FREUD THEORY

Freud theory

Freud theory

There are three aspects to Freud's theory of personality development. Firstly the structure of personality (id, ego, superego), defence mechanisms and the stages of psychosocial development. According to Freud personality develops as an outcome of these three aspects.

The id is located in the unconscious mind and is the source of innate sexual and aggressive instincts. The emphasis is on immediate gratification, for example, a young child wanting a toy NOW. The ego is the conscious, governing part of personality and develops in the first two years of life as a consequence of the infants experience. The ego modifies the demands of the Id, deferring gratification until an appropriate time / place. The superego represents the child's conscience (morals, right / wrong) and develops at around the age of five. The superego is formed as a result of the process of identification with the same-sex parent, in order to resolve to Oedipus complex in boys and the Electra complex in girls.

Freud also suggested that conflict between personality structures creates 'ego defences', leading to personality characteristics. These include intellectualism (thinking about threats in ways that allow emotion to be eliminated), denial (refusing to accept the existence of a threat), projection (attributing undesirable impulses or characteristics to others), repression (keeping troublesome emotions out of conscious awareness) and displacement (unconsciously transferring impulses from a threatening object to a less threatening one).

Freud described early personality development in terms of five psychosexual stages. In each stage the child's energy or libido is focused on a different body region. The first being the oral stage (0-18months) where satisfaction is from eating, sucking etc. In the anal stage (18-36months) the child is interested in and gains satisfaction from the anal region. The phallic stage (3-6 years) is where the genitals become the source of ...