In this essay Freud sets out his theory of psychosexual development. He asserts that there is in all humans an innate drive or instinct for pleasure, a sort of psychic energy, which he calls the libido and this energy needs to be discharged. He then goes on to describe how this drive finds outlet at the earliest stages of life, as babies, toddlers and infants and describes the oral, anal and phallic stages and the psychological effects of fixation at these stages. It is important to note that Freud separated sexual aims and objectives. His work on sexuality and perversions led to the wider theory of sexuality whereby he differentiated the sexual aim (the desire for pleasure) and the object (the person or thing used to fulfil the desire).
Freud says that the id is the source of all psychic energy and that makes it the primary component of personality. The theory's main ideas are that the id is driven by the pleasure principle. This principle goes for an immediate response to all desires, wants, and needs. If the needs aren't satisfied, it would lead to a state of anxiety or tension. The ego is the personality that is used for dealing with reality.
The id is seen to operate according to the pleasure principle, is present in each of us from birth and is not effected by reality or logic of the everyday world (McLeod, 2008). Freud described the id as being our genetically inherited information, which contained two innate drives. He called these, sex (Eros) and aggressive (Thanatos) instincts. According to Pennington et al (2003, Pg. 162), “these instincts create wishes at an unconscious level, which result in tension and anxiety if not fulfilled”.
Psychoanalytic Approach to Personality According to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of personality, a person’s personality is composed of three key elements. These three elements of personality are known as the id, the ego, and the superego. These three elements work to create the complex human behaviors we all deal with every day. In this paper, I am going to describe these elements and how they relate to the psychoanalytic approach to personality. Id- The Id is the only element of personality that is present from birth.
Describe and evaluate the humanistic approach in psychology The humanistic approach contrasts all the other approaches for one simple reason; this is that the humanistic approach believes that we have free will, this is because we are able to make conscious decisions for our self and chose our own path in life, and for example, the behaviourist approach is deterministic, as the environment determines our behaviour. Rogers stated that certain environments are needed in order for a child to achieve their full potential as an adult. Rogers said we need a condition consisting of positive regard. This means knowing that somebody loves you no matter what you do. He said we all need conditional positive regard from our parents, and if we did not receive this is can lead to psychological problems in our future.
Most of the time, the Ego controls what the body does and finds itself satisfied with the limitations of reality, unlike the demanding Id. However, there is a final part of the mind which focuses on morality, rather than the reality of a situation. This is called the Super-ego and is often referred to as a ‘conscience’. In the mind of a child, the major force that controls them is the Id, according to Freud, since the child doesn’t know anything other than what it needs or wants, however as it grows up it adopts an Ego and eventually a Super-ego that allows it to make moral decisions in later life and to think logically. Freud’s theory of the Id, Ego and Super-ego is emphasised in the Oedipus complex, the story and idea that when a child is born, it immediately bonds with its mother and see’s their father as a rival for their mothers love and as a result wants to kill him.
He concludes that it is the fate of all of us, perhaps to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother, and our first hated and our first murderous wish against our father. (Kramer, 2006, p. 86) Freud’s ultimate theory was that our lives are built on sex. (Kramer, 2006, p. 97) The combination of all of these thoughts, “would allow psychoanalysis to become a movement” (Kramer, 2006, p. 97). Another theory that made him famous is the Trio (Id, ego, superego). According to Robert S. Feldman “Id is the raw unorganized, inborn part of personality whose sole purpose is to reduce the tension created by primitive drive related to hunger, sex, aggression and irrational impulses”.
He believed sexual energy that was fixated or stuck was the cause of most psychological problems. One of his most debated ideas related to the unconscious mind involve Freud’s theories on infantile sexuality. Children were not exempt from the human body’s desire for sexual pleasure and an unresolved conflict in a sexual development stage in childhood could lead to neurosis for the rest of one’s life. This theory is revolutionary because Freud is the first to ever speculate about the normalcy of childhood sexual impulses (Hall, 1954). More importantly, out of this theory was where Freud developed his concept of the Oedipus and Electra complexes.
Freudian analysis of Oedipus The theory of psychoanalysis is primarily concerned with the development of the human personality; it was Freud who presumed that human personality is a three part system, consisting of the id, ego, and the superego. "The id is said to contain all the instinctual drives that seek immediate satisfaction and like a small child (they are said to operate on the "the pleasure principle"); the ego contains the conscious mental states, and its function is to perceive the real world and to decide how to act, mediating between the world and the id (it is governed by "the reality principle"). Whatever can become conscious is in the ego (although it also contains elements that remain unconscious), where as everything in the id is permanently unconscious. The superego is identified as a special part of the mind that contains the conscience, the moral norms acquired from parents and others who were influential in early childhood; though it belongs to the ego and shares it's kind of psychological organization, the superego is also said to have an intimate connection with the id, for it can confront the ego with rules and prohibitions like a strict parent. If at an early stage the child is exposed to an environment that consists of overly aggressive and dominant parents the development of that child’s superego may become a tad bit cruel, causing an adverse reaction within the psyche of that child.
Utilitarianism is consequentalist ethical theory. When an action is judged entirely on the utility. So an action would be determined on the outcome and the consequences. In utilitarianism the utility of an action is decided on how much pleasure and happiness is gained from it, so it is about maximising happiness as much as possible rather than gaining pain and sadness. The two most well known utilitarian’s are Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.