The Freudian Theory of Personality

1. The Freudian Theory of Personality Mohit Puri , Ph.D . Education Course Work 2010-2011, Roll No. 9054

2. The Topographic Model: Levels of Awareness • Conscious – contains the thoughts you are currently aware of. • Preconscious – large body of retrievable information. • Unconscious – the material that we have no immediate access to.

3. The Structural Model: Id, Ego, & Superego • Id – present atbirth; selfish part of you, concerned with satisfying your desires. • Pleasure principle – only concerned with what brings immediate personal satisfaction regardless of physical or social implications. • Id impulses tend to be socially unacceptable. • Wish-fulfillment – used to satisfy needs that cannot immediately be met; can imagine, which temporarily satisfies the need. • Completely buried in the unconscious.

4. The Structural Model: Id, Ego, & Superego • Ego – develops during the first two years of life; primary job is to satisfy the id impulses in an appropriate manner by taking consequences into consideration. • Reduces tension. • Moves freely among the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious parts of the mind.

5. The Structural Model: Id, Ego, & Superego • Superego – develops by the time the child is 5 years old; represents society’s and parent’s values and standards. • Conscience – right and wrong. • Can be weak – little inward restraint. • Super moral – impossible ideals of perfection. • Moral anxiety – ever-present feeling of shame or guilt.

6. Id, Ego, & Superego Iceburg Illustration

7. Instincts: Libido & Thanatos • Libido – the life or sexual instinct. • Sexually motivated behaviors not only include those with blatant erotic content, but every action aimed at receiving pleasure. • Thanatos – death or aggressive instinct. • The unconscious desire we all have to die and return to the earth. • Death instinct is turned outward and expressed as aggression toward others.

8. Defense Mechanisms • The ego’s way of dealing with unwanted thoughts and desires; wants to resolve tension. • Repression – active effort of the ego to push threatening material out of consciousness or to keep such material from ever reaching consciousness. This is a constant, active process. • Sublimation – the ego channels threatening unconscious impulses into socially acceptable actions. • Ex: Aggressive id impulses are channeled into competitive sports.

9. Defense Mechanisms Continued… • Displacement – involves channeling our impulses to non-threatening objects; do not lead to social rewards. • Ex: If someone is angry at the boss, he or she may take that anger out on the children at home. • Denial – refusing to accept that certain facts exist; insisting that something is not true. • Reaction Formation – hiding from a threatening unconscious idea or urge by acting in a manner opposite to our unconscious desires. • Ex: People obsessed with religious values.

10. Defense Mechanisms Continued… • Intellectualization – ego handles threatening material by removing the emotional content from the thought before allowing it into awareness; by considering something strictly intellectual, previously difficult thoughts are allowed into awareness without anxiety. • Projection – attributing an unconscious impulse to other people instead of ourselves; we free ourselves from the perception that we are the only ones that have that thought.

11. Application: Psychoanalysis • Its goal is to bring crucial unconscious material into consciousness, where it can be examined in a rational manner. • Ways to bring material into consciousness: • Dreams • Projective tests • Free association • Freudian slips • Hypnosis • Accidents • Symbolic behavior

12. Strengths and Criticisms of Freud’s Theories • Strengths: • Freud developed the first comprehensive theory of personality. • Many personality theorists have deemed it necessary to point out where their theories differ from or correct weaknesses in Freud’s works.

13. Strengths and Criticisms of Freud’s Theories • Criticisms: • Many Freudian ideas appear in the literature that predates Freud’s work. • Many of his hypotheses are not testable. • Freud relied heavily on case study data for evidence which was extremely biased. • Many of Freud’s followers broke away from the group because Freud refused to take into account the experiences that happened after 6 years of age and how they may influence personality.