I know what Id say.

In Psychology I learned about Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. Psychoanalytic theory is Freud’s explanation of motivation, behavior, and disorders through the studying of childhood experiences, the unconscious mind, and sex and aggression. I discussed childhood experiences in a previous blog. In this blog, I will describe Freud’s personality structure, levels of awareness, and conflict created by sex and aggression.

According to Freud, personality structure is composed of three separate units: the Id, the Ego, and the Superego. The Id “functions in the irrational and emotional part of the mind” (“Structure”). The Id operates according to the pleasure principle. This means that the Id demands immediate gratification of its desires. The Ego “functions with the rational part of the mind” and “develops out of growing awareness that you can’t always get what you want” (“Structure”). The Ego mediates between the Id and the Superego. The Ego operates according to the reality principle which delays gratification of Id urges until the situation is socially acceptable. The Superego is “an embodiment of parental and societal values” that “strives for perfection” and “stores and enforces rules” (“Structure”). Freud believed that these three personality structures are composed with different levels of awareness.

Freud was a huge advocator of how the unconscious mind shapes behavior. He created three levels of awareness: the conscious, the preconscious, and the subconscious. The conscious “includes only our current thinking processes and objects of attention” (“Freud’s Personality”). The preconscious “includes those things of which we are aware, but where we are not paying attention” (“Freud’s Personality”). Examples include your middle name or who you hung out with yesterday. The subconscious contains thoughts, memories, and desires that “are out of reach of the conscious mind” but still influence behavior (“Freud’s Personality”). Freud believed that “much behavior is driven directly from the subconscious mind” (“Freud’s Personality”). Freud believed the Id is subconscious and that the ego and superego work at all three levels of awareness. Because the Id wants immediate satisfaction, there is often conflict with the ego and superego.

Freud believed behavior is a result of internal conflicts. In addition, he believed that sexual and aggressive impulses have large consequences on behavior. This is because the “social standard” of sex and aggression is not definitive. People are not sure of what is acceptable. Because of the uncertainty, Freud believed that sex and aggression are the source of confusion and conflict. He also believed sex and aggression needs aren’t as easily satisfied as, per say, thirst or hunger. This upsets the Id because desires can’t be granted immediately. This further frustrates the mind. Because of this internal conflict, Freud targets sex and aggression as key components of shaping behavior.

Sources:

“Freud’s Personality Factors.” Web. 12 October 2010. <http://changingminds.org/explanations/personality/freud_personality.htm>

“Structure of Mind: Freud’s Id, Ego, & Superego.” Web. 12 October 2010. <http://wilderdom.com/personality/L8-4StructureMindIdEgoSuperego.html>

Picture Source:

“Sigmund Freud’s Personality Theory.” Web. 12 October 2010. <http://library.thinkquest.org/C004361/theoryfreud.html>

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep...Out of My Unconscious Do I Speak

Freud saw sleep as a “complete withdrawal from the surrounding world and the cessation of all interest in it” (General Psychological 151). During my Psychology class, I learned that Freud believed dreams offer valuable information about the unconscious mind. He was so passionate about the importance of dreams that he wrote a book, The Interpretation of Dreams. In doing so, Freud has added importance to the use of dreams within the study of psychology. He advocated the use of dream analysis as a tool to help better understand the depths of the unconscious mind.

Freud believed that dreams restore “primitive narcissism” and “hallucinatory wish-fulfillment” (General Psychological 152). Is Freud calling people narcissistic? No. He is simply stating that our dreams are always about ourselves. We are always the subjects. He also believed that one of the principle purposes of dreams is wish fulfillment. This is when “the preconscious dream-wish is formed, which expresses the unconscious impulse in the material of the preconscious day-residues" (General Psychological 155). In simple terms, wish fulfillment is the thought that people fulfill ungratified needs from waking hours through wishful thinking during dreams. For example, if one is sexually frustrated, he or she might have erotic dreams. If someone lost his job, it would be reasonable to dream of accomplishing something great.

Freud also suggested “dreams are excited by residues from the previous day” (General Psychological 153). During the day we experience a wide range of emotions and events. Memories that make a mark on our unconscious mind during the day are many times brought back up during dreams because of the connection between the preconscious and unconscious during sleep. Dream analysis, wish fulfillment, and day residue are the widest known concepts of Freud’s dream analysis method. However, the scope of Freud’s research on dreams is much greater and in-depth than this. As for the advancement in the field of psychology, Freud has “[brought] forward proof that there is a psychological technique which makes it possible to interpret dreams, and that, if that procedure is employed, every dream reveals itself as a physical structure which has a meaning and which can be inserted at an assignable point in the mental activities of waking life” (The Interpretation 35). This being said, we can all learn something about our unconscious thoughts and hidden feelings through analyzing our dreams.

Works Cited:

Freud, Sigmund. General Psychological Theory: Papers on Metapsychology. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1965. Print.

Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. New York: Basic Books Incorporated, 1965. Print.

Toddler Sex

During my Psychology class, I learned that many of Freud’s theories incorporate how sexual urges shape identity. According to Graham Hammill, Freud “salvages his central thesis that the reality of the unconscious is sexual” (Hammill 75). In other words, Freud believed that our unconscious is ruled by erotic feelings throughout our whole life. Sigmund Freud developed psychosexual stages to give meaning to the foundation of an individual’s personality. He believed that young children experience sexual pleasures that have a lasting impact on their adult personality. Using distinctive psychosexual stages, Freud categorized where children focus their erotic feeling into five stages. The five psychosexual stages are the oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages. At the most basic level, the oral stage occurs during the first years of life and erotic simulation comes from sucking and biting. During the toddler years is the anal stage. This is when children get erotic pleasure through bowel movement (potty training). Next is the phallic stage; this is when the genitals come into play. This is also the stage of the Oedipal Complex. It is when children develop strong feelings for the opposite sex parent and realize that the other sex has different genitals. The latency stage is when nothing really happens from ages 6-12. Lastly, the genital stage begins at puberty and stretches onward. Freud believed childhood disturbances in these psychosexual stages cause personality disturbances in adulthood. Freud believed that fixation, or having difficulty moving onto the next stage, is caused by either excessive gratification or neglect of a child’s needs. In each new psychosexual stage individuals face new challenges. According to Freud, these challenges are pivotal to the formation of personality.

Many people have come to questions Freud’s development of the psychosexual stages. Are these stages actual results of sexual urges during childhood? One issue is that Freud broadly defines what “sexual” is. Sex is “defined neither by an object of attraction nor by a particular activity” and it becomes “synonymous with excitation” (Hammill 75). To some, this theory might sound “hard to understand, strange, sometime even antiquated or lacking in practical relevance” (Hartmann 2333). Was Freud really trying to justify adult personality problems by blaming it on the neglect of childhood sexual urges? Whether you think so or not, the reality is that “Freud’s groundbreaking work took a profound influence on science and culture” (Hartmann 2332). By developing the psychosexual stages, Freud addressed the belief that adult personality is directly correlated with childhood events.

Sources:

Hammill, Graham. "Psychoanalysis and Sexuality." 73-79. Rosemont Publishing & Printing Corporation, 2005. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. Web. 5 Dec. 2010.

Hartmann, Uwe. "Sigmund Freud and His Impact on Our Understanding of Male Sexual Dysfunction." Journal of Sexual Medicine 6.8 (2009): 2332-2339. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 5 Dec. 2010.

Picture Source:

Hartmann, Uwe. "Sigmund Freud and His Impact on Our Understanding of Male Sexual Dysfunction." Journal of Sexual Medicine 6.8 (2009): 2334. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 5 Dec. 2010.

Father of Psychology

This semester I am enrolled in my first ever Psychology class. I decided to take the class because I needed one more credit to fill on my high school schedule. I entered the class with very low expectations and did not think that I would ever develop an interest for the subject. I started the semester off by learning about experimental statistics, parts of the brain, and functions of the body. Yuck! It was not until we started the chapter on behavior and personality that I found myself enjoying the reading assignments and applying my knowledge to everyday life. It was also during this same time that I was introduced to Sigmund Freud. His name began to pop up in the readings, videos, and discussions. Though his theories about dreams, the mind, and behavior are over one hundred years old, they are the backbone to many psychological findings today. Treating sexual desire as the driving force behind many of his theories, Freud questioned human behavior and the cognitive approach. He is referenced in almost every Psychology book and is the biggest contributor to the academic study of psychology. He has done research on dream analysis, sex drive, psychoanalysis, and the unconscious mind to name a few. By diving into the mind of Sigmund Freud and gaining an understanding of his theories, we can discover things that we did not know about our own behavior and the behavior of those around us.