The structure of the personality Freud
Levels of consciousness
- the conscious level
- preconscious level (non-painful memories)
- unconscious level (forbidden drives and traumatic memories)
The Id
- primitive component of the psyche
- life drives (eros) and death drive (thanatos)
- functions according to primary processes and the pleasure principle
- incapable of thought and self-reflection
- wholly selfish and unrealistic
The ego
- job is to serve the id’s needs by finding suitable objects for real drive satisfaction
- functions according to the secondary process (reflect and plan) and reality principle (using cognitive processes such as the senses, rationality and memory)
- when appropriate objects for drive satisfaction are found, they are invested with psychic energy (cathexis)
- the executive official that operates in terms of three briefs: the id, physical reality and the superego
- the id threatens with discomfort, the superego threatens with feelings of guilt
- uses energy derived from the id (ego-drives)
- begins to develop in the first year of life, and continues to develop until death, constantly learning to adapt
The Superego
- once the moral aspect of the ego reaches autonomy, the superego develops
- a representative of the moral codes of society, which pressurises the individual into abiding to these moral codes
- motivating factor: ego-ideal
- guilt inducing factor: conscious
- pressurises the ego through the conscious and ego-ideal
- obtains energy from thanatos in the id
- operates on all the levels of consciousness
- anticathexis takes place when the ego blocks and represses an unacceptable cathexis desire from the id
- conflict between anticathexis and cathexis causes anxiety in individual (cue defence mechanisms)
Freud’s Drive theory
- mechanistic assumption: person’s psyche receives energy from the body like any other organs would
- the drives within the id and the superego possess energy, which causes conflict within the individual
- these drives motivates and also determines the direction of behaviour
- drives receive energy from different organs; hunger= stomach, sexual drives = erogenous zones (source)
- Impetus (intensity of energy)
- every drive has the goal of satisfaction
- every drive requires and object (could be a person) to suitable to satisfy this drive
Drive Theory: Ego drive
- survival
- eating, drinking and breathing
- ego drives contribute to the development of the ego and provide energy for its functioning
Drive Theory: Sexual drive
- concerned with the survival of the species
- primary function: erotic in the sense that its satisfaction leads to erotic pleasure
- present since birth, but develops in adulthood
- the satisfaction of sexual drives as they emerge through life are either controlled or prohibited by society
Drive theory: Death drive
- explanation for phenomena such as war, aggression, murder, suicide and death
- function is to break down living cells and change them into dead matter
- the original object of the drive is the individual’s body. But this is in conflict with the life drive and is later substituted by other people in the form of aggression
- all aggressive behaviour is regulated by strong moral codes
- any kind of violence is due to the death drive
- the superego uses the death drive to make a person feel guilty for not abiding to moral codes
- accidents that harms the individual, like bumping into something, is due to death drives acting in your subconscious
Freud’s view on anxiety
- the ego’s reaction to danger that stems from the conflict between the id’s forbidden drives and the superego’s moral code
- reality anxiety: anxiety about actual dangers in the external environment
- neurotic anxiety: the ego fears that a forbidden desire of the id will rise to the conscious realm and become impossible to control
- moral anxiety: the ego fears that the superego will punish it for a forbidden desire, or an action that has already took place and been repressed to the unconscious realm
- the last two anxieties can be so severe and difficult to deal with, that it can lead to the development of neurosis or psychosis
- people use defence mechanisms to deal with anxiety
Defence mechanism: Repression and resistance
- represses drives and wishes that are unacceptable to the superego to the unconscious
- unconscious mechanism, person doesn’t want to purposefully forget
- these drives cause anxiety, and therefore the ego constantly represses them whilst they try to make their way to the conscious
- all other defence mechanisms are geared to keeping repressed drives in the unconscious
Defence mechanism: Projection
- an attempt to keep unconscious and threatening psychic material unconscious by subjectively changing or projecting the focus to the drives and wishes of other people, and thereby ignoring those impulses within themselves
- tries to change moral or neurotic anxiety into reality anxiety
- may employ another defence mechanism: reaction formation
Defence mechanism: Reaction formation
- tries to keep a forbidden desire unconscious by adopting a fanatical stance that gives the impression that he or she experiences exactly the opposite desire
- fanatical or excessive behaviour
Defence mechanism: rationalisation
- an attempt to explain behaviour to themselves or others by providing reasons that sound rational, but are not the real reasons
- it is usually less threatening to blame someone or something else for one’s failures than to blame oneself
- different than ordinary lying in that the person is not aware of their real reasons while rationalising
Defence mechanism: Displacement or sublimation
- finding a substitute for the object that society’s moral codes forbid and using this substitute object for drive satisfaction
- in the context of therapy, displacement is called transference
- sublimation refers to finding displacement objects and actions that are regarded by society ad culturally valuable, ex art or sport
Defence mechanism: Fixation and regression
- fixation occurs when an individual gets stuck at a certain developmental stage
- too much energy remains in the object of this stage
- the individual will develop a personality characteristic according to the stage where the fixation occurs
- regression is closely linked to fixation, anyone who regresses will regress to the stage at which they were fixated
Defence mechanism: Identification
- when a person symbolically represent themselves with(in) another person, because of an unconscious desire to be like the other person
- of special significance during the phallic stage
Freud’s development stage: Oral
- birth to end of first year
- erogenous zone: mouth
- when the baby breastfeeds, his hunger drive as well as their oral sexual drive gets satisfied
- weening and impatience when being fed are seen as rejections, causing displacement
- excessive cuddling and love also causes possible fixation
- ego and superego starts to develop
- fixation characteristics: dependence on others (narcissism, jealousy, excessive optimism)
- reaction formation as defence mechanism: selfishness, self-loathing, pessimism, exaggerated generosity
Freud’s developmental theory: Anal stage
- erogenous zone: anus
- second year of life
- child experiences pleasure through excretion and withholding excretion
- aggressive purposes: refusing to excrete or doing it at the wrong time to punish parents
- masochism: experiencing sexual pleasure through withholding excretion
- fixation: anal personality
- faeces holds symbolic value to money: can be given as gift and withheld as punishment
- sadism, masochism, obsessive compulsive neuroses as result of fixation
Freud’s developmental theory: Phallic stage
- 3-6 years
- erogenous zone: sex organs
- sexual wishes related to the parents, the penis, and in girls, the absence of the penis
- son has sexual wishes towards the mother, envies the father, turns aggression into identification (embodies father). Oedipus complex
- daughter envies father’s penis, believes it’s mother’s fault. Develops sexual desires toward father. Embodies mother in order to win father’s affection. Electra complex
- Fixation: homosexuality
Freud’s developmental theory: Latent stage
- 6 years to puberty
- no erogenous zone
- concerned with learning their gender role
- children mainly play with kids of the same sex to consolidate their acquisition of appropriate sex role behaviour
Freud’s developmental stage: Genital stage
- puberty and onwards
- erogenous zones: all of them
- repression of sexual urges during phallic stage are no longer sufficient
- defence mechanisms: displacement and sublimation
- kissing, hugging, foreplay
- man chooses woman similar to mother
- woman chooses man similar to father, and hopes to conceive a son (to make up for the lack of penis ofc)
- aggressive urges are redirected to sports
Freud’s view on psychopathology (psychoanalytical theory)
- psychological disorders are caused by an imbalance of the personality’s structures
- historical causes
1. Fixation
2. Underdeveloped ego
3. Overly strict superego - contemporary cause: if the ego can’t sufficiently handle the conflicts between the id and superego through defence mechanisms, it resorts to pathological ways (neuroses, personally disorders, and psychoses)
Neuroses (Freud)
Develops due to the ego’s inability to cope with the conflict between the id and the superego
Personality disorders (Freud)
Deeply-rooted disturbed ways of dealing with conflict and the satisfaction of drives. Result of fixation and the consequent regression to the appropriate pre-genital developmental stage
Psychosis (Freud)
The result of complete inability to deal with anxiety on the part of the ego, resulting in total withdrawal from reality
Psychoanalysis
A method of analysing the contents of the psyche by means of techniques such as free association and dream analysis in order to determine which unconscious conflicts and memories are causing the patient’s problems
Freud’s contribution to modern psychology
- the case study method: note taking during therapy sessions, observing the patient’s behaviour and reactions
- the catharsis hypothesis, and the disprovement thereof
