Freud’s Theory

• Out early childhood experiences determine our personality and future behaviour; in his view, 'the child is father to the man'. In particular, our early experiences determine whether we will go on to act in anti-social ways and what our moral outlook is.
• Freud believed that much of our mind is like an iceberg, with only the tip being seen - what people see us do and hear us say. What interested him were the parts that can't be seen, parts he called the unconscious and the preconscious. From this he developed the tripartite theory of personality and it is the (dynamic) interaction of these that cause us to act the way we do.
• To understand criminal behaviour, we need to understand how our personality develops and how that relates to our significant early relationships, especially with our parents.
• The ID

  • drives us to satisfy selfish urges.
  • pleasure principle
  • exists from birth,
  • libido energy
• The EGO

  • acts rationally, balancing the ID and Superego
  • reality principle
  • develops during 2-4 years of age
  • part of conscious personality - what the person is aware of when thinking about themselves and what they try to project about themselves to others.
• The Superego

  • keeps to moral norms - controls powerful ID with guilt
  • morality principle
  • develops during 4-5 years of age
  • is an internalisation of values passed down from same sex parent.
• Freud believed that the id, the ego, and the superego are in constant conflict. He focused mainly on conflicts concerning sexual and aggressive urges because these urges are most likely to violate societal rules.
• Our personality also develops over time through what he calls the Psychosexual Stages. At each stage we can become fixated i.e. part of our personality remains at this stage of development.
• STAGE 1 - ORAL

  • in 0-1 year olds
  • mouth
  • Orally aggressive: Signs include chewing gum or ends of pens.
  • Orally Passive: Signs include smoking/eating,
  • Fixation at this stage may result in passivity. gullibility, immaturity and manipulative personality
• STAGE 2 - ANAL

  • in 2-3 year olds
  • bowel and bladder elimination
  • Anal retentive: Obsession with organisation or excessive neatness
  • Anal expulsive: Reckless, careless, defiant, disorganized.
• STAGE 3 - PHALLIC

  • in 3-6 year olds
  • genitals
  • Oedipus complex (in boys only according to Freud) castration anxiety
  • Electra complex (in girls only, later developed by Carl Jung)
• STAGE 4 - LATENCY

  • in 6-11 year olds
  • dormant sexual feelings
  • People do not tend to fixate at this stage, but if they do, they tend to be extremely sexually unfulfilled.
• STAGE 5 - GENITAL

  • in ages 11+
  • sexual interests mature
  • Frigidity, impotence, unsatisfactory relationships
• When the id, ego, and superego are imbalanced it causes people to commit crimes. Therefore, in regards to criminology the psychoanalytic theory suggests that every day occurrences are not the cause of the problem just simply triggers of underlying problems that has caused the imbalance of the id, ego and superego. The root to these problems is hid in the unconscious and must be brought to the conscious by psychoanalysis therapy.
• Ego defense mechanisms

  • repression: burying an unpleasant thought desire in the unconscious.
  • displacement: emotions are directed away from their source / target towards other things
  • denial: a threatening thought is ignored or treated as untrue
• A WEAK SUPEREGO

  • individual will feel less guilt about committing criminal activities and hurting others.
  • Less inhibition about acting on selfish, aggressive urges.
• A HARSH SUPEREGO

  • creates deep-seated feelings of guilt in individuals who crave punishment as a release from the feelings.
  • may engage in compulsive re-offending in order to be punished
  • they commit crime to be caught.
• A DEVIANT SUPEREGO

  • an individual is successfully socialised but into deviant morals.
  • a son may have a good relationship with his criminal father so internalises his criminal values.
  • his superego won’t make him feel guilt for criminal acts.