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Freud’s Components of Personality and Psychosexual Development

Who Is Sigmund Freud?


 Sigmund Freud, born on May 6, 1856, in what is now Příbor, Czech Republic (then part of the Austrian
Empire), is hailed as the father of psychoanalysis. He was the eldest of eight children in a Jewish family.
 Freud initially wanted to become a law professional but later developed an interest in medicine. He
entered the University of Vienna in 1873, graduating with an MD in 1881. His primary interests
included neurology and neuropathology. He was particularly interested in the condition of hysteria and
its psychological causes.
 In 1885, Freud received a grant to study with Jean-Martin Charcot, a renowned neurologist who used
hypnosis to treat women suffering from what was then called “hysteria.” This experience sparked
Freud’s interest in the unconscious mind, a theme that would recur throughout his career.
 In 1886, Freud returned to Vienna, married Martha Bernays, and set up a private practice to treat
nervous disorders. His work during this time led to his revolutionary concepts of the human mind and
the development of the psychoanalytic method.
 Freud introduced several influential concepts, including the Oedipus complex, dream analysis, and the
structural model of the psyche divided into the id, ego, and superego. He published numerous works
throughout his career, the most notable being “The Interpretation of Dreams” (1900), “The
Psychopathology of Everyday Life” (1901), and “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality” (1905).
 Despite controversy and opposition, Freud continued to develop his theories and expand the field of
psychoanalysis. He was deeply affected by the outbreak of World War I and later by the rise of the
Nazis in Germany. In 1938, due to the Nazi threat, he emigrated to London with his wife and youngest
daughter.
 Freud died in London on September 23, 1939, but his influence on psychology, literature, and culture
remains profound and pervasive.
 He radically changed our understanding of the human mind, emphasizing the power of unconscious
processes and pioneering therapeutic techniques that continue to be used today.

Sigmund Freud’s Theories & Contributions

1. Psychoanalytic Theory: Freud is best known for developing psychoanalysis, a therapeutic technique for
treating mental health disorders by exploring unconscious thoughts and feelings.
2. Unconscious Mind: Freud (1900, 1905) developed a topographical model of the mind, describing the
features of the mind’s structure and function. Freud used the analogy of an iceberg to describe the three levels
of the mind.

An illustration of Freud’s Iceberg Theory, where the conscious mind is the visible tip above the water, while
the larger unconscious mind lies submerged, out of immediate sight yet immensely influential.
3. Personality: Freud proposed a tripartite model of the human mind, composed of the id, ego, and
superego. The id represents primal desires, the ego balances the id and reality, and the superego represents
societal norms and morals.
The id, ego, and superego have most commonly been conceptualized as three essential parts of the human
personality.

4. Psychosexual Development: Freud’s controversial theory of psychosexual development suggests that early
childhood experiences and stages (oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital) shape our adult personality and
behavior.

His theory of psychosexual stages of development is predicated by the concept that childhood experiences
create the adult personality and that problems in early life would come back to haunt the individual as a
mental illness.

5. Dream Analysis: Freud believed dreams were a window into the unconscious mind and developed methods
for analyzing dream content for repressed thoughts and desires.

Dreams represent unfulfilled wishes from the id, trying to break through to the conscious. But because these
desires are often unacceptable, they are disguised or censored using such defenses as symbolism.

Freud believed that by undoing the dreamwork, the analyst could study the manifest content (what they
dreamt) and interpret the latent content ( what it meant) by understanding the symbols.

6. Defense Mechanisms: Freud proposed several defense mechanisms, like repression and projection, which
the ego employs to handle the tension and conflicts among the id, superego, and the demands of reality.

Anna O. (Bertha Pappenheim): Known as the ‘birth of psychoanalysis,’ Anna O. was a patient of Freud’s
colleague Josef Breuer. However, her case heavily influenced Freud’s thinking.

She suffered from various symptoms, including hallucinations and paralysis, which Freud interpreted as signs
of hysteria caused by repressed traumatic memories. The “talking cure” method with Anna O. would later
evolve into Freudian psychoanalysis.

The Origins of Personality

Learning Objectives

1. Describe the strengths and limitations of the psychodynamic approach to explaining personality.
2. Summarize the accomplishments of the neo-Freudians.
3. Identify the major contributions of the humanistic approach to understanding personality.

Although measures such as the Big Five and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) are able
to effectively assess personality, they do not say much about where personality comes from. In this section we
will consider two major theories of the origin of personality: psychodynamic and humanistic approaches.

Psychodynamic Theories of Personality: The Role of the Unconscious


One of the most important psychological approaches to understanding personality is based on the theorizing of
the Austrian physician and psychologist Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), who founded what today is known as
the psychodynamic approach, an approach to understanding human behaviour that focuses on the role of
unconscious thoughts, feelings, and memories. Many people know about Freud because his work has had a huge
impact on our everyday thinking about psychology, and the psychodynamic approach is one of the most
important approaches to psychological therapy (Roudinesco, 2003; Taylor, 2009). Freud is probably the best
known of all psychologists, in part because of his impressive observation and analyses of personality (there are
24 volumes of his writings). As is true of all theories, many of Freud’s ingenious ideas have turned out to be at
least partially incorrect, and yet other aspects of his theories are still influencing psychology.

Freud was influenced by the work of the French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893), who had been
interviewing patients (almost all women) who were experiencing what was at the time known as hysteria.
Although it is no longer used to describe a psychological disorder, hysteria at the time referred to a set of
personality and physical symptoms that included chronic pain, fainting, seizures, and paralysis.

Charcot could find no biological reason for the symptoms. For instance, some women experienced a loss of
feeling in their hands and yet not in their arms, and this seemed impossible given that the nerves in the arms are
the same as those in the hands. Charcot was experimenting with the use of hypnosis, and he and Freud found
that under hypnosis many of the hysterical patients reported having experienced a traumatic sexual experience,
such as sexual abuse, as children (Dolnick, 1998).

Freud and Charcot also found that during hypnosis the remembering of the trauma was often accompanied by
an outpouring of emotion, known as catharsis, and that following the catharsis the patient’s symptoms were
frequently reduced in severity. These observations led Freud and Charcot to conclude that these disorders were
caused by psychological rather than physiological factors.

Freud used the observations that he and Charcot had made to develop his theory regarding the sources of
personality and behaviour, and his insights are central to the fundamental themes of psychology. In terms of
free will, Freud did not believe that we were able to control our own behaviours. Rather, he believed that all
behaviours are predetermined by motivations that lie outside our awareness, in the unconscious. These forces
show themselves in our dreams, in neurotic symptoms such as obsessions, while we are under hypnosis, and in
Freudian “slips of the tongue” in which people reveal their unconscious desires in language. Freud argued that
we rarely understand why we do what we do, although we can make up explanations for our behaviours after
the fact. For Freud the mind was like an iceberg, with the many motivations of the unconscious being much
larger, but also out of sight, in comparison to the consciousness of which we are aware (Figure 12.7, “Mind as
Iceberg”).
Figure 12.7 Mind as Iceberg. In Sigmund Freud’s conceptualization of personality, the most important
motivations are unconscious, just as the major part of an iceberg is under water.

Id, Ego, and Superego

Freud proposed that the mind is divided into three components: id, ego, and superego, and that the interactions
and conflicts among the components create personality (Freud, 1923/1949). According to Freudian theory,
the id is the component of personality that forms the basis of our most primitive impulses. The id is entirely
unconscious, and it drives our most important motivations, including the sexual drive (libido) and the
aggressive or destructive drive (Thanatos). According to Freud, the id is driven by the pleasure
principle — the desire for immediate gratification of our sexual and aggressive urges. The id is why we smoke
cigarettes, drink alcohol, view pornography, tell mean jokes about people, and engage in other fun or harmful
behaviours, often at the cost of doing more productive activities.
In stark contrast to the id, the superego represents our sense of morality and oughts. The superego tell us all the
things that we shouldn’t do, or the duties and obligations of society. The superego strives for perfection, and
when we fail to live up to its demands we feel guilty.

In contrast to the id, which is about the pleasure principle, the function of the ego is based on the reality
principle — the idea that we must delay gratification of our basic motivations until the appropriate time with
the appropriate outlet. The ego is the largely conscious controller or decision-maker of personality. The ego
serves as the intermediary between the desires of the id and the constraints of society contained in the superego
(Figure 12.8, “Ego, Id, and Superego in Interaction”). We may wish to scream, yell, or hit, and yet our ego
normally tells us to wait, reflect, and choose a more appropriate response.
Figure 12.8 Ego, Id, and Superego in Interaction.

Freud believed that psychological disorders, and particularly the experience of anxiety, occur when there is
conflict or imbalance among the motivations of the id, ego, and superego. When the ego finds that the id is
pressing too hard for immediate pleasure, it attempts to correct for this problem, often through the use
of defence mechanisms — unconscious psychological strategies used to cope with anxiety and maintain a
positive self-image. Freud believed that the defence mechanisms were essential for effective coping with
everyday life, but that any of them could be overused (Table 12.4, “The Major Freudian Defence
Mechanisms”).

Other explanations:

Freud’s Theory Of Personality: Id, Ego, And Superego

Perhaps Freud’s single most enduring and important idea was that the human psyche (personality) has more
than one aspect. Freud’s personality theory (1923) saw the psyche structured into three parts (i.e., tripartite), the
id, ego, and superego, all developing at different stages in our lives. These are systems, not parts of the brain, or
in any way physical, but rather hypothetical conceptualizations of important mental functions. The basic
dilemma of all human existence is that each element of the psychic apparatus makes demands upon us
incompatible with the other two. Inner conflict is inevitable. For example, the superego can make a person feel
guilty if rules are not followed. When there is a conflict between the goals of the id and superego, the ego must
act as a referee and mediate this conflict. The ego can deploy various defense mechanisms (Freud, 1894, 1896)
to prevent it from becoming overwhelmed by anxiety.

According to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, the id is the primitive and instinctual part of the mind that
contains sexual and aggressive drives and hidden memories, the super-ego operates as a moral conscience, and
the ego is the realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego.

Although each part of the personality comprises unique features, they interact to form a whole, and each part
makes a relative contribution to an individual’s behavior.

What Is The Id?

 The id is the primitive and instinctive component of personality.


 The id is a part of the unconscious that contains all the urges and impulses, including what is called the
libido, a kind of generalized sexual energy that is used for everything from survival instincts to
appreciation of art.
 The id is the impulsive (and unconscious) part of our psyche that responds directly and immediately to
basic urges, needs, and desires. The personality of the newborn child is all id, and only later does it
develop an ego and super-ego.
 The id is also stubborn, for it responds only to what Freud called the pleasure principle (if it feels good,
do it), and nothing else.
 Freud assumed the id operated unconsciously according to the pleasure principle (gratification from
satisfying basic instincts). The id comprises two kinds of biological instincts (or drives), including the
sex (life) instinct called Eros (which contains the libido) and the aggressive (death) instinct called
Thanatos.
 Eros, or life instinct, helps the individual to survive; it directs life-sustaining activities such as
respiration, eating, and sex (Freud, 1925). The energy created by the life instinct is known as libido.
 In contrast, Thanatos, or death instinct, is viewed as a set of destructive forces in all human beings
(Freud, 1920). When this energy is directed outward onto others, it is expressed as aggression and
violence. Freud believed that Eros was stronger than Thanatos, thus enabling people to survive rather
than self-destruct.
 The id remains infantile in its function throughout a person’s life and does not change with time or
experience, as it is not in touch with the external world.
 The id is not affected by reality, logic, or the everyday world, as it operates within the unconscious part
of the mind.
 An over dominant id causes psychoses.
 The id operates on the pleasure principle (Freud, 1920) which is the idea that every wishful impulse
should be satisfied immediately, regardless of the consequences.
 When the id achieves its demands, we experience pleasure when it is denied we experience ‘unpleasure’
or tension.
 The id engages in primary process thinking, which is primitive, illogical, irrational, and fantasy oriented.
This form of process thinking has no comprehension of objective reality, and is selfish and wishful in
nature.

What Is The Ego?

 The ego is “that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world.”
 (Freud, 1923, p. 25)
 The ego is the only part of the conscious personality. It’s what the person is aware of when they think
about themselves and what they usually try to project toward others.
 The ego develops to mediate between the unrealistic id and the real external world. It is the decision-
making component of personality. Ideally, the ego works by reason, whereas the id is chaotic and
unreasonable.
 The ego develops from the id during infancy. The ego’s goal is to satisfy the id’s demands in a safe and
socially acceptable way. In contrast to the id, the ego follows the reality principle as it operates in both
the conscious and unconscious mind.
 The ego operates according to the reality principle, working out realistic ways of satisfying the id’s
demands, often compromising or postponing satisfaction to avoid negative consequences of society.
 The ego considers social realities and norms, etiquette, and rules in deciding how to behave.
 Like the id, the ego seeks pleasure (i.e., tension reduction) and avoids pain, but unlike the id, the ego is
concerned with devising a realistic strategy to obtain pleasure.
 The ego has no concept of right or wrong; something is good simply if it achieves its end of satisfying
without causing harm to itself or the id.
 Often the ego is weak relative to the headstrong id, and the best the ego can do is stay on, pointing the id
in the right direction and claiming some credit at the end as if the action were its own.
 Freud made the analogy of the id being a horse while the ego is the rider. The ego is “like a man on
horseback, who has to hold in check the superiour strength of the horse.”
 (Freud, 1923, p. 15)
 If the ego fails to use the reality principle and anxiety is experienced, unconscious defense
mechanisms are employed to help ward off unpleasant feelings (i.e., anxiety) or make good things feel
better for the individual.
 The ego engages in secondary process thinking, which is rational, realistic, and orientated toward
problem-solving. If a plan of action does not work, then it is thought through again until a solution is
found. This is known as reality testing and enables the person to control their impulses and demonstrate
self-control, via mastery of the ego.
 An important feature of clinical and social work is to enhance ego functioning and help the client test
reality through assisting the client to think through their options.
 According to Freudians, some abnormal upbringing (particularly if there is a cold, rejecting
‘schizogenic’ mother) can result in a weak and fragile ego, whose ability to contain the id’s desires is
limited.
 This can lead to the ego being ‘broken apart’ by its attempt to contain the id, leaving the id in overall
control of the psyche.

What is Superego?

The superego incorporates the values and morals of society, which are learned from one’s parents and others. It
develops around 3 – 5 years during the phallic stage of psychosexual development.

 The superego develops during early childhood (when the child identifies with the same-sex parent) and
is responsible for ensuring moral standards are followed. The superego operates on the morality
principle and motivates us to behave in a socially responsible and acceptable manner.
 The superego is seen as the purveyor of rewards (feelings of pride and satisfaction) and punishments
(feelings of shame and guilt), depending on which part (the ego-deal or conscious) is activated.
 The superego is a part of the unconscious that is the voice of conscience (doing what is right) and the
source of self-criticism.
 It reflects society’s moral values to some degree, and a person is sometimes aware of their own morality
and ethics, but the superego contains many codes, or prohibitions, that are issued mostly unconsciously
in the form of commands or “don’t” statements.
 The superego’s function is to control the id’s impulses, especially those which society forbids, such as
sex and aggression.
 It also persuades the ego to turn to moralistic goals rather than simply realistic ones and strive for
perfection.

Neuroses, according to Freud caused by an overdominant superego, the resultant defense mechanisms
implemented by the ego in an attempt to regain control. Because the defense mechanisms are being over-used,
too much psychic energy is used, allowing the maladaptive behavior to emerge.

The superego consists of two systems: The conscience and the ideal self.

 The conscience is our “inner voice” that tells us when we have done something wrong.

a) The conscience can punish the ego by causing feelings of guilt. For example, if the ego gives in to the
id’s demands, the superego may make the person feel bad through guilt.
b) The superego is also somewhat tricky, in that it will try to portray what it wants the person to do in
grandiose, glowing terms, what Freud called the ego-ideal, which arises out of the person’s first great
love attachment (usually a parent).

 The ideal self (or ego-ideal) is an imaginary picture of how you ought to be, and represents career
aspirations, how to treat other people, and how to behave as a member of society.

a) The assumption is that children raised by parents experience love conditionally (when they do
something right), and the child internalizes these experiences as a series of real or imagined judgmental
statements.
b) Behavior which falls short of the ideal self may be punished by the superego through guilt. The super-
ego can also reward us through the ideal self when we behave ‘properly’ by making us feel proud.
c) Guilt is a common problem because of all the urges and drives from the id and all the prohibitions and
codes in the superego. There are various ways an individual handles guilt, which are called defense
mechanisms.

Table 12.4 The Major Freudian Defence Mechanisms.

Defence
Definition Possible behavioural example
mechanism

Diverting threatening impulses away A student who is angry at her professor for a
Displacement from the source of the anxiety and toward low grade lashes out at her roommate, who is
a more acceptable source a safer target of her anger.

A man with powerful unconscious sexual


Disguising threatening impulses by
Projection desires for women claims that women use
attributing them to others
him as a sex object.

A drama student convinces herself that


Generating self-justifying explanations
Rationalization getting the part in the play wasn’t that
for our negative behaviours
important after all.

Jane is sexually attracted to friend Jake, but


Reaction Making unacceptable motivations appear
she claims in public that she intensely
formation as their exact opposite
dislikes him.

Retreating to an earlier, more childlike, A university student who is worried about an


Regression
and safer stage of development important test begins to suck on his finger.
Table 12.4 The Major Freudian Defence Mechanisms.

Defence
Definition Possible behavioural example
mechanism

A person who witnesses his parents having


Repression (or Pushing anxiety-arousing thoughts into
sex is later unable to remember anything
denial) the unconscious
about the event.

Channeling unacceptable sexual or A person participates in sports to sublimate


Sublimation aggressive desires into acceptable aggressive drives. A person creates music or
activities art to sublimate sexual drives.

The most controversial, and least scientifically valid, part of Freudian theory is its explanations of personality
development. Freud argued that personality is developed through a series of psychosexual stages, each focusing
on pleasure from a different part of the body (Table 12.5, “Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development”).
Freud believed that sexuality begins in infancy, and that the appropriate resolution of each stage has
implications for later personality development.

Table 12.5 Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development.

[Skip Table]

Approximate
Stage Description
ages

Oral Birth to 18 months Pleasure comes from the mouth in the form of sucking, biting, and chewing.

18 months to 3 Pleasure comes from bowel and bladder elimination and the constraints of
Anal
years toilet training.

Pleasure comes from the genitals, and the conflict is with sexual desires for
Phallic 3 years to 6 years
the opposite-sex parent.

Latenc
6 years to puberty Sexual feelings are less important.
y
Table 12.5 Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development.

[Skip Table]

Approximate
Stage Description
ages

If prior stages have been properly reached, mature sexual orientation


Genital Puberty and older
develops.

1. In the first of Freud’s proposed stages of psychosexual development, which begins at birth and lasts
until about 18 months of age, the focus is on the mouth. During this oral stage, the infant obtains sexual
pleasure by sucking and drinking. Infants who receive either too little or too much gratification
become fixated or locked in the oral stage, and are likely to regress to these points of fixation under
stress, even as adults. According to Freud, a child who receives too little oral gratification (e.g., who was
underfed or neglected) will become orally dependent as an adult and be likely to manipulate others to
fulfill his or her needs rather than becoming independent. On the other hand, the child who was overfed
or overly gratified will resist growing up and try to return to the prior state of dependency by acting
helpless, demanding satisfaction from others, and acting in a needy way.
2. The anal stage, lasting from about 18 months to three years of age, is when children first experience
psychological conflict. During this stage children desire to experience pleasure through bowel
movements, but they are also being toilet trained to delay this gratification. Freud believed that if this
toilet training was either too harsh or too lenient, children would become fixated in the anal stage and
become likely to regress to this stage under stress as adults. If the child received too little anal
gratification (i.e., if the parents had been very harsh about toilet training), the adult personality will
be anal retentive — stingy, with a compulsive seeking of order and tidiness. On the other hand, if the
parents had been too lenient, the anal expulsive personality results, characterized by a lack of self-
control and a tendency toward messiness and carelessness.
3. The phallic stage, which lasts from age three to age six is when the penis (for boys) and clitoris (for
girls) become the primary erogenous zone for sexual pleasure. During this stage, Freud believed that
children develop a powerful but unconscious attraction for the opposite-sex parent, as well as a desire to
eliminate the same-sex parent as a rival. Freud based his theory of sexual development in boys (the
Oedipus complex) on the Greek mythological character Oedipus, who unknowingly killed his father
and married his mother, and then put his own eyes out when he learned what he had done. Freud argued
that boys will normally eventually abandon their love of the mother, and instead identify with the father,
also taking on the father’s personality characteristics, but that boys who do not successfully resolve the
Oedipus complex will experience psychological problems later in life. Although it was not as important
in Freud’s theorizing, in girls the phallic stage is often termed the Electra complex, after the Greek
character who avenged her father’s murder by killing her mother. Freud believed that girls frequently
experienced penis envy, the sense of deprivation supposedly experienced by girls because they do not
have a penis.
4. The latency stage is a period of relative calm that lasts from about six years to 12 years. During this
time, Freud believed that sexual impulses were repressed, leading boys and girls to have little or no
interest in members of the opposite sex.
5. The fifth and last stage, the genital stage, begins about 12 years of age and lasts into adulthood.
According to Freud, sexual impulses return during this time frame, and if development has proceeded
normally to this point, the child is able to move into the development of mature romantic relationships.
But if earlier problems have not been appropriately resolved, difficulties with establishing intimate love
attachments are likely.

References:
Mcleod, S. (2022, November 3). Id, Ego, & Superego | Freud & Examples - Simply Psychology. Simply
Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/psyche.html
Stangor, C., & Walinga, J. (2014, October 17). 12.2 The Origins of Personality – Introduction to Psychology –
1st Canadian Edition. BCcampus Open Publishing – Open Textbooks Adapted and Created by BC Faculty;
BCcampus. https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontopsychology/chapter/11-2-the-origins-of-personality/#:~:text=we
%20are%20aware.-,Freud%20proposed%20that%20the%20mind%20is%20divided%20into%20three
%20components,among%20the%20components%20create%20personality.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/sigmund-freud.html

Group 1 members:
Therry Ross Arguelles
Eloisa Dave
Kimberly Jane V. Lagartiha
Ronel Santillan
Keith Richjade Ybut

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