It is helpful for Psychology students and for those who are interested in Psychology.

1. Freud’s
Psychoanalytic
Theory© Vedangi P. Kulkarni

2. Sigmund Freud
 Austrian Neurologist
 Founder of Psychoanalysis
Develops Therapeutic Techniques
 Analysis of Dreams
 Theory of Unconscious

3. Psychoanalytic Theory
 Focused on Development and Dynamics of the personality
 Proposed that people are driven by motives and emotional
conflicts
 Humans have Basic Biological urges or drives that must be
satisfied
 The power of instincts and other inner forces to influence
our behavior without our awareness
 Theory emphasizes the Nature side of the Nature vs
Nurture issue

4. Stage 1 - Oral
 Birth to eighteen months
 In this stage, the focus of Libido is in:
 Oral gratification
 Sucking on breast or bottle
 Placing things in the mouth
 Develops sense of trust and comfort
 A conflict at this stage occurs with a child being weaned
off the mother’s breast (be less dependent on others)
 Signs of Fixation or affects on adult personality in this
stage are:
 Overeating/ Smoking/ Drinking
 Envy
 Gullibility

5. Stage 2 - Anal
 Eighteen months to three years
 In this stage, the focus of Libido is in:
 Bowel pleasure
 Pleasure via expulsion or retention of faces
 Success in this stage depends on how parents
approach child toilet training
 Positive experiences = competent, creative adult
 Negative experiences = negative outcomes
 Anal expulsive personality: messy, destructive personality
 Anal-retentive personality: orderly, rigid, obsessive

6. Stage 3 - Phallic
 Three to six years
 In this stage, the focus of Libido is in:
 Awareness of sexual organs
 Love-hate relationship with the same-sex parent
 This is the most important stage in Freud’s model
 A conflict at this stage occurs with the Oedipus and
Electra complexes
 Signs of Fixation or affects on adult personality in this
stage are:
 Reckless or afraid of love
 Narcissistic
 Self-Assured or Selfish
 Poor Opposite-sex relationships

7. Stage 4 – Latent
 Age six to puberty
 At this stage, sexual drive dormant
 Libido is suppressed, development of ego and superego
 Libidal energy is poured into asexual pursuits like
school, hobbies and same-sex friendships
 Important for development of social and
communication skills, and self-confidence
 A sign of fixation in this stage is a lack of close
friends

8. Stage 5 – Genital
 Puberty to death
 A person becomes interested in dating and marriage
(opposite sex)
 In earlier stages – focus was solely on individual needs,
 In this stage, interest in the welfare of others.
 If the other stages have been completed successfully,
the individual should now be well-balanced, warm
and caring.
 The goal of this stage is to establish a balance
between the various life areas.

9. Stages of Psychoanalytic Theory

12. Criticism of Freud’s Theory
1. It is a developmental theory but it never included
studies on children.
2. First Five years of development are not as
important as Freud believed.
3. Social and Traumatic experiences ignored.
4. Sexual desires are not as prominent in the
development of personality as Freud argued.
5. Good history but bad science.

13. Structure of Personality
Id
 Irrational, Impulsive and Selfish part of Personality
 Present from birth
 Instinctive and primitive behaviour
 Completely Unconscious
 Supplies energy to ego and superego
 Driven by pleasure principle – immediate gratification
of wants, needs, desires
 But not realistic or possible to let ourselves be ruled by
pleasure principle

14. Structure of Personality
Ego
 Rational side of individual that trying to find realistic ways
 Functions in both the conscious and unconscious mind.
 Develops from Id and ensures thet impulses of Id can be
expressed in acceptable manner
 Based on Reality Principle, Which strives to satisfy the id’s
desires in relaistic and socially appropriate ways.

15. Structure of Personality
Superego
 Individuals internalized moral standards
 Present in the conscious and unconscious
 The aspect of personality that holds all of our internalized
moral standards
 Provided guidelines for making judgements

19. Defense Mechanisms
 While dealing with reality, the ego also has to cope with the
conflicting demands of the id and the superego.
 The Id seeks to fulfill all wants, needs and desires
 The superego tries to get the ego to act in an idealistic and
moral manner
 To defend itself from the conflicts, ego has developed
certain strategies called defense mechanisms
Two main characteristics
 Deny, falsify or distort reality
 Operate unconsciously

20. Defense Mechanisms
 Denial – Rejection (नाकारणे)
 Rejection of what is happening.. And selection of
“what we want”

21. Defense Mechanisms

22. Defense Mechanisms
 Displacement – The unconscious transfer of an
intense emotion from its original object to another
one.

23. Defense Mechanisms
 Fantasy - Activity of imagining things, especially
things that are impossible or improbable.
 Day-Dreaming

24. Defense Mechanisms
 Identification – We want our own Identification. We
want to be famous. Regardless of not doing any
thing, we want some sort of fame in our life.

25. Defense Mechanisms
 Isolation – separation, setting apart
 Setting us apart from Notoriety

26. Defense Mechanisms
 Projection – Blame others
 Attributes one’s own unacceptable feelings and
thoughts to others and not yourself

27. Defense Mechanisms
 Rationalization – Making Excuses
 Offering rational explanations for irrational
behaviour motivated by unacceptable wishes
 Only few choose the path with no excuses

28. Defense Mechanisms
 Reaction Formation – Reduces anxiety of taking up
the opposite feeling, impulse or behaviour
 Converting unwanted feelings in opposite

29. Defense Mechanisms
 Repression – Forgetting
 the action of subduing something by force
 Pushing threatening or conflicting events or
situations out of conscious memory

30. Defense Mechanisms
 Sublimation – Satisfying an impulse with a
substitute object in a socially acceptable way
 Divert negative into acceptable

31. Relevance of Freud Today
 Psychoanalysis is still taught and practiced
 Use of psychoanalytic techniques in other therapies
– such as free association, dream analysis
 Can be applied to understand the criminal acts/
behavior
 Projective techniques depend wholly on Freud
 Attachment theory has its origin in ‘oral stage’
 Latest brain mapping techniques show the presence
of ‘unconscious’
 Functional MRI has shown that different regions of brain
activity for passion, reason and conscience. The amygdala is
centre of ‘instinct’, while prefrontal cortex regulates the
amygdala

32. © V E D A N G I P . K U L K A R N I