2.2.2.3 - Freud (1895)

• Freud examined early childhood experience and how it influences later life
• Freud argued that criminality is linked to guilt feelings
• Freud said that criminality came from oedipal and Electra complexes
• Freud says that because children feel internal guilt about their sexual desires, they seek out criminal behaviour to justify the guilt in other ways
• Psychoanalysis was used by the French used it to treat mental illness
• Freud believed that personalities arise because of attempts to resolve conflicts between the id and the superego
• Superego

  Conscience and morality
• Ego


  Rational, sensible, and control
• Id


  Selfish, animalistic urges
• The id is located in the unconscious
• The id contains powerful selfish and pleasure seeking needs and drives
• The id powers the drive for food and sleep
• The id is governed by the pleasure principle
• The id drives to achieve pleasure at any cost
• The id can cause antisocial and criminal behaviour
• Superego leads the morals and determines what is right and what is wrong
• The ego is the awareness that gratification of impulses is delayed to accommodate the demands of the real world
• The ego controls the id from gratifying it's desires in socially inappropriate ways
• Ego is the mediator between the id and the superego
• Antisocial behaviour is caused by an abnormal relationship with one's parents during early socialisation
• Examples of abnormal relationships with one's parents are neglect or lax/strict parenting
• Freud's theory need balance between all three parts of the mind to be a non-criminal
• Freud argues that an unresolved conflict between the id and the superego in early stages leads to criminality later in life
• The id dominates in a child's early life as they haven't learn social values or socially acceptable ways to gratify their desires
• If the id continues to dominate into one's adult life, it can lead to criminality because of impulses and selfish desires
• Research supports that most criminals come from unstable homes
• Freud argued that children need to be within a stable home to make the transition from id dominated to ego dominated