Sigmund Freud

1. Sigmund Freud Father of psychoanalysis A man should not strive to eliminate his complexes but to get into accord with them: they are legitimately what directs his conduct in the world.

2. main theoretical concepts • The id, ego, superego • Theory of Psychosexual Development • Psychoanalysis • Defense mechanism • Dream interpretation • Free association

4. id, ego, and superego • Id – pleasure principle • Ego – reality principle • Superego – moral principle According to Freud, the key to a healthy personality is a balance between the id, the ego, and the superego.

5. life and death instincts • Life instincts (eros) • Also referred to as sexual instincts • Libido – energy created by the life instincts • Death instincts (thanatos) • when directed outward, is expressed as aggression and violence.

6. psychosexual development • Personality is mostly established by the age of five. • centered on the effects of the sexual pleasure drive on the individual psyche. • The child's libido centers on behavior affecting the primary erogenous zone of his age; he cannot focus on the primary erogenous zone of the next stage without resolving the developmental conflict of the immediate one.

7. oral stage ( birth to 18 months) • the child if focused on oral pleasures. • can result in an Oral Fixation or Oral Personality

8. oral personality • This type of personality may have a stronger tendency to smoke, drink alcohol, over eat, or bite his or her nails. • may become overly dependent upon others, gullible, and perpetual followers. On the other hand, they may also fight these urges and develop pessimism and aggression toward others.

9. anal stage (18 months to 3 years) • focus of pleasure in this stage is on eliminating and retaining feces. • anal retentive – obsession with cleanliness, perfection, and control • anal expulsive - messy and disorganized

10. phallic stage (3 to 6) • pleasure zone switches to the genitals • Oedipus Complex – boy develop unconscious sexual desires for their mother. Because of this, he becomes rivals with his father and sees him as competition for the mother’s affection. During this time, boys also develop a fear that their father will punish them for these feelings, such as by castrating them*. • *castration anxiety

11. phallic stage (3 to 6) • Electra Complex – has its roots in the little girl's discovery that she, along with her mother and all other women, lack the penis which her father and other men posses. Her love for her father then becomes both erotic and envious, as she yearns for a penis of her own. She comes to blame her mother for her perceived castration, and is struck by penis envy, the apparent counterpart to the boy's castration anxiety.

12. phallic stage (3 to 6) • Fixation at the phallic stage develops a phallic character, who is reckless, resolute, self-assured, and narcissistic--excessively vain and proud. • The failure to resolve the conflict can also cause a person to be afraid or incapable of close love; • Freud also postulated that fixation could be a root cause of homosexuality.

13. latency stage (six to puberty) • During the latency period, children pour this repressed libidal energy into asexual pursuits such as school, athletics, and same-sex friendships. But soon puberty strikes, and the genitals once again become a central focus of libidal energy.

14. genital stage (puberty …) • the child's energy once again focuses on his genitals. • interest turns to heterosexual relationships. • If he remains fixated, particularly on the phallic stage, his development will be troubled as he struggles with further repression and defenses.

15. references • http://www.victorianweb.org/science/freud/develop.html • http://allpsych.com/psychology101/sexual_development.html • http://psychology.about.com/od/sigmundfreud