Unconscious urges? Observable behavior? The interpretation of nature and nurture? The sociocultural and cognitive theories emphasize individual conscious organization of experience. Unconscious urges are described by Freud in his psychoanalytic theory.
Self-concept may be defined as the totality of a complex, organized, and dynamic system of learned beliefs, attitudes and opinions that each person holds to be true about his or her personal existence. Self-concept is different from self-esteem (feelings of personal worth and level of satisfaction regarding one's self) or self-report (what a person is willing and able to disclose). Fromm (1956) was as beautifully clear as anyone when he described self-concept as "life being aware of itself." A second milestone in the development of self-concept theory was the writing of Sigmund Freud (1900) who gave us new understanding of the importance of internal mental processes. While Freud and many of his followers hesitated to make self-concept a primary psychological unit in their theories, Freud's daughter Anna (1946) gave central importance to ego development and self-interpretation.
It is a generalised concept that if the cause of the symptoms were tackled it would only be logical that the symptoms would then cease. The Psychodynamic theory assumes the personality is split into three parts, the id (most primitive, instinctive part we have from birth), the ego (logical, balances out the id and superego) and the superego or moral part of our personality. These areas influence our behaviour as well as the defence mechanisms of the ego, and the psychosexual stages of development. Defence mechanisms are used
Freud believed that conscience was a construct of the mind built up through repressed feelings and emotions. For Freud, during our upbringing we accept values and beliefs about morality, and at some point, these may be rejected by our moral reasoning. Even though these early views have since been rejected, they continue to influence our ‘conscience’. Freud separated the conscious into three clear parts: the ID, the EGO, and the Super-Ego. The ID is considered part of the unconscious personality, and is driven by impulses to seek pleasure and satisfaction.
On the other hand, a person’s superego is one’s conscious, which is a collection of moral lessons learned from parents, organized religion, and society. The superego wants the person to only do what is morally right at all times. The ego is the person’s sense of “self.” The ego is formed from reality when the person understands all of her instinctual desires are not able to be met. The ego is the mediator between the id’s and the superego’s wants and decides which desires the person will upon. The superego uses guilt to punish the ego if it misbehaves and rewards it with pride if does what the superego wants.
Abraham Maslow believe that people have certain needs they must meet in a technique way, from highest to lowest in self-actualization (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). According to Maslow the needs of safety, love, belonging, and achievement must come into focus for humans. Humanistic theory focues on the individual and suggest that they are in control of his or her state of mind. The environment and the influence of inner thoughts, actions and desires affects the humans personality (McLeod, 2012). The Humanistic key figures are people who are encouraged in his or her upbringing to develop their own unique style instead appreciate when they meet other individuals’ outlooks to develop self-concepts.
In other words, things that are suppressed or ignored form the shadow (Eckert 1). The anima or animus is the complementary part of one's gender characteristics such as feminine impulses in the male subconscious; nurturing, loving (Eckert 1). The persona is the mask that one wears to project one's personality to others (Eckert 1). According to Jungian theory, the ultimate aim of an individual's life is to reach balance among all parts of one's psyche. By recognition, confrontation, and assimilation of the different aspects of the Self, one can be self-actualized and access to a new plane of consciousness (Eckert 1).
I will lastly concentrate on discussing the applications of his theory to therapy today. Freud devised the best known and arguably the most widely studied and universally talked about of all the personality theories. Central to his ideology was the belief that instinctual biological urges, primarily sexual and aggressive are the forces that motivate every aspect of an individual’s behaviour. One of the fundamental notions in Freud’s theory, concerning his view of human personality, is the
The unconscious mind is when you are doing or thinking something without being alert or aware that you are doing it. Along the idea of the unconscious mind Freud also developed the concept of the ‘ID’, the ‘Ego’ and the ‘Superego’. The id is described as an impulsive, selfish side to our personality which is ruled by a pleasure principle, the superego is the moral part of our personality which recognises right from wrong; and our ego is the part of our mind which tries to rationalise and arbitrate both sides of our thoughts. Freud believed that there were two main causes of abnormality in general. One of these was childhood traumas and the idea that a bad memory from our childhood is so traumatic that it buries itself in our subconscious.
The ego controls behavior and does this to avoid negative consequences. The superego develops through interactions with individuals who wants the child to conform to societal norms. The superego restricts the desires of the Id by morals and societal values. Freud believed that conflicts existed between Id and the superego. These conflicts influence the of development personality.