The unconscious contains drives, urges, or instincts that motivate words, feelings, and actions of individuals without their full awareness. The forces of the unconscious continually strive to become conscious through the individual’s behaviors. Sigmund Freud believes that the conscious plays a minor role in the behaviors of individuals; however, Freud focuses mostly on the unconscious (Feist & Feist, 2009). Assumptions There are many assumptions that were developed by Sigmund Freud. Freud began with his beliefs in the roles of
One’s personality, behavior, characteristics, and traits are what makes individual’s unique. Developmental process of personality occurs through life, one’s experiences, one’s environmental conditions, heredity, and one’s behavior has a huge impact on one’s personality. Personality and behavior is hidden in the unconscious minds, and exposed because of unconscious drives. Humanistic and Existential Personalities The essentials for humanistic and existential personality theories come from philosophical bases (Feist & Feist, 2009), explaining the
He also linked some childhood desires with the development of ones personality. The psychoanalytic theory is founded on the basis that there are inner forces that influence ones behavior unconsciously. This theory was developed after a thorough observation of people’s behavior where Sigmund conducted case studies. Feud argued that human mind can be divided three parts; the conscious mind, the preconscious mind and the unconscious mind. According to Asch M (2004), the conscious mind includes the things that we are aware of.
The psychodynamic approach assumes that adult behaviour reflects complex dynamic interactions between the conscious and unconscious mind, which are present from birth. Freud, the founder of this approach, believed that our behaviour is powerfully affected by the processes within our conscious mind and psychological disorders in adulthood, are due to problems with we have encountered in our childhood, that have not been solved. Freud purposed that personality is made up of three parts. These parts are the id, superego and ego. He also suggested that our personality is shaped in different times of our childhood, which is known as the psychosexual development.
This means early experiences play a critical role in our lives. Freud believed the human mind has both unconscious and conscious areas. The unconscious part is seen as being dominated by the id, a primitive part of the human personality that seeks only gratification and pleasure. It isn’t concerned with social rules, only with self-gratification and it is driven by the ‘pleasure principle.’ It is said psychopaths are ID led. The disregard for our consequences of behaviour is referred to as ‘primary process thinking’.
Psychodynamic Personality Theories: An Analysis Psychodynamic Personality Theories: An Analysis The psychodynamic theories of personality are a collection of theories that developed from Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis, and just as Freud’s theory, the psychodynamic theories give ample emphasis to unconscious processes, and the effects of early childhood experiences into personality formation (Hockenbury & Hockenbury, 2006). The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief analysis on the strengths and limitations of the psychodynamic theories of personality as it explains individual behavior. The following include as well the answers of how psychodynamic theories affect individual personalities, the influences of such assumptions on interpersonal relationships. Effects of Psychodynamic Theories on Personality Psychodynamic theories focus on human personalities. The psychodynamics theories of personality developed from Sigmund Freud’s thoughts and believes, which mainly focuses on human drives such as sexual and aggressive drives (C, 2006).
Most of them are a result of outside factors, which cause emotional instability in adolescents. However, other factors can be internal. The main contributing psychological causes to juvenile criminal behavior include: The desire to belong. Many adolescents will commit criminal acts because they seek to be accepted by friends. Juveniles will produce delinquent behavior because they want attention from peers or seek approval from others their own age.
An evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the two theories will follow. Finally, each approach will be discussed in respect to the agency-structure dualism. This dualism is concerned with individual ability to change and whether this is as a result of personal agency or social/biological structures. Trait theory was developed by Eysenck and Rachman (1965,cited in Butt,2007) and belongs to the mainstream, experimental approach to individual differences (Butt,2007). The aim of trait theory is to produce general principles of why people behave differently in different situations.
Dominance of id may lead to destructive tendencies and uninhibited sexual behaviour.On the other hand superego represents the sense of morality. It develops in the phallic stage of development through identification with our parents and if it is too strong it may result in guilt experiencing pleasure and the development of adult anxiety and depression. Ego, however, operates on the reality principle and it is the conscious self. It develops through early childhood and tried to balance the instinctual demands of the id for gratification and the moral rules provided by our superego. If ego fails to achieve a balance, psychological disorders may results.
Freud believed that the unconscious is a component of the mind that the individual is unaware of, but which manifests through behaviour: “infantile wishes, desires, demands and needs that are hidden from consciousness awareness because of the conflicts and pain they would cause if they were part of everyday life” (Feldman, 1993, p. 381). The aim of PDT is to unearth and release emotional thoughts and feelings ‘repressed’ in the unconscious. In order to use this method, an essential element of PDT is the creation of a safe environment for the recalling of repressed childhood memories (Bergmann, 2010). In psychoanalytic theory the therapy relationship, explicitly the analysis of the patients’ transference to the therapist is fundamental to the work. Transference is the client’s repetition of past patterns of relating to significant others that are brought to the present in relation to the therapist (Jacobs, M, 2004).