treatment and is, in
fact, supported by a substantial research basis.
Psychoanalytic theory also has a particular place of
importance in the field of psychology as the first and
most comprehensive theory of personality and
psychopathology.
LEVELS OF MENTAL LIFE
Our mental functioning operates on three levels
according to Freud.
●
Unconscious - includes drives and instincts that are
beyond awareness but motivates most human
behaviors. Images in our dreams and slips of the
tongue are some of its disguised or distorted forms
when unconscious drives become conscious.
○
The unconscious is the explanation for the
meaning behind dreams, slips of the tongue, and
certain kinds of forgetting, called repression.
Dreams serve as a particularly rich source of
unconscious material
○
Punishment and suppression often create
feelings of anxiety, and the anxiety in turn
1
ONSITE Module 2 Psychoanalytic Theory by Freud
stimulates repression, that is, the forcing of
unwanted, anxiety-ridden experiences into the
unconscious as a defense against the pain of
that anxiety.
○
●
Freud believed that a portion of our unconscious
originates from the experiences of our early
ancestors that have been passed on to us
through hundreds of generations of repetition.
He called these inherited unconscious images
our phylogenetic endowment
STRUCTURES OF PERSONALITY
During the 1920s, Freud introduced a three-part
structural model. This division of the mind into three
provinces did not supplant the topographic model, but it
helped Freud explain mental images according to their
functions or purposes
●
Preconscious - contains images that are not readily
available in our awareness but they can become
conscious either quite easily or with some level of
difficulty.
○
The contents of the preconscious come from two
sources:
■
■
●
TRANS # 1
Conscious perception- What a person
perceives is conscious for only a transitory
period; it quickly passes into the
preconscious when the focus of attention
shifts to another idea
●
Unconscious- that ideas can slip past the
vigilant censor and enter into the
preconscious in a disguised form.
Conscious - plays a relatively minor role in the
theory of Freud. As he defined the term, it
corresponds to its ordinary everyday meaning, and
includes all the sensations and experiences of which
we are aware of at any given moment
○
Ideas can reach consciousness from two
different directions:
■
Perceptual conscious system- turned toward
the outer world and acts as a medium for
the perception of external stimuli (what we
receive through our senses)
■
Within the mental structure- includes
nonthreatening ideas from the preconscious
as well as menacing but well-disguised
images from the unconscious
C-PSYC 213
CREATED BY: ESPOLE BSY21
●
Id (das Es or the “it”)- the most primitive part of the
mind. The instinctive aspect of the personality that
seeks immediate gratification and resides in the
unconscious mind. It has no contact with reality, yet it
strives constantly to reduce tension by satisfying
basic desires
a) The driving force of the id is libido, or
sexual/sensual energy.
b) The id operates on the pleasure
principle, the basic function of which is
to find satisfaction for pleasurable
impulses.
c) Because it blindly seeks to satisfy the
pleasure principle, it acts and operates
through the primary process.
Ego (das Ich or the “I”)- develops through one’s
experience with reality, and is the rational, reasoning
part of one’s personality, the only region of the mind
in contact with reality. It grows out of the id during
infancy and becomes a person’s sole source of
communication with the external world.
a) The ego functions in the conscious,
preconscious, and unconscious mind
b) It is governed by the reality principle
which it tries to substitute for the
pleasure principle of the id
c) As the sole region of the mind in contact
with the external world, the ego
becomes the decision-making or
executive branch of personality.
d) The ego is responsible for reconciling
the unrealistic demands of the id and
the superego.
e) The ego also discharges tension
created by unmet impulses through
secondary process thinking, in which
the ego tries to find an object in the real
world that matches the mental image
created by the id's primary process
Superego (das Uber-Ich or the “over-I”)- serves
the idealistic or morality principle. It reflects the
internalization of society’s rules and one’s sense of
morality or conscience
a) The superego operates on the
moralistic and idealistic principle,
which demands that one do what is right
and proper, no matter what the
circumstances.
b) The internalized moral standards and
ideals that we acquire from our parents
and society (our sense of right and
wrong)
c) Its two subsystems include:
i)
Conscience-results
from
punishment for our improper
behavior. information about
things that are viewed as bad
2
ONSITE Module 2 Psychoanalytic Theory by Freud
ii)
by parents and society. These
behaviors are often forbidden
and lead to bad consequences,
punishments, or feelings of guilt
and remorse
Ego-ideal- stems from rewards
for our behaviors which are
socially acceptable. the rules
and standards for behaviors
that the ego aspires to
TRANS # 1
Both sadism (receiving sexual pleasure
from inflicting pain on another) and
masochism (receiving sexual pleasure
from painful experiences) satisfy both
sexual and aggressive drives
b) Anxiety – Freud emphasized that it is a felt,
affective, unpleasant state accompanied by a
physical sensation that warns the person against
impending danger.
Only the ego feels anxiety according to Freud.
However, the id, superego, and outside world
can each be a source of anxiety. Neurotic
anxiety stems from the ego's relation with the id;
moral anxiety is similar to guilt and results from
the ego's relation with the superego; and realistic
anxiety, which is similar to fear, is produced by
the ego's relation with the real world.
DYNAMICS OF PERSONALITY
Refers to those forces that motivate people.To Freud,
people are motivated to seek pleasure and to reduce
tension and anxiety. This motivation is derived from
physical and sexual energy that springs from their basic
drives. Central to Freudian psychoanalytic theory is
the notion that humans have basic biological urges or
drives that must be satisfied. Freud viewed the
newborn as an inherently selfish and aggressive
creature driven by instincts- inborn biological forces that
motivate behavior
a)
DEFENSE MECHANISMS
Defense mechanisms operate to protect the ego against
the pain of anxiety according to Freud. He proposed that
defense mechanisms are unconsciously applied which
protects the self (ego) against strong feelings of anxiety.
Using defense mechanisms is a normal reaction, but they
can become maladaptive.
1.
Drive/ Instincts -
Freud wrote that instincts
were the basic elements of personality, the
motivating forces that drive behavior and
determine its direction. A constant motivational
force. As an internal stimulus, drives differ from
external stimuli in that they cannot be avoided
through flight. These drives originate in the id,
but they come under the control of the ego.
2.
3.
i)
Sex (Eros or the life instinct) - The
aim of the sexual instinct is pleasure,
which can be gained through the
erogenous zones, especially the
mouth, anus, and genitals.
The object of the sexual instinct is any
person or thing that brings sexual
pleasure. All infants possess primary
narcissism, or self-centeredness, but
the
secondary
narcissism
of
adolescence and adulthood is not
universal.
ii)
C-PSYC 213
Aggression (the death instinct or
Thanatos) - The destructive instinct
aims to return a person to an inorganic
state, but it is ordinarily directed against
other people and is called aggression
CREATED BY: ESPOLE BSY21
4.
5.
Repression- or motivated forgetting, is a matter
of forgetting some anxiety-provoking event or
desire.It
involves
forcing
unwanted,
anxiety-loaded
experiences
into
the
unconscious. It is the most basic of all defense
mechanisms because it is an active process in
each of the others.
Reaction Formation- is marked by the
repression of one impulse and the ostentatious/
dramatic expression of its exact opposite.
Reactive behavior can be identified by its
exaggerated character and by its obsessive and
compulsive form.
Displacement- refers to directing one’s motives
or behaviors at a substitute person or object
rather than expressing them directly. People
redirect their unwanted urges onto other objects
or people in order to disguise the original
impulse.
Fixation -the permanent attachment of the libido
onto an earlier, more primitive stage of
development. Develops when growth is blocked
at one stage of development, making
psychological change difficult.
When the
prospect of taking the next step becomes too
anxiety provoking, the ego may resort to the
strategy of remaining at the present, more
comfortable psychological stage.
Regression - occurs whenever a person reverts
to earlier, more infantile modes of behavior.
Once the libido has passed a developmental
stage, it may, during times of stress and anxiety,
3
ONSITE Module 2 Psychoanalytic Theory by Freud
6.
7.
8.
9.
revert back to that earlier stage. Regressive
behavior is similar to fixated behavior in that it is
rigid and infantile. Regressions, however, are
usually temporary, whereas fixations demand a
more or less permanent expenditure of psychic
energy
Projection - is seeing in others unacceptable
feelings or behaviors that actually reside in one's
own unconscious. An extreme type of projection
is paranoia, a mental disorder characterized by
powerful delusions of jealousy and persecution.
Paranoia is not an inevitable outcome of
projection but simply a severe variety of it. The
central mechanism in all paranoia is projection
with accompanying delusions of jealousy and
persecution
Introjection - takes place when people
incorporate positive qualities of another person
into their own ego to reduce feelings of
inferiority.
Sublimation - the repression of unacceptable
sexual or aggressive impulses and channeling
them into socially acceptable behaviors. Involves
the elevation of the sexual instinct's aim to a
higher level, which permits people to make
contributions to society and culture.
Rationalization – happens when we provide
excuses or justifications to our actions to make
them more acceptable rather than facing the real
reasons for them
PSYCHOSEXUAL STAGES OF PERSONALITY
DEVELOPMENT
Freud proposed that one’s personality develops through
a series of psychosexual stages. He saw psychosexual
development as proceeding from birth to maturity through
overlapping stages. Freud believed that at each stage of
development, a crisis had to be resolved, or fixation, an
over-investment of psychic energy would occur
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
THE ORAL STAGE
From birth to 12-18 months
Erogenous Zone: Mouth
During this stage an infant’s primary motivation is to
receive pleasure through the mouth. Activities
involve sucking, biting, cooing and basically placing
everything in the mouth region. Weaning, or
withdrawing the breast or bottle is the main conflict in
this stage.
Fixation in the Oral Stage (birth to 1 year) would
result in overeating, nail biting, smoking, or
talkativeness.
THE ANAL STAGE
From 1-3 years
Erogenous Zone: Bowel and Bladder Control
Freud believed that the primary focus of the libido
was
on
controlling
bladder
and
bowel
C-PSYC 213
CREATED BY: ESPOLE BSY21
TRANS # 1
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
movementsThe emphasis during this stage is toilet
training. If parents are too punitive during the anal
phase, the child may become an anal character, with
the anal triad of orderliness, stinginess, and
obstinacy
Fixation in the Anal stage can lead to two things:
a) Toilet training accompanied by high levels of
stress and anxiety can lead to anal fixation.
b) Adults who are overly neat and orderly or
extremely disorganized and messy can
demonstrate the anal stage
THE PHALLIC STAGE
From 3-6 years
Erogenous Zone: Genitals
During this stage, pleasure and conflicting feelings
associated with the genitals (Engler, 2014) are
experienced by young children. Boys and girls
experience Oedipus complex in which they have
sexual feelings for one parent and hostile feelings for
the other. where pleasure and conflicting feelings
associated with the genitals (Engler, 2014) are
experienced by young children. Boys and girls
experience Oedipus complex in which they have
sexual feelings for one parent and hostile feelings for
the other. The term Electra complex has been used
to describe a similar set of feelings experienced by
young girls. Freud, however, believed that girls
instead experience penis envy
Signals the awareness of one’s sexuality. Where
Resolution of the Oedipus/Electra complex is the
central crisis of this stage.
The superego begins to develop here.
THE LATENT PERIOD
From age 6- 11 years/ puberty
Erogenous Zone: Sexual urges are repressed/
none
Sexual impulses lie dormant during this stage. The
child channels his energies toward developing social,
intellectual and moral skills instead. Peer
relationships and the school are the child’s primary
preoccupations
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. The
development of the ego and superego contribute to
this period of calm. The stage begins around the
time that children enter into school and become
more concerned with peer relationships, hobbies,
and other interests.
The latent period is a time of exploration in which the
sexual energy 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 self-confidence.
Fixation in the Latent period can result in immaturity
and an inability to form fulfilling relationships as an
adult.
THE GENITAL PERIOD
From adolescence/ puberty- death
4
ONSITE Module 2 Psychoanalytic Theory by Freud
●
●
●
●
●
●
TRANS # 1
Erogenous Zone: Maturing sexual desires
Begins with puberty, when adolescents experience a
reawakening of the sexual aim and the beginning of
the sexual period. The term "genital period" should
not be confused with "phallic period”
The 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.
Where in earlier stages the focus was solely on
individual needs, interest in the welfare of others
grows during this stage. The goal of this stage is to
establish a balance between the various life areas.
Freud believed that the ego and superego were fully
formed and functioning at this point.
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.
CONCEPT OF HUMANITY
Freud's concept of humanity was deterministic and
pessimistic. He emphasized causality over teleology,
unconscious
determinants
over
conscious
processes, and biology over culture, but he took a
middle position on the dimension of uniqueness
versus similarities among people
C-PSYC 213
CREATED BY: ESPOLE BSY21
5