Freuds psychoanalysis

• Psychodynamic theories


  Describe how an individual's personality contains forces in the form of urges, conflicts and feelings that cause us to act in the way that we do
• Criminal behaviour


  Results from unresolved conflicts between the three parts of the personality
• Psychoanalysis


  • Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
  • Examining early childhood experiences to understand human behaviour
  • Personality explained in terms of conscious and unconscious forces, such as unconscious desires and beliefs
• Unconscious


  The parts of the mind that can't be seen, which Freud was interested in
• Tripartite theory of personality


  Three elements of the human personality identified by Freud
• ID


  • The instinctive animal part of the mind, located in the unconscious
  • Responsible for biological urges such as the need for sex, food and sleep
  • Governed by the 'pleasure principle' - the blind desire to satisfy its urges at whatever cost
• EGO


  • Its role is to try to strike a balance between the conflicting demands of the id and the superego
  • Driven by the reality principle - learns from experience that actions have consequences in the real world
• SUPEREGO


  • The place in an individual's mind where the conscience and moral code are located
  • Develops from the age of about 3 when a child becomes aware that other people have feelings and it can't always have its own way
  • Driven by the 'morally principle' and internalises a sense of conscience passed on by parents
• A weakly developed superego


  The individual will feel less guilt about anti-social actions and less inhibition about acting on the id's selfish and aggressive urges
• An overly harsh superego


  Creates deep-seated guilt feelings in the individual, which suppresses the id to such an extent that it 'acts out' resulting in criminal behaviour
• A deviant superego


  The child is successfully socialised, but into a deviant moral code, so the superego would not inflict guilt feelings on him/her for contemplating criminal acts