21/08/2018

Psychodynamic Theories of Personality

SIGMUND FREUD:
PSYCHOANALYSIS ▪ Freud and the Psychoanalytic on:
▪ Personality Structure: id, ego,
superego
▪ Defense Mechanisms
▪ Psychosexual Stages of
Development

Freud’s Personality/Mind Iceberg Id – The Child Within

The mind is mostly below the
surface of conscious
awareness
Personality develops from • Id
the efforts of our ego, our • Psychic Energy
rational self, to resolve
tension between our id, • No contact with reality
based in biological drives, • Child-like
and the superego, society’s
• Always Seeking
rules and constraints.
Pleasure or avoiding
The Unconscious, in Freud’s pain
view: A reservoir of
thoughts, wishes, feelings,
• Governed by the
and memories, that are pleasure principle
hidden from awareness
because they feel
unacceptable.

Ego – The Thinking Province of the

Super Ego – The Parent Within
Mind
Super Ego
• The more or less rational
• Parent self who is caught in
• Not concerned with reality between
• Strives for perfection • Governed by the reality
• Sees to it that Id’s sexual principle
and aggressive impulses can • Partly conscious
be satisfied in moral terms • Tasked with higher mental
(morality principle) functions such as decision-
• Where ego ideal and making, reasoning and
conscience stems from problem solving
• Conforms with existing
societal considerations

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Neurotic Anxiety Freudian Psychoanalysis

Id • Id, Ego and Superego are better seen as
Pleasure Principle
Infancy
processes and forces rather than concrete
entities
Anxiety • Id and Superego are often in conflict with
Ego Superego each other
• Defense Mechanisms – the ego’s protective
Reality Principle Morality Principle
1 year old onwards Completed at 7 years methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously
distorting reality
Realistic Anxiety Moral Anxiety

Defending Freud believed that we are anxious

Why do people use defense mechanisms?
Against Anxiety about our unacceptable wishes and
impulses, and we repress this anxiety
with the help of the strategies below.
• A basic drive of people is the reduction of
tension.

• Anxiety is the major cause of tension

• People use defense mechanisms to deal with

anxieties or situations which makes us
anxious.

Oral
Psychosexual Stages 0-18 months
Key Concepts Source of pleasure is the mouth and
– Libido other senses
sexual and aggressive urge that transfers to
one erogenous zone to another Consumption is not only eating but
– Erogenous Zone
taking in every stimulus in the
environment
part of the body where the libido is centered;
part of the body that needs stimulation
– Fixation
inability to proceed to the next stage due to: Sucking, biting and swallowing
– frustration (under gratification)
Oral incorporative- oral passive
personality
– over indulgence (over gratification);
when we are fixated, we manifest certain behaviors that involve the
erogenous zone and these behaviors will continue to manifest when we

Oral aggressive or oral sadistic- oral

become adults, specially when we experience anxiety.
– Regression
coping with anxiety by manifesting a childhood behavior that was
learned from the previous stages
aggressive personality

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Anal
18 months to 3/4
Phallic
Source of pleasure is the anus 3/4 – 6/7
Retention of feces and willful defecation
Focus of pleasure: genitals
Toilet training- regulate the time and place
of defecation Exploring and manipulating the genitals
Anal expulsion- anal aggressive Oedipus complex (boys): castration
personality anxiety
Anal retention- anal retentive personality Penis envy (girls)
OCD and OCPD
Development of an individual’s
personality

Latency

Coping with 6/7 to puberty, somewhere around 12

years old
penis envy? sexual impulse was suppressed in the
 service of learning
Sublimated in school activities, sports
and hobbies, and in developing
friendship with the same sex

Genital Freud and Therapy

begins at puberty
Relaxed atmosphere: The client must feel
Can be at least partially satisfied
free to express anything. Physically relaxing
through socially acceptable substitutes
couch, dim lights, sound- proof walls, and
and committed adult relationship
the stage is set.
Genital personality
Free association. The client may talk about
enjoys a satisfying adult sexuality
anything at all. With relaxation, the
Narcissism is overcome unconscious conflicts will inevitably drift to
Love others the fore.
Psychological maturity

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Freud and Therapy Freud and Therapy

Resistance. When a client tries to change the
Parapraxes: slip of the tongue, often called a
topic, draws a complete blank, falls asleep,
Freudian slip; jokes clients told. Almost everything
comes in late, or skips an appointment
meant something almost all the time. Freud
altogether, the therapist says "aha!”
himself noted, in response to a student who asked
Dream analysis. In sleep, we are somewhat less what his cigar might be a symbol for, that
resistant to our unconscious and we will allow a "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." Or is it?
few things, in symbolic form, of course, to come
Projective tests: When the stimulus is vague, the
to awareness. Freudian interpretation is distinct
client fills it with his or her own unconscious
in the tendency to find sexual meanings.
themes.

Freud and Therapy Freud and Therapy

Transference: Client projects feelings toward the

To make the unconscious

therapist; Necessary in therapy in order to bring
the repressed emotions to the surface.
Catharsis: is the sudden and dramatic outpouring
of emotion that occurs when the trauma is conscious
resurrected. The box of tissues on the end table is
not there for decoration.
Insight: being aware of the source of the
emotion, of the original traumatic event.