Freud theory

Presented By-
Jasleen Kaur Brar

Introduction
 Sigmund Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) born in
Vienna was an Austrian neurologist who became known as the
founding father of psychoanalysis.

 Sigmund Freud developed the best-known theory of
personality focused upon internal growth or psychodynamics’.
The theory stresses the influence of unconscious fears,
desires and motivation on thoughts and behavior. Freud
psychoanalysis became both a theory of personality and a
method of psychotherapy. Psychoanalytic theory has three
major parts:
 A theory of the structure of personality, in which the id, ego
and superego are the principal parts.
 A theory of personality dynamics, in which conscious and
unconscious motivation and ego- defense mechanisms play a
major role.
 A theory of psychosexual development, in which different
motives and body regions influence the child at different
stages of growth, with effects persisting in the form of adult
personality traits.

Structure of personality:
Freud thought of personality as being based upon a
structure of three parts: the id, the ego and the
superego.
ID – Pleasure
EGO – Reality
SUPEREGO – For perfection/ideal

ID (primitive, instinctive component of personality) –
 Latin word of Id is ‘It’ Id is the original source of personality,
which is present in a newborn.
 The Id, the most primitive part, can be thought of as a sort
of storehouse of biologically based urges: to eat, drink,
eliminate, and especially, to be sexually stimulated.
 The sexual energy that underlies these urges is called the
libido.
 Id is present in the deepest level of the unconscious and
represents the inner world of subjective experience.
 It is unconcerned with objective reality and is unaffected
by the environment Id is completely selfish; concerned with
immediate gratification of instinctual needs, and the
biological drives, like hunger, sex.

 The id operates according to the pleasure principle,
seeking to reduce tension, avoid pain, and obtain
pleasure. In a formal gathering if a person is feeling
very hungry and may start eating without the formal
invitation for starting the meal or a student may start
eating his lunch in the class when the teacher is
teaching disregarding his classroom act as Id.
 The pleasure principle attempts to reduce tension by
wish fulfillment. In other words, it is referred to as
primary process thinking. Whatever comes first in
the person’s mind, he or she wants to satisfy that
desire immediately.
 If the demands of Id are blocked for a longer time,
frustrations occur.

Ego (the decision-making component) –
 The Latin word of ego is ‘I’ which means ‘self’.
 The ego acts as a mediator or balancer between the
demands of Id and superego.
 Ego is based on the Reality Principle.
 Ego delays the discharge of tension. It postponed the
desires. This adaptive measure of Ego is refereed as
secondary process thinking.
 Process Thinking – Ego waits for the right moment for the
satisfaction of desire, whereas id satisfies desires
immediately.
 Ego develops from Id and works for Id. Ego is an
executive, which mediate between the demands of id and
realities of world and demands of super ego

Functions of Ego –
 Control and regulation of instinctual derives.
 Relation to reality
o Sense of reality
o Reality testing
o Adaptation to reality
 Primary autonomous function
o Perception
o Thinking
o Speaking
o IQ
o Memory
 Intuition

Superego (the moral component ) –
 It is ideal rather than real.
 The superego is that part of personality that
represents internalized value, ideals and moral
attitude of society.
 It is outgrowth of learning the taboos and moral
values of society. It is refer to conscience and is
concerned with right and wrong.
 It inhabits the ID desires. Sex and aggressive
superego operates through the ego system and
compel the ego to inhibit desires that are considering
wrong or immoral.
 Its psychiatric function is expresses as guilt, self-
criticism and consciences.

 Rewarding functions – ego ideal- superego
develops with Oedipus complex. It strives for
perfection. It is society himself. It is extreme of Id and
it is for self-preservation by society norms.
 Consciences: negative part of superego. It is
developed by punishment, lack of reward,
conditioning of childhood brings conscience. It gives
guilt and self-criticism. Child takes or interjects the
moral standards of parents.
 Ego Ideal: It is rewarding function of superego. It is
by positive reinforcement for i.e. copy, menu rimes of
father or any beloved person.

LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Conscious level
Preconscious level
Unconscious part

 Conscious level, which relates to the awareness of
an individual to his environment.
 It function when the individual is awake.
 It is concerned with thought, feelings and sensations,
memory, IQ. Conscious as sense organ of attention. It
is only 1/9 of total mind.
 Through attention, person becomes conscious of
perceptual stimuli from the outside world within the
organism.
 Only elements in pre conscious enter consciousness.
It is one-way traffic to unconscious mind.
 Conscious part of mind is aware of here and now as it
relates individual and his environment.

 Preconscious level is described as that part of
mind in which ideas and reactions are stored and
partially forgotten.
 It also acts as a watchman because it prevents
certain painful, unpleasant, unacceptable, distributing
unconscious memories from reaching the conscious
mind.
 Slip of tongue, slip of pen. Preconscious region of
mind is not present at birth but develops in childhood.
It is accessible to both unconscious and conscious
mind.
 Elements of unconscious mind are accessible to
conscious through preconscious. So, it works as
censor for a person’s wishes and desires.

 It is associated with mental activity i.e. secondary
process of thinking. Aims of secondary thinking are to
avoid unpleasantness and delaying instinctual
discharge.
 It respects logical connection. It is associated with
reality principle. It works accordingly demands of
external reality and person’s moral values etc.

 Unconscious part is the largest part of mind (9/10).
 It is hidden part of iceberg that floats under water. It
contains repressed ideas and affects.
 Elements of unconscious mind are in accessible to
consciousness.
 They become conscious only through preconscious mind.
Repressed ideas may reach to consciousness when
censor is over powered or relaxed (dream state).
 It is storehouse for all the memories, feelings and
responses experienced by the individual during his entire
life.

 Unconscious is associated with particular form of
mental activities that is primary process – with
fulfillment and instinctual discharge.
 It is associated with pleasure principle. Primary
process thinking has no conception of time, logic,
circumstances and needs immediate gratification of
their desires, which is very common in infancy.
 Memories in unconscious mind lose their connection
with verbal expressions.
 They can reach consciousness once words are
reapplied to forgotten memory.

Psychosexual Development
 Freud believed that personality develops through
a series of childhood stages in which the
pleasure-seeking energies of the id become
focused on certain erogenous areas. This
psychosexual energy, or libido, was described as
the driving force behind behavior.
 If these psychosexual stages are completed
successfully, the result is a healthy personality. If
certain issues are not resolved at the appropriate
stage, fixation can occur.

 According to Freud, all human being pass through a series of
five psychosexual stages:
 Oral stage 0 to 2 years – During the first year of life the mouth
is the principal organ. Gratification is by sucking the breast of
mother and bottle.
 Anal stage 2 to 3 years – Membranes of the anal region provide
pleasure. Not passing fecal matter also gives pleasure to the
child.
 Phallic stage 3 to 6 years – self-manipulation of the genital
organs; the child also identifies group to which he belongs’; what
is the difference between him and his younger sister.
 Latency stage of 6 to 12 years – this is a stage of
psychosexual development when overt sexual interest is
repressed and sublimated. The child’s attention is focused on
learning skills and other peer activities.
 Genital stage – This is the final stage of psychosexual
development reached in puberty when the deepest feelings of
pleasure are said to come from heterosexual relations.

 Freud believed that gratification during each stage in
important if the individual is not to be fixated at that
level.
 A fixation is a persistent focus on an earlier
psychosexual stage. Until this conflict is resolved, the
individual will remain "stuck" in this stage.
 For example, a person who is fixated at the oral
stage may be over-dependent on others and may
seek oral stimulation through smoking, drinking, or
eating.
 A person fixated at the anal stage may be abnormally
concerned with cleanliness and orderliness.

Development of Personality:
 First 6 years in a child’s life contribute the most to
personality development. These years provide the
foundation for future patterns of behavior.

1-Infancy -0 year to 18 months
 Freud called it as oral stage because child’s libidinal
energy is focused on his oral cavity.
 Infant's primary source of interaction occurs through the
mouth, so the rooting and sucking reflex is especially
important.
 Singular focus on self is referred as primary narcissism
means self-love. 1st few months infant is not able to
differentiate between him and environment.
 He feels that he causes all that happens to him. This
feeling of being all-powerful is called Omnipotence.
 He is bundle of Id impulses. When need arises, tension
is raised and he gets relief from this tension by using his
mouth, lips and tongue to cry, suck and swallow. These
activities give him pleasures.

 Infant is depended on mother that meets his need for
sucking and gets milk to swallow so his raised
tension, which was caused by hunger, is over.
Accidentally he finds his thumb and discovers that he
can meet his need of sucking himself. Sucking his
own thumb gives him pleasure but it also gives
experience that it is different from mother. Through
this simple realization infant differentiate himself from
environment. So ego develops.
 With weaning child is forced to recognize reality and
its demands. When weaning start, infant receives less
oral satisfaction. When cup or solid food is substituted
for the breast or bottle, infant feels frustration. He
reacts to it in an aggressive, destructive way and
begins to bite.

 He may seek symbolic oral gratification by sucking
and biting others, teeth provides tool for oral
aggression because love and food are given
simultaneously during oral period.
 Oral needs become synonyms with protective love
and security by closed mother child relationship.
When child gets love and food by loving mother
unconditionally, he learns to trust her.
 Basic sense of trust in mother starts which is a basis
for future trusting relationship.

 If child’s experience with mother is anxious and
conditional he learns to mistrust her. So this basic
mistrust gives paranoid idea in adult hood.
 Maternal Depression cause personality disorder
 Mask mothering or rejection cause
schizophrenia in later life.
 Oral fixation personality relieves their tension
by excessive eating or drinking alcohol so they
become drunkard.
 Mistrust cause suspicious nature and paranoid
personality disorder.

2-Early Childhood:
 Anal phase/(1 year to 3 year). Freud called it as anal
phase because libidinal energy shifts from oral cavity to
anus and urethra. Child gratifies his love of self with the
pleasurable sensation involved in evacuation of bladder
and bowel without restriction. He drives his greatest
pleasure from anus and urethra.
 Superego develops when mother begins to insist that child
should have certain control regarding toileting. He faces
his 1st major frustration of his Id drives. To retain the love
of his mother the child must learn to post-pone the
immediate pleasure of urinating or evacuation until
appropriate time and place are available. Child starts
having ambivalent feelings towards her. If his toilet
training is very strict and mother insists him to be clean he
may grow up to be compulsive or dissolve his anxiety by
reaction formation and become very untidy and
unconcerned about cleanliness in his adult life.

 According to Freud, inappropriate parental responses
can result in negative outcomes. Rigid toilet training
include stubbornness, excessive concern with bowel
function and sadistic.
 Strict toilet training gives rise to O.C.N. personality,
perfectionist, stubborn, sadistic etc. If parents take an
approach that is too lenient, Freud suggested that
an anal-expulsive personality could develop in which
the individual has a messy, wasteful or destructive
personality.
 If parents are too strict or begin toilet training too
early, Freud believed that an anal-retentive
personality develops in which the individual is
stringent, orderly, rigid and obsessive.

3-Later childhood –Phallic stage
(3-6year)
 Freud called this period the phallic stage.
 Pleasurable sensations shifted from mouth and excretory
organs to the genitalia and child begins to identify with
parents of same sex and wishes to replace that parent in
family situation.
 They begin to examine their own bodies and others. They
get pleasure sensation from manipulation of penis or
clitoris.
 Difference between sexual structure of men and woman is
of great interest to them. They feel that girl has lost that
organ. Anxiety about loss of sex organs developed. It is
called Castration anxiety.

 A little girl notice that she has no penis and concludes that
she has lost it or it has been taken away. This attitude is
called penis envy. It is sometime basic to the problems of
sibling rivalry.
 Little boy begins to feel very possessive towards mother.
He wants her for himself and resents the close tie that he
feels exists between his mother and father. He develops
competitive feeling towards his father and tries to become
a rival with him for his mother’s love. But father figure is
great opponent and child has fear of him. This situation is
called Oedipus complex. He fears that father may punish
him.

 So he resolves this anxiety by becoming like his
father, he can get mother’s love and attention. He
begins to take on masculine behaviour of his father.
This is called identification.
 Similarly little girl begins to identify with feminine
role. If there is arrival of another child if increase their
problems. Sibling rivalry usually develops. Super ego
development also develops at its height.

4- Latency- 6-12 yrs
 Freud refers it as latency stage.
 During the latent period, the libido interests are
suppressed.
 The development of the ego and superego contribute to
this period of calm.
 The stage begins around the time that children enter into
school and become more concerned with peer
relationships, hobbies and other interests.
 The latent period is a time of exploration in which the
sexual energy is still present, but it is directed into other
areas such as intellectual pursuits and social interactions.
 This stage is important in the development of social and
communication skills and self-confidence. Temporary intra-
psychic equilibrium established by id, ego and super ego.

5-Puberty/ adolescence/ genital
stage 12-18
 Sexual glands are developing in this stage.
 Libidinal energy is focused on genital organs.
 Satisfactory hetrosexual relationship with a mate
should develop.
 It is a problematic stage of personality. He is drawn
towards parents and driven away from parent, which
cause ambivalence, which comes in the form of
conflict.

Defense Mechanisms/ Ego
Mechanisms
 Defenses are unconscious mental process that ego uses to
resolve conflicts among instincts (wish or need}. When
defense is most effective they abolish anxiety and
depression. Defenses are dynamic and reversible.
 Ego defense mechanisms are mental mechanism, used
when individual unconsciously experiences a basic conflict
between id-impulses and demands of superego.
 The ego unconsciously uses some of its energy to initiate a
defense mechanism that effect a compromise between id and
super ego, thereby relieving anxiety. Sullivan, those called
into play when anxiety is a response to a threat to the self-
concept, calls another form of mental mechanism security
operation.
 They act without awareness of the individual employing them.
Use of mental mechanism is healthy and lowers/reduce the
anxiety and It is a normal process of adjustment. Method of
self-protection is by Ego Mechanisms.

 COMPENSATION:
Compensation a pattern of adaptive behaviors by
which anxiety from feeling of inadequacy or
weakness is relieved as individual emphasizes of
intensive training of some personal or social
attribute that over shadows his inadequacy and
gain social approval .It can be seen in infant who
substitute his thumb for nipple to relieve tension
and compensate for some pleasurable sensation
of sucking.
 A Polio child can be an artist and painter or
develop his muscles of upper limbs and becomes
archery expert.

 DISPLACEMENT:
When an individual unconsciously believes he would be in
great danger of that person knew his feelings about same
person. He discharge of feelings on to a person or object
entirely different from the one to which they actually
belong. He displaces his emotion to other person or object
which is less anxiety producing. Example {1}; -Teacher,
who is angry with supervisor, cannot show his feelings but
reacts with unreasonable anger when a student breaks a
windowpane. Actually teacher has unconsciously
substituted the student for supervisor and displaced his
feelings. Example {2}; -Husband got annoyed with boss
came home, scolds the wife unnecessarily and wife beats
the child when he ask for a sweet. In this emotional feeling
is transferred to person or object that is less dangerous
than who initially aroused the emotion.

 SUBLIMATION:
In mechanism of sublimation the energy involved in anxiety
produced primitive impulses is unconsciously redirected
into constructive and socially acceptable channels. It is
one of positive adaptation to anxiety and responsible for
much of artistic and cultural achievements of civilized
people. It is when woman redirects her sexual desires into
successful career of poetess. Example {1}; - Maha Devi
Verma and Tulsi dass are example of this sublimation.
Tulsidass after scolded by his wife, turned his psychic
energy / libido energy into poetry. Sublimation is a positive
mechanism in which the primitive impulses are transferred
or directed to a socially useful goal. Unacceptable desires
find an acceptable out let. Example {2}; - Man with strong
sex desire utilize in painting a nude woman.

 SUBSTITUTION:
Mechanism used to reduce tension resulting from
frustration. Substituting action must have certain
similarities to the frustrated one. Example {1}; a
student who has not been able to get admission
in M.B.B.S. may try to substitute it with other
course of physiotherapy or Nursing.

 FIXATIONS:
It is arrest of emotional development at a stage.
Fixation refers to the point in the individual’s
development at certain aspects of emotional
development cease to advance. Further development
is blocked. They cannot bypass that phase, he is
always handicapped in proceeding to the stages that
follow. Example {1}; Child who is not breast-fed and
did not get love and security, he will achieve
gratification through oral cavity. He may overeat, or
take huge quantity of alcohol and becomes drunkard.
They are called as oral personality individual. Thumb
sucking in adult life is an example of it.

 DENIAL:.
It is a process where the individual truly does not
recognize the existence of an event or feeling.
Denial is used in Schizophrenia. It is often seen
as a reaction of the healthy person when he is
confronted by a disastrous situation. Example
{1}-Sudden death of husband in road accident
but wife refused to accept it. She says that he
had breakfast with me, you are mistaken. Please
excuse me. In cardiac case or cancer, it is a
response to sudden passive amount of anxiety.
Denial is not lying; individual does not accept
existence of something that’s disturbing.

 IDENTIFICATION:
It useful mechanism because it plays a large part in
development of a child personality. Through this
process individual defends against anxiety resulting
from feeling of inadequacy by unconsciously taking on
desirable attributes found in people for whom he has
admiration and affection. He integrates these
attributes into his own personality. Example {1}- A
child takes on masculine attributes that he admires in
his father. Another form of identification is observed
when an individual develops unreasonable sympathy
for a criminal because of an unconscious sense of
guilt.

 INTROJECTIONS:
Mechanism of introjections is closely related to
identification. Introjection tends to replace all or part of
personality. Introjection is that entire personality of a
second person has been incorporated and has
replaced the original personality. Introjections may
operate in a less constructive way than identification.
Example {1}- Psychotic patient acts as Moses, his
own personality had given up. A depressed person
may have unconsciously incorporated another person
and attempt to commit suicide to kill the interjected
person whom he unconsciously hates. Example {2}-
After marriage lady takes all values of husband and
thinks its own. she incorporate the personality of her
husband.

 ISOLATION:
Where feelings are detached from the event in
the individual’s memory, enabling the person to
recall the event without anxiety. It is found in
(OCN) compulsive personality. They value
efficiency, cleanliness and punctuality Example
{1}- giving death pack to a patient without any
emotions by nursing staff.

 RATIONALIZATION:
Rationalization is a mental mechanism that is almost
universally employed. It is an attempt to make his behavior
as result of logical thinking rather than result of
unconscious desires that are anxiety producing. It is a face
saving device that may or may not deal with the actual
truth. Rationalization is almost unconscious avoidance. It
relieves anxiety temporarily but not an effective
mechanism of adjustment because it helps the person to
avoid facing the reality. Person gives logical excuse.
Student says that due to sickness she could not pass. It is”
grapes are sour mechanism.”
 Example {1}-Alcoholic will say that due to lack of sleep, he
take drinks.
 Example {2}-Paranoid patient will say that people are after
me because I have lot of money.

 REGRESSION:
{Hebephrenic , depression} Regression occurs when
an individual is faced with anxiety from a conflict, that
cannot to solved by using the adaptive mechanism
with which he used to solve problems. In such a
situation, he may unconsciously return to the patterns
of behavior appropriate to an earlier developmental
stage. Any retreat into a state of dependency on
others to avoid facing acute problems “Crying on
someone shoulder” is symbolic of infants seeking
comfort on maternal bosom.
 Example {1}- When a grown up girl failed and cries,
lies on floor and have tamper tantrum. It is found in
Hebephrenic Schizophrenia when patient regress
backs into infant stage. He smears his hands with
own stool.

 REPRESSION:
Painful experiences unacceptable thoughts and
impulses are dismissed from conscious mind to
unconscious mind. During child hood they are
repressed and becomes unconscious source of
emotional conflict in later life. Selfish, hostile,
sexual feeding are repressed. Such repression
cause internal conflict.
 Example {1}-Mother’s death and trauma was
repressed in unconscious mind. These
Repressed conflicts may come out through
conversion into physical symptoms. This is
common in Hysteria and Hypochondrias

 PROJECTION :
Projection is transferring the responsibility for
unacceptable ideas, wishes or thoughts to another
person when individual’s own aggressive thoughts are
unacceptable to him and cause anxiety, he blames
some one else for it. It is used in paranoid, he is
suspicious about infidelity of his wife when actually he
lack of fidelity in his mind. Example {1}- Student
blame the teacher that he has failed me. I have done
well but he has some thing against me, so he has
failed me. Example {2}- Paranoid person may project
his own inner hate of others by saying that group of
people is plotting to kill him or intending to exploit him.

 CONVERSION:
Conversion refers to the expression of emotional conflict through
physical symptoms for which there is no organic basis. It is
preceded after repression. All painful experience repressed into
unconscious mind when the conflict reappears as physical
symptoms, pt. is not aware of connection between two
pheromones. Although physical symptoms is symbolically related
to the nature of conflict. This symptom always serves to distract
attention from his real problem. He gains two ways.
 His anxiety is relieved (primary gain).
 He gains attention and sympathy of others (secondary gain).
 Example {1}- A child who sees the conflicts between parents,
both of them loves him. He became blind. Example {2}- A soldier
who loves his country but don’t like killings, get paralysis of right
hand. So he is not able to pull the trigger. Example {2}- A child
who has to go to boarding next day. He got paralysis of legs. So
she is saved from going away from parents and get attention
also. It is used in hysteria.

 SYMBOLIZATION AND CONDENSATION.
Symbol is an idea or object used by conscious mind in lieu
of actual idea or object. Instinctual desires may appear
through symbols, the meanings of which are not clear to
conscious mind. Example {1}- “Phallic symbolism of large
automobiles serves to reassure this individual about his
adequacy as a male. Symbols are the language of
unconscious mind, such symbols appear in dreams or
fantasy. Condensations represent a wide range of anxiety
producing ideas that become lumped together. When they
rise to conscious level they take the form of an apparently
incoherent jumble of words, real meaning of which is
hidden in the unconscious mind. Example {1}-In
schizophrenic patient has irrational language. This
condensation has meaning for themselves only (word
salad).

 REACTION FORMATION:
When individual experiences anxieties resulting from
unconscious feeling that are unacceptable to him and
relieve the anxiety by doing in a may that is directly
opposite to which he really feels. Example {1}- People
who behave extremely friendly and polite have
unconscious feelings of anger and hatred. These true
feelings may be evident in slips of tongue. Example {2}-
Reaction formation develops out of rigid toilet training
experience. He wants love of his mother but don’t want to
expel the stool and enjoy anal retention. If he does not
expel mother is angry with him so he does against his wish
and expel it to gain love of mother. Example {3}- OCN
person may be very untidy unorganized in adult life
because his mother was very strict to cleanliness. He will
do opposite what he wants to do really.

Summarization
 Introduction
 Structure of personality
 Level of consciousness
 Psychosexual development
 Defense mechanisms

Bibliography
 Michael W. Eyesenck & cara
Flanagan.Psychology for A2 Level;[1];306-24
 Fernald/Fernald. Munn’s Introduction to
Psychology. [5];241-65
 Carole Wade, Carol Tavris. Psychology.[8];407-15
 Clifford T. Morgan, Richard A. King, John R.
Weisz, John Schopler. Introduction to
Psychology;[8]64-87

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