Lesson 1. Psychoanalytic Theory (Sigmund Freud)
Lesson 1. Psychoanalytic Theory (Sigmund Freud)
Lesson 1. Psychoanalytic Theory (Sigmund Freud)
Psychological Theories
of Values Development
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Learning Objectives:
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Lesson 1
PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
Sigmund Freud
Biography
reductionism: "No other forces than the common physical-chemical ones are active within the
organism." Freud would spend many years trying to "reduce" personality to neurology, a cause
he later gave up on.
Freud was very good at his research, concentrating on neurophysiology, even inventing a
special cell-staining technique. But only a limited number of positions were available, and
there were others ahead of him. Brücke helped him to get a grant to study, first with the great
psychiatrist Charcot in Paris, then with his rival Bernheim in Nancy. Both these gentlemen
were investigating the use of hypnosis with hysterics.
After spending a short time as a resident in neurology and director of a children's ward in
Berlin, he came back to Vienna, married his fiancée of many years Martha Bernays, and set
up a practice in neuropsychiatry, with the help of Joseph Breuer.
Freud's books and lectures brought him both fame and ostracism from the mainstream of the
medical community. He drew around him a number of very bright sympathizers who became
the core of the psychoanalytic movement. Unfortunately, Freud had a penchant for rejecting
people who did not totally agree with him. Some separated from him on friendly terms; others
did not, and went on to found competing schools of thought.
Freud emigrated to England just before World War II when Vienna became an increasing
dangerous place for Jews, especially ones as famous as Freud. Not long afterward, he died of
the cancer of the mouth and jaw that he had suffered from for the last 20 years of his life.
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Theory
To further illustrate these levels of mental life, Freud used the analogy of an iceberg.
Ego Conscious
Superego Preconscious
Conscious
Unconscious
Id Id
Source: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/iceberg-hand-drawn-illustration-converted-vector-717675376
A. Unconscious
The largest part by far is the unconscious. It includes all the things that are not
easily available to awareness, including many things that have their origins there, such
as our drives or instincts, and things that are put there because we can't bear to look
at them, such as the memories and emotions associated with trauma.
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experience a frightening or painful situation and is difficult to acknowledge, you lock
it in your unconscious mind. This happen through the process of repression.
B. Conscious
The conscious mind is what you are aware of at any particular moment, your
present perceptions, memories, thoughts, fantasies, feelings, what have you. Freud
(1915) cited by McLeod (2015), described the conscious mind, which consists of all
the mental processes of which we are aware. This is compared to the tip of the iceberg.
For example, you may be feeling sleepy at this moment and decide to go to your room
to get a nap.
C. Preconscious
During the 1920s, Freud (1923/1961a) introduced a three-part structural model. This
division of the mind into three provinces did not supplant the topographic model, but it helped
Freud explain mental images according to their functions or purposes.
To Freud, the most primitive part of the mind was das Es, or the “it,” which is almost
always translated into English as id; a second division was das Ich, or the “I,” translated as
ego; and a final province was das Uber-Ich, or the “over-I,” which is rendered into English as
superego.
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A. Id
The id is the impulsive (and unconscious) part of our psyche which responds
directly and immediately to basic urges, needs, and desires. For example, the
personality of the newborn child is all id and only later does it develop an ego and
super-ego.
B. Ego
The ego develops to mediate between the unrealistic id and the external real
world. It is the decision-making component of personality. Ideally, the ego works by
reason, whereas the id is chaotic and unreasonable.
The ego operates according to the reality principle, working out realistic ways
of satisfying the id’s demands, often compromising or postponing satisfaction to avoid
negative consequences of society. The ego considers social realities and norms,
etiquette and rules in deciding how to behave.
Source: https://www.simplypsychology.org/simplypsychology.org-psyche.pdf
If the ego fails in its attempt to use the reality principle, and anxiety is
experienced, unconscious defense mechanisms are employed, to help ward off
unpleasant feelings (i.e., anxiety) or make good things feel better for the individual.
C. Superego
The superego's function is to control the id's impulses, especially those which
society forbids, such as sex and aggression. It also has the function of persuading the
ego to turn to moralistic goals rather than simply realistic ones and to strive for
perfection.
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The superego consists of
two systems: The conscience and
the ideal self. The conscience can
punish the ego through causing
feelings of guilt. For example, if
the ego gives in to the id's
demands, the superego may
make the person feel bad through
guilt. The ideal self (or ego-ideal)
is an imaginary picture of how you
ought to be, and represents
career aspirations, how to treat
other people, and how to behave
as a member of society.
Source: https://www.simplypsychology.org/simplypsychology.org-psyche.pdf
Behavior which falls short of the ideal self may be punished by the superego
through guilt. The super-ego can also reward us through the ideal self when we behave
‘properly’ by making us feel proud. If a person’s ideal self is too high a standard, then
whatever the person does will represent failure. The ideal self and conscience are
largely determined in childhood from parental values and how you were brought up.
Defense Mechanisms
Defense mechanisms happen when the anxiety becomes overwhelming and the ego
must defend itself. It does so by unconsciously blocking the impulses or distorting them into
a more acceptable, less threatening form.
1. Denial involves blocking external events from awareness. If some situation is just too
much to handle, the person just refuses to experience it.
Example: Drug addicts refuse to admit that shabu is bad for their health.
2. Repression, which Anna Freud also called "motivated forgetting," is just that not
being able to recall a threatening situation, person, or event. This, too, is dangerous,
and is a part of most other defenses.
Example: Carla cannot remember his grandfather’s heart attack although she was
there when it happened.
3. Asceticism, or the renunciation of needs, is one most people haven't heard of, but it
has become relevant again today with the emergence of the disorder called anorexia.
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Preadolescents, when they feel threatened by their emerging sexual desires, may
unconsciously try to protect themselves by denying, not only their sexual desires, but
all desires. They get involved in some kind of ascetic (monk-like) lifestyle wherein they
renounce their interest in what other people enjoy.
Example: Karen refuses to eat whenever she gets failing grade from her examinations
Example: Jojo just continue speaking about his traumatic childhood experience as if
he is reading a script
Example: Taking your anger towards your sister to your favorite jar. You took the jar
and broke it in the wall rather than punching your sister.
6. Turning against the self is a very special form of displacement, where the person
becomes their own substitute target. It is normally used in reference to hatred, anger,
and aggression, rather than more positive impulses, and it is the Freudian explanation
for many of our feelings of inferiority, guilt, and depression.
Example: Your girlfriend broke up with you because she caught you cheating. Because
of shame, you pounded your head on the wall several times.
7. Projection, which Anna Freud also called displacement outward, is almost the
complete opposite of turning against the self. It involves the tendency to see your own
unacceptable desires in other people. In other words, the desires are still there, but
they're not your desires anymore.
Example: Gian accuses her wife that she is cheating but the reality is it was Gian who
is involved in an extra marital affair.
8. Altruistic surrender is a form of projection that at first glance looks like its opposite.
Here, the person attempts to fulfill his or her own needs vicariously, through other
people. The extreme example of altruistic surrender is the person who lives their whole
life for and through another.
9. Reaction formation, which Anna Freud called "believing the opposite," is changing
an unacceptable impulse into its opposite.
Example: Rebecca is angry at her mother because of being too overprotective of her.
Instead of hating her mother, she become overly concerned with her and dramatically
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show affection.
10. Undoing involves "magical" gestures or rituals that are meant to cancel out
unpleasant thoughts or feelings after they've already occurred.
Example: An alcoholic father who, after a year of verbal and perhaps physical abuse,
puts on the best and biggest Christmas ever for his kids.
11. Introjection, sometimes called identification, involves taking into your own
personality characteristics of someone else, because doing so solves some emotional
difficulty.
Example: A child who is left alone frequently, may in some way try to become "mom"
in order to lessen his or her fears. You can sometimes catch them telling their dolls or
animals not to be afraid. And we find the older child or teenager imitating his or her
favorite star, musician, or sports hero in an effort to establish an identity.
12. Identification with the aggressor is a version of introjection that focuses on the
adoption, not of general or positive traits, but of negative or feared traits. If you are
afraid of someone, you can partially conquer that fear by becoming more like them.
Example: Misty is being bullied by Shane. During recess time, Shane gets Misty’s
snacks. The following year, it was already Misty who bullies other children in their
school.
13. Regression is a movement back in psychological time when one is faced with stress.
When we are troubled or frightened, our behaviors often become more childish or
primitive.
Example: Or an older man, after spending twenty years at a company and now finding
himself laid off, may retire to his recliner and become childishly dependent on his wife.
Example: Ringo was caught cheating during their term exam. When reprimanded, he
justified his act of cheating by telling that many of his classmates also cheated.
Example: Mr. Smith, a drug lord in the city organized a fund-raising activity to raise
fund for his academic and sports scholars.
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The Psychosexual Stages of Development
Freud noted that, at different times in our lives, different parts of our skin give us
greatest pleasure. Later theorists would call these areas erogenous zones. It appeared to
Freud that the infant found its greatest pleasure in sucking, especially at the breast. In fact,
babies have a penchant for bringing nearly everything in their environment into contact with
their mouths. A bit later in life, the child focuses on the anal pleasures of holding it in and
letting go. By three or four, the child may have discovered the pleasure of touching or rubbing
against his or her genitalia. Only later, in our sexual maturity, do we find our greatest pleasure
in sexual intercourse. In these observations, Freud had the makings of a psychosexual stage
theory.
A. Oral Stage
Feist, Feist and Roberts (2018) explained that since the mouth is the first organ
to provide an infant with pleasure, it was considered as the first stage of development.
In this stage, infants gain pleasure through sucking and biting while they obtain
nourishment through oral activity. During this oral-receptive phase, infants feel no
ambivalence toward the pleasurable object and their needs are usually satisfied with
a minimum of frustration and anxiety. As they grow older, however, they are more
likely to experience feelings of frustration and anxiety as a result of scheduled feedings,
increased time lapses between feedings, and eventual weaning. These anxieties are
generally accompanied by feelings of ambivalence toward their love object (mother),
and by the increased ability of their budding ego to defend itself against the
environment and against anxiety (Freud, 1933/1964, cited by Feist, Feist and Roberts,
2018).
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that satisfies their sexual but not their nutritional needs. As children grow older, the
mouth continues to be an erogenous zone, and by the time they become adults, they
are capable of gratifying their oral needs in a variety of ways, including sucking candy,
chewing gum, biting pencils, overeating, smoking cigarettes, pipes and cigars, and
making biting, sarcastic remarks.
B. Anal Stage
Engler (2016) explained that at this time, the major source of pleasure and
potential conflict is activities involving the anus. Generally, toilet training occurs during
this period. Toilet training involves converting an involuntary activity, the elimination
of bodily wastes, into a voluntary one. It frequently represents the child’s first attempt
to regulate instinctual impulses. A clash of wills with the caregiver may develop.
Children may obtain pain or pleasure in either retaining or expelling their waste
products. These two primary modes of anal expression, retention and expulsion, are
further models for possible future character traits.
C. Phallic Stage
This is the time when the genital area becomes the leading erogenous zone.
This stage is marked for the first time by a dichotomy between male and female
development, a distinction that Freud (1925/1961, cited by Feist, Feist & Roberts,
2018) believed to be due to the anatomical differences between the sexes.
During the phallic stage, masturbation is nearly universal, but because parents
generally suppress these activities, children usually repress their conscious desire to
masturbate by the time their phallic period comes to an end. Just as children’s earlier
experiences with weaning and toilet training helped shape the foundation of their
psychosexual development, so too does their experience with the suppression of
masturbation (Freud, 1933/1964, cited by Feist, Feist & Roberts, 2018).
Freud (1925/1961, cited by Feist, Feist & Roberts, 2018) believed that
preceding the phallic stage an infant boy forms an identification with his father;
that is, he wants to be his father. Later he develops a sexual desire for his
mother; that is, he wants to have his mother. These two wishes do not appear
mutually contradictory to the underdeveloped ego, so they are able to exist
side by side for a time. When the boy finally recognizes their inconsistency, he
gives up his identification with his father and retains the stronger feeling—the
desire to have his mother. The boy now sees his father as a rival for the
mother’s love. He desires to do away with his father and possess his mother in
a sexual relationship.
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Freud (1923/1961a, cited by Feist, Feist & Roberts, 2018) believed that
the bisexual nature of the child (of either gender) complicates this picture.
Before a young boy enters the Oedipus stage, he develops some amount of a
feminine disposition. During the Oedipal period, therefore, his feminine nature
may lead him to display affection toward his father and express hostility toward
his mother, while at the same time his masculine tendency disposes him toward
hostility for father and lust for mother. During this ambivalent condition, known
as the complete Oedipus complex, affection and hostility coexist because one
or both feelings may be unconscious. Freud believed that these feelings of
ambivalence in a boy play a role in the evolution of the castration complex,
which for boys takes the form of castration anxiety or the fear of losing the
penis.
The phallic phase takes a more complicated path for girls than for boys,
and these differences are due to anatomical differences between the sexes
(Freud, 1925/1961). Like boys, pre-Oedipal girls assume that all other children
have genitals similar to their own. Soon they discover that boys not only
possess different genital equipment, but apparently something extra. Girls then
become envious of this appendage, feel cheated, and desire to have a penis.
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D. Latent Stage
Usually, but not always, boys and girls go through a period of dormant
psychosexual development. This latency stage is brought about partly by parents’
attempts to punish or discourage sexual activity in their young children. If parental
suppression is successful, children will repress their sexual drive and direct their
psychic energy toward school, friendships, hobbies, and other nonsexual activities
(Fesit, Feist, & Roberts, 2018).
E. Genital Stage
Puberty signals a reawakening of the sexual aim and the beginning of the
genital period. During puberty, the diphasic sexual life of a person enters a second
stage, which has basic differences from the infantile period (Freud, 1923/1961b):
First, adolescents give up autoeroticism and direct their sexual energy toward
another person instead of toward themselves.
Third, although penis envy may continue to linger in girls, the vagina finally
obtains the same status for them that the penis had for them during infancy.
Parallel to this, boys now see the female organ as a sought-after object rather
than a source of trauma.
Fourth, the entire sexual drive takes on a more complete organization, and the
component drives that had operated somewhat independently during the early
infantile period gain a kind of synthesis during adolescence; thus, the mouth,
anus, and other pleasure-producing areas take an auxiliary position to the
genitals, which now attain supremacy as an erogenous zone.
Development of Character
If you have difficulties in any of the tasks associated with the stages -- weaning, potty
training, or finding your sexual identity -- you will tend to retain certain infantile or childish
habits. This is called fixation. Fixation gives each problem at each stage a long-term effect
in terms of our personality or character.
If you, in the first eight months of your life, are often frustrated in your need to suckle,
perhaps because mother is uncomfortable or even rough with you, or tries to wean you too
early, then you may develop an oral-passive character. An oral-passive personality tends
to be rather dependent on others. They often retain an interest in "oral gratifications" such as
eating, drinking, and smoking. It is as if they were seeking the pleasures they missed in
infancy.
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When we are between five and eight months old, we begin teething. One satisfying
thing to do when you are teething is to bite on something, like mommy's nipple. If this causes
a great deal of upset and precipitates an early weaning, you may develop an oral-aggressive
personality. These people retain a life-long desire to bite on things, such as pencils, gum,
and other people. They have a tendency to be verbally aggressive, argumentative, sarcastic,
and so on.
In the anal stage, we are fascinated with our "bodily functions." At first, we can go
whenever and wherever we like. Then, out of the blue and for no reason you can understand,
the powers that be want you to do it only at certain times and in certain places. And parents
seem to actually value the end product of all this effort!
Some parents put themselves at the child's mercy in the process of toilet training. They
beg, they cajole, they show great joy when you do it right, they act as though their hearts
were broken when you don't. The child is the king of the house, and knows it. This child will
grow up to be an anal expulsive (a.k.a. anal aggressive) personality. These people tend
to be sloppy, disorganized, and generous to a fault. They may be cruel, destructive, and given
to vandalism and graffiti. The Oscar Madison character in The Odd Couple is a nice example.
Other parents are strict. They may be competing with their neighbors and relatives as
to who can potty train their child first (early potty training being associated in many people's
minds with great intelligence). They may use punishment or humiliation. This child will likely
become constipated as he or she tries desperately to hold it in at all times, and will grow up
to be an anal retentive personality. He or she will tend to be especially clean,
perfectionistic, dictatorial, very stubborn, and stingy. In other words, the anal retentive is tight
in all ways. The Felix Unger character in The Odd Couple is a perfect example.
There are also two phallic personalities, although no-one has given them names. If
the boy is harshly rejected by his mother, and rather threatened by his very masculine father,
he is likely to have a poor sense of self-worth when it comes to his sexuality. He may deal
with this by either withdrawing from heterosexual interaction, perhaps becoming a book-
worm, or by putting on a rather macho act and playing the ladies' man. A girl rejected by her
father and threatened by her very feminine mother is also likely to feel poorly about herself,
and may become a wall-flower or a hyper-feminine "belle."
But if a boy is not rejected by his mother, but rather favored over his weak, milquetoast
father, he may develop quite an opinion of himself (which may suffer greatly when he gets
into the real world, where nobody loves him like his mother did), and may appear rather
effeminate. After all, he has no cause to identify with his father. Likewise, if a girl is daddy's
little princess and best buddy, and mommy has been relegated to a sort of servant role, then
she may become quite vain and self-centered, or possibly rather masculine.
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References:
Engler, B. (2016). Theories of personality (9 th Ed.). Taguig City: Cengage Learning Asia Pte
Ltd.
Feist, J , Feist G.,& Roberts, T. (2013) Theories of personality (8 th Ed.) . New York: Mc-Graw
Hill.
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