Personality.doc

Micas Antonio Zandamela Personality: Theories and Dynamics APH 212 Bro. Bzvaiwa Monday December 16, 20242016-09-27T10:25:00Z Evaluate the Freudian concept of the structure of personality and the driving forces in personality dynamics. In the present paper it shall be evaluated the Freudian structure of personality and the driving forces in personality dynamics. The paper does not support the claim that Human mind operates outside of human awareness. It is also deniying the fact that all the evil thoughts are underneath the unconcious system. Furthermore, it is arguing that the unconcious cannot be the master of its own and yet dominate the human awareness. According to Freud when we are born, we are born without personality. The paper argues against this assertion, supporting the idea, which Jung has raised that we are born complete, we only develop our personality. For Boeree, 2009, ‘the Freudian psychological reality begins with the world, full of objects. Among them is a very special object, the organism’ (http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/freud.html). The organism is special in that it acts to survive and reproduce, and it is guided toward those ends by its needs such as hunger, thirst, the avoidance of pain, and sex. Heffner, 2014, asserts that ‘Sigmund Freud’s Theory is quite complex and although his writings on psychosexual development set the groundwork for how our personalities developed, it was only one of five parts to his overall theory of personality’ (online, http://allpsych.com/psychology101/ego/).  He also believed that different driving forces develop during these stages which play an important role in how we interact with the world. An (Anonimous witer, 2014 found on web site), affirms that Freud's account of the unconscious, and the psychoanalytic therapy associated with it, is best illustrated by his famous tripartite model of the structure of the mind or personality, according to this author, Freud did not formulate this until 1923, which has many points of similarity with the account of the mind offered by Plato over 2,000 years earlier (online, http://www.crystalinks.com/freud.html). According to Freefind web search, ‘Freud broke down his personality idea from parts that cannot be directly observed into a tangible model of energy heating water and being released as steam’ (online, http://www.humanthermodynamics.com/Freud.html).  Moreover, Freud examined the first law of thermodynamics and applied this to his psych-dynamics theories. The first law of thermodynamics states that: ‘Energy can neither be created nor destroyed’ (online). Accordingly, this site states that Freud theorized this to be true with the human personality and adopted Darwin’s assumption that emotion is a form of physical energy. Hence, 'psychic energy' can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only be converted from one form to another. Furthermore, he believed that much of one's personalities are shaped from one's childhood experiences.  He theorized that from a child's birth until the child has gone through puberty, he or she goes through psychosexual stages of development. The id's "pleasure seeking energy" centres on different pleasure-sensitive zones of the body during different stages in a child's life (online, http://www.humanthermodynamics.com/Freud.html).  Additionally, Hall and Lindzey, 1978, assert that Freud maintained ‘this structure made up of three major systems: the id, the ego, and the superego’ (37). For Freud, these three systems interact with one another in such a way that it is dificult if not impossible to separate their effects and weigh their relative contribution to human behavior. For Freud, ‘rarely does one system operate to the exclusion of the other two’ (37). Moreover, McLeod, 2013, affirms that ‘Freud assumed that the id operated at an unconscious level according to the pleasure principle (gratification from satisfying basic instincts)’ (online). The id comprises two kinds of biological instincts (or drives) which Freud called Eros and Thanatos (online, http://www.simplypsychology.org/Sigmund-Freud.html). Eros, or life instinct, helps the individual to survive; it directs life-sustaining activities such as respiration, eating and sex (Freud, 1925). The energy created by the life instincts is known as libido (online, http://www.simplypsychology.org/Sigmund-Freud.html). In contrast, Thanatos or death instinct, is viewed as a set of destructive forces present in all human beings (Freud, 1920). When this energy is directed outward onto others, it is expressed as aggression and violence. Freud believed that Eros is stronger than Thanatos, thus enabling people to survive rather than self-destruct (online, http://www.simplypsychology.org/Sigmund-Freud.html). According to Hall and Lindzey, 1978, Freud believed that ‘the ide is the original system of the personality; it is the matrix within which the ego and the superego become differentiated’ (37). So to say that, the id consists of everything psychological that is inherited and that is present at birth, including the instincts. For Freud, ‘the id cannot tolerate increases of energy that are experienced as unconformable states of tension’ (37). Consequently, when the tension level of the organism is raised, either as a result of external stimulation or of internally produced excitations, the id functions in such a manner as to a confortably constant and low energy level. This principle of tension reduction by which the id operates is called the the pleasure principle (37). For Freud, Id operates from the pleasure principles. For him the id is the biological component where the instincts are based. Moreover, the id in order to accomplish its aim of avoiding pain and obtaining pleasure, it has at its command two processes. These are ‘reflex action and the primary process. Reflex actions are inborn and automatic reactions like sneezing and blinking; they usually reduce tention immediately’ (37). According to him, ‘the primary process involves a somewhat more complicated psychological reaction’ (37). This is to say that the id operates from the pleasure principles. It attempts to discharge tension by forming an image of an object that will remove the tension. For instance, the primary process provides the hungry person with a mental picture of food. This hallucinatory experience in which the desired object is present in form of a memory image is called wish-fulfillment (37). Futhermore, it is obviuos that the primary process by itself is not capable of reducing tention. The hungry person cannot eat mental images of food (37). Consequentely, ‘a new or secondary psychological process develops, and when this occurs the structure of the second system of the personality, the ego, begins to take form’ (37). For Freud, ‘the ego comes into existence because the needs of the organism require appropriate transactions with the objective world of reality’ (37). The hungry person has to seek, find, and eat food before the tention of hunger can be eliminated. This means that the person has to learn to differentiate between a memory image of food and an actual perception of food as it exists in the outer world (37). Hall and Lindzey, reiterate that ‘having made this crucial differentiation, it is then necessary to convert the image into a perception, which is accomplished by locating food in the environment’ (37). In other words, the person matches the memory image of food with the sight or smell of food as they come to the person through the senses. Nevertheless, the basic distinction between the id and the ego is that the id knows only the subjective reality of the mind whereas the ego distinguishes between things in the mind and things in the external world (37). Furthermore, ‘the ego is said to obey the reality principle and to operate by means of the secondary process’ (37). As a matter of fact, the aim of the reality principle is to prevent the discharge of tention until an obeject that is appropriate for the satisfaction of the need has been discovered. In addition to that, the reality principle suspends the pleasure principle temporarly although the pleasure principle is eventually served when the needed object is found and the tention is thereby reduced (37). Furthermore, they say that ‘the secondary process is realistic thinking’ (37). For, by means of the secondary proces the ego formulates a plan for the satisfaction of the need and then tests this plan, usually by some kind of action, to see whether or not it will work. The hungry person thinks where he or she may find food and then proceeds to look in the place. This is called reality testing. In order to perform its role efficiently the ego has control over all the cognitive and intellectual functions; these higher mental processes are placed at the service of the secondary process (37). According to them, ‘the ego is said to be the executive of the personality because it controls the gateway to action, selects the features of the environment to which it will resond, and decides what instincts will be satisfied and in what manner’ (37). Moreover, they assert that ‘it should be kept in mind, however, that the ego is the organized portion of the id, that comes into the existence in order to forward the aims of the id and not to frustrate them, and that all of its power is derived from the id’ (38). It has no existence apart from the id, and it never becomes completely independent of the id. Additionally, they argue that the first principal role of the ego is to mediate between the instinctual requirements of the organism and the conditions of the surrounding environment; its superordinate objectives are to maintain the life of the individual and to see that the species is reproduced (38). The third and the last system of personality to be developed is the superego. For them, ‘It is the internal representative of the traditional values and ideals of society as interpreted to the child by its parents, and enforced by means of a system of reward and punishments imposed upon the child’ (38). The superego is the moral arm of personality; it represents the ideal rather than the real and it strives for perfection rather than pleasure. The superego is inclined to oppose both the id and the ego, and to make the world over into its own image. However, it is like the id in being nonrational and like the ego in attempting to exercise control over the instincts. Unlike the ego, the superego does not merely postpone instintual gratification; it tries to block it permanently (39). In a way of conluding this brief description of the three systems of the personality, it should be pointed out that the id, ego, ans superego are not to be thought of as manikins that operate the personality. They are marely names for various psychological processes that obey different system principles (39). Under ordinary circumstances these different principles so not collide with one another nor do they work at cross purposes. Not all the evil thoughts are underneath the uncouncious system. In a very general way, the id may be thought of as the biological component of personality, the ego as the psychological component, and the superego as the social component. References Anonimous. An urn containing Freud's ashes 'dropped during a break-in' PhysOrg . 18 January 2014. 03 November 2016. Boeree, Dr. C. George. Personality Theories. 30 July 2009. 03 November 2016. Freefind. Institute of Human Thermodynamics. 26 December 2005 . 03 November 2016. Hall, Calvin S. and Gardner Lindzey. Theories of personality. Canada: Library of Congress Cataloging , 1978. Heffner, Dr. Christoher L. All Psych Central's Virtual Psychology Classroom. 21 August 2014. 03 November 2016. McLeod, Saul. Simply Phychology. 03 November 2013. 03 November 2016. ANDAMELA 9