The Psychodynamic Approach

• Freud viewed the adult personality as having three basic components - Id, Ego & Superego
• Id = instinct part of the personality and we are born with it

  • Source of our unconscious desires and impulses
  • Demands instant gratification of its needs, which consist of hunger, thirst and sex
• Ego:

  • Represents our conscious mind
  • Develops around the age of 2-3 years
  • Purpose to balance the id in society
  • Child realises the demand of the id cannot always be met
  • Ego = logical
• Super ego:

  • Formed around the ge of 5-6 and contains our moral values - operates on morality principle
  • Ensures that the ego does not use unacceptable means to satisfy the demands of the id
• Repression

  • Frued states that we unconsciously block out painful memories
  • Evidence from childbirth - many women do not remember the pain of childbirth
• Denial

  Refusal to accept reality

  • Recovery is only possible once reality has been accepted
• Displacement

  • Redirection of hostile feeling towards a more acceptable target
• Denial is when the  ego ignores the  super-ego , and refuses to believe it has given in to the id .