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Freud:
Personolgy –Chapter 3
Study Guide – Chapter 2
The view of the person underlying the theory
The basic assumptions underlying Freud’s theory:
1. Psychosocial Conflict
2. Biological and Psychic Determination
3. The Mechanistic Assumption
Psychosocial Conflict:
Conflict between drives within the psyche (sexual and aggressive) and the demands and norms of society.
Person constantly tries to experience as much drive satisfaction and as few guilt feelings as possible.
Biological and Psychic Determinism
Freud describes human drives as physiologically based and rooted within the body (Biological Determinism).
Drives are localised in that part of the psyche called the ID, while social rules are gradually absorbed in other
part called the superego.
Conflict that determines behaviour is within the psyche. (Psychic determinism)
The Mechanistic Assumption
Freud believed that humans function in a mechanistic way.
The physical principles of energy consumption, conservation and transformation are regarded as valid for
human functioning as well. (Steam engine used as analogy)
The Structure of the Personality
Structural properties of the personality:
The ID
The Ego
The Superego
Functioning takes place on three levels of consciousness:
The Conscious
The Preconscious
The Unconscious
Freud sees the individual as a unit consisting of three separate aspects that function together to attain three primary
goals:
1. To ensure the survival of the individual
2. To allow the individual to experience as much pleasure as possible
3. To minimise the individual’s experience of guilt
The levels of consciousness
1. The Conscious Level: Thoughts, feelings and experiences of which the individual is aware. Contents is
constantly changing.
2. The Preconscious Level: Information that can be recalled to consciousness without much effort. Memories of
earlier occurrences that are not painful or anxiety-provoking and observations on which the person is not
concentrating at any particular moment.
3. The Unconscious Level: Forbidden Drives and memories of events and wishes that cause the individual pain,
anxiety and guild and that he cannot recall to the conscious mind.
,The Id
Innate, primitive component of the psyche that is in direct contact which the body, from which it obtains
energy.
Energy is linked to the drives, namely the Life Drives, Eros (Including sex drive), and death drive (Thanatos)
The id functions according to the primary processes (Not capable of any thought, self-reflection or planning)
and the pleasure principle.
It seeks immediate and complete satisfaction of its drives without considering anything except its own
immediate pleasure.
Only form of drive satisfaction the id is able to accomplish is wish fulfilment.
The Ego
The ego develops from the id because it is necessary to ensure survival and formed through contact with
outside world.
Job is to serve the id’s needs by finding suitable objects for real drive satisfaction.
Functions according to:
1. The secondary Process: Ego evaluates and weighs up a situation before any action is undertaken. It is able to
reflect upon and plan the satisfaction drives, and postpone satisfaction to an appropriate time and situation.
2. The reality Principle: The ego takes physical and social reality into account by using conscious and
preconscious cognitive processes such as sensory perception, rational thinking, memory and learning. The
ego uses reality testing, object choice and object cathexis. (Is an object rationally serviceable?)
The ego can be described as the executive official who operates in terms of three briefs, namely those of the
id, physical reality and the superego (which represents society’s moral codes).
The Ego functions on all three levels of consciousness and is constantly learning.
The Superego
Develops from the Ego
The superego is active within the person (intra-physically) as a representative of society’s moral codes.
Functions according to the Moral Principle (It punishes the individual by making him feel guilty about immoral wishes
and behaviour and holds up a relentless perfectionistic ideal of moral behaviour).
The punish element of the superego is the conscience and the positive dimension which encourages moral behaviour
is called the ego-ideal.
The superego obtains its energy from the aggressive drive (Thanatos) in the id.
Anticathexis: Moral taboo placed on an object by the superego. The ego blocks or represses the unacceptable
cathexist desires of the id. This is what leads to anxiety, etc.
The Dynamics of the Personality
Motivation: Freud’s drive theory
Freud believes that the human psyche functions with the help of energy that is converted from physical-
biological form to psychic energy. (Energy transformation).
The energy can either urge the individual to act, or torture the person with guilt feelings.
The individual has to cope with conflict between drive energy versus moral energy.
Drives as psychological representations of energy derived from the body, are the main driving forces in
human functioning, which not only motivate and propel the person to function, but also determine the
direction of behaviour.
General Characteristics of Drives
Four Characteristics all drives have in common:
1. Source: Every drive has its source in the body. Various drives obtain their energy from different parts in the
body.
, 2. Impetus or energy: Every drive has a certain quantity of energy or intensity. This is affected by the condition
of the energy source and the time lapse since the last satisfaction drive.
3. Goal: Every drive has the goal of satisfaction. Goals are experienced subjectively.
4. Object: Every drive requires an object (something or a person), suitable for its satisfaction. Satisfaction is
achieved by using energy of the drive with the help of the object to carry out a suitable action.
Displacement: Object is substituted when other object is no longer available.
Types of Drives
Freud reduces all drives to the two basic inclinations of living organisms. 1. To Develop Constructively. 2. To
Disintegrate and Die.
The Life Drives: Serves to preserve life and function in a constructive Manner. Further divided into two aspects.
1. Ego Drives: In the service of individual Survival.
2. Sexual Drives: Ensure the survival of the species.
How do the sexual drives and the death drive function psychologically?
The Ego Drives:
Individual Survival.
Includes all drives that are aimed at satisfying basic life needs such as eating, drinking and breathing.
(Primary needs excluding sexual need).
Not rigidly controlled by Moral Codes and does not cause conflicts of conscience and guilt feelings.
Ego drives are responsible for the development of the ego.
Ego drives are distinguished from sexual drives in that they:
(a.) Are related to the survival of the individual, while sex drives are related to the survival of the species.
(b.) They are not, like sexual drives, associated with moral prescriptions and guilt feelings.
(c.) They provide the energy required for he functioning of the ego.
The Sexual Drives:
Main concern is survival of the species
Primary Function is erotic as satisfaction provides erotic pleasure and non-satisfaction causes discomfort.
Freud holds that even small babies have sexual drives – Polymorphous perverse – Thus, they seek erotic
pleasure from any part of their bodies. (Mouth/Inside of mouth and lips).
Other sexual drives emerge as other bodily parts become sources of sexual drive energy.
Sexual desire is often controlled or entirely prohibited by society which causes ongoing psychological
problems for people and play a significant role in development of mental disturbances.
The Death Drive:
Basic function is to break down living cells and change them into dead matter.
Original object of the death drive is the individual’s body.
Death drive is in conflict with the life drives, which projects as aggression and destructive behaviour towards other
people and things.
Through defence mechanism the energy may be exercise in socially acceptable ways in professions where an object
is literally or symbolically destroyed. (E.g Butcher, carpenters or film critics).
Superego may use aggressive drive energy by making the person feel guilty about undesirable wishes and actions,
causing the death drive to focus on the individual in a secondary way.
All self-inflicted harm are outcomes of unconscious death drive through the superego.
Ultimately, the death drive revets to its orginal object, the individual causes his or her own death. Nirvana:
Unconscious ideal of all life. Tensionless state.
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