The document provides an overview of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality. It discusses that Freud proposed the first complete theory of personality, with a focus on unconscious motives and unresolved childhood conflicts shaping thoughts and behaviors. The psychoanalytic approach emphasizes the unconscious mind and defenses against unacceptable urges. Freud described the mind as having conscious, preconscious, and unconscious parts. He also developed concepts of the id, ego, and superego, and psychosexual stages from oral to genital that can result in fixations. Defense mechanisms like repression and rationalization also protect the ego from anxiety.

1. Psychoanalytic Theory
Personality According to
Sigmund Freud

2. Personality
An individual’s unique and relatively
consistent patterns of thinking,
feeling, and behaving

3. Attempt to describe and explain
how people are similar, how
they are different, and why
every individual is unique
Personality Theory

4. Personality Perspectives
• Psychoanalytic—importance of
unconscious processes and childhood
experiences
• Humanistic—importance of self and
fulfillment of potential
• Social cognitive—importance of beliefs
about self
• Trait—description and measurement of
personality differences

5. Sigmund Freud
(1856-1939)
• Founder of psychoanalysis
• Proposed the first complete theory
of personality
• A person’s thoughts and behaviors
emerge from tension generated by
unconscious motives and
unresolved childhood conflicts.
Learn more about Freud at:
www.freud.org.uk
www.lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/freud

6. Psychoanalytic Approach
• Developed by Sigmund Freud
• Psychoanalysis is both an approach
to therapy and a theory of personality
• Emphasizes unconscious motivation
– the main causes of behavior lie
buried in the unconscious mind

7. Psychoanalysis as a Therapy
• A therapeutic technique that attempts
to provide insight into one’s thoughts
and actions
• Does so by exposing and interpreting
the underlying unconscious motives
and conflicts

8. Psychodynamic Perspective
• A more modern view of personality
that retains some aspects of Freudian
theory but rejects other aspects
• Retains the importance of the
unconscious mind
• Less emphasis on unresolved
childhood conflicts

9. The Psychodynamic
Perspective:
Freud’s View of the
Mind

10. Free Association
• Freudian technique of
exploring the unconscious
mind by having the person
relax and say whatever
comes to mind no matter
how trivial or embarrassing
• Hypnosis – Relaxing a
person into a highly
suggestive state to uncover
unconscious memories or
conflicts
The Couch

11. Personality Assessment
Projective Techniques
• Interpretation of an ambiguous to trigger
projection of one’s inner thoughts and feelings
• Used to determine unconscious motives, conflicts,
and psychological defenses & traits

12. Rorschach Inkblot Test
• Presentation and interpretation of a series
of black and white and colored inkblots
• Developed in 1921.
• Personality test that seeks to identify
people’s inner feelings by analyzing their
interpretations of 10 inkblots
• Numerous scoring systems exist

13. Conscious Mind
• All the thoughts, feelings, and
sensations that you are aware of
at this particular moment
represent the conscious level

14. Preconscious Mind
• A region of the mind holding information
that is not conscious but is easily
retrievable into conscious awareness
• Holds thoughts and memories not in one’s
current awareness but can easily be
retrieved (childhood memories, phone
number)

15. Unconscious Mind
• A region of the mind that includes
unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings,
and memories
• Not aware of these thoughts, wishes, etc…
but they exert great influence over our
conscious thoughts & behavior.
• Freud felt that dreams were “The royal
road to the unconsciousness” – behind the
surface image (manifest content) lied the
true hidden meaning (latent content).
• Can also surface as “slips of the tongue” or
Freudian Slips.

17. Psychoanalytic Approach
• Conscious –
all things we
are aware of
at any given
moment

18. Psychoanalytic Approach
• Preconscious –
everything that
can, with a
little effort, be
brought into
consciousness

19. Psychoanalytic Approach
• Unconscious –
inaccessible
warehouse of
anxiety-
producing
thoughts and
drives

20. The Psychodynamic
Perspective:
The Id, Ego, and
Superego

21. Psychoanalytic
Divisions of the Mind
• Id—instinctual drives present at birth
– does not distinguish between reality and fantasy
– operates according to the pleasure principle
• Ego—develops out of the id in infancy
– understands reality and logic
– mediator between id and superego
• Superego
– internalization of society’s & parental moral standards
– One’s conscience; focuses on what the person “should” do
– Develops around ages 5-6.
– Partially unconscious
– Can be harshly punitive using feelings of guilt

22. Freud’s Concept of the “Id”
• The part of personality that consists
of unconscious energy from basic
aggressive and sexual drives
• Operates on the “pleasure principle” -
the id demands immediate
gratification
• Is present from birth

23. Id: The Pleasure Principle
• Pleasure principle—drive toward immediate
gratification, most fundamental human
motive
• Sources of energy
– Eros—life instinct, perpetuates life
• Libido—sexual energy or motivation
– Thanatos—death instinct, aggression, self-
destructive actions

24. Freud’s Concept of the “Ego”
• The part of personality that mediates
the demands of the id without going
against the restraints of the superego
• Follows the reality principle

25. Ego: The Reality Principle
• Reality principle—ability to postpone
gratification in accordance with demands of
reality
• Ego—rational, organized, logical, mediator
to demands of reality
• Can repress desires that cannot be met in an
acceptable manner

26. The Personality
Id: “I want”
Superego: “I should”
Ego: “I will”

27. Psychoanalytic Approach
Conscious
Unconscious
Superego Preconscious
Id
Ego
Information
which can
easily be
made
conscious
Thoughts,
feelings,
urges, and other
information
that is difficult
to bring to
conscious
awareness
Information
in your
immediate
awareness
Rational,
planful,
mediating
dimension
of personality
Moralistic,
judgmental,
perfectionist
dimension of
personality
Irrational,
illogical,
impulsive
dimension of
personality

28. The Psychodynamic
Perspective:
Freud’s Psychosexual
Stages

29. Psychosexual Stages
• In Freudian theory, the childhood stages of
development during which the id’s pleasure
seeking energies are focused on different parts of
the body
• The stages include: oral, anal, phallic, latency,
and genital
• A person can become “fixated” or stuck at a
stage and as an adult attempt to achieve pleasure
as in ways that are equivalent to how it was
achieved in these stages

30. Oral Stage (birth – 18 mo.)
• Mouth is associated with sexual pleasure
• Pleasure comes from chewing, biting,
and sucking.
• Weaning a child can lead to fixation if
not handled correctly
• Fixation can lead to oral activities
in adulthood

31. Freud’s Stages of Development

32. Anal Stage (1 – 3 years)
• Gratification comes from bowel and
bladders functions.
• Toilet training can lead to fixation if
not handled correctly
• Fixation can lead to anal retentive or
expulsive behaviors in adulthood

33. Freud’s Stages of Development

34. Phallic Stage (3 – 6 years)
• Focus of pleasure shifts to the genitals
• Sexual attraction for opposite sex parent
• Boys cope with incestuous feelings toward
their mother and rival feelings toward their
dad (Oedipus Complex). For girls it is
called the Electra Complex.
•Child identifies with and
tries to mimic the same sex
parent to learn gender
identity.

35. Oedipus Complex
• Boys feel hostility and jealousy towards their fathers
but knows their father is more powerful. This leads
to…
• Castration Anxiety results in boys who feel their
father will punish them by castrating them.
• Resolve this through Identification – imitating and
internalizing one’s father’s values, attitudes and
mannerisms. (Formation of gender identity &
superego)
• The fact that only the father can have sexual
relations with the mother becomes internalized in the
boy as taboo against incest in the boy’s superego.

36. Electra Complex
• Girls also have incestuous feelings for their
dad and compete with their mother.
• Penis Envy – Little girl suffer from deprivation
and loss and blames her mother for “sending
her into the world insufficiently equipped”
causing her to resent her mother
• In an attempt to take her mother’s place she
eventually indentifies with her mother
• Fixation can lead to excessive masculinity in
males and the need for attention or domination
in females

37. Freud’s Stages of Development

38. Latency Stage (5 – puberty)
• Sexuality is repressed (Latent means
“hidden”) due to intense anxiety caused by
Oedipus complex
• Children participate in hobbies, school, and
same-sex friendships that strengthen their
sexual identity

39. Freud’s Stages of Development

40. Genital Stage (puberty on)
• Incestuous sexual feelings re-emerge but
being prohibited by the superego are
redirected toward others who resemble
the person’s opposite sex parent.
• Healthy adults find pleasure in love and
work, fixated adults have their energy
tied up in earlier stages

41. Freud’s Stages of Development

42. Defense Mechanisms
Unconscious Self-Deceptions

43. Defense Mechanisms
• Unconscious mental processes
employed by the ego to reduce
anxiety by unconsciously distorting
reality.

44. Repression
• Puts anxiety-producing thoughts,
feelings, and memories into the
unconscious mind
• Unconscious forgetting
• The basis for all other defense
mechanisms

46. Denial
• Rejecting the truth of a painful reality.

48. Regression
• Going back to a safer, simpler way of
being.
• Assuming childlike behaviors when
facing stress or trauma

50. Reaction Formation
• Replacing an unacceptable wish
with its opposite
• Behaving in ways that are exactly
opposite of how we truly feel.

52. Projection
• Attributing something that we don’t
like about ourselves to someone else.

54. Rationalization
• Displaces real, anxiety-provoking
explanations with more comforting
justifications for one’s actions
• Reasoning away or making excuses to
reduce anxiety-producing thoughts

56. Displacement
• Shifts an unacceptable impulse
toward a more acceptable or less
threatening object or person
• “Taking out” an emotion on a safe or
more accessible target than the actual
source of the emotion.

58. Sublimation
• Substitute an undesirable emotion or
drive with a socially acceptable one.

60. Undoing
• Unconsciously neutralizing an anxiety
causing action by doing a second action that
undoes the first.