AO1

• Behaviour is motivated by two basic hydraulic drives: Eros (life instinct) and Thanatos (death instinct)
• defence mechanisms

  repression: used by ego to keep disturbing memories out of the conscious mind

  displacement: an impulse may be redirected from it's original target onto a more acceptable one

  denial: existence of unpleasant internal or external realities is kept out of conscious awareness
• three parts of personality identified by Freud

  Id: present at birth, motivated by the pleasure principle, and demands gratification of its needs

  Ego: develops from 1-3 years, motivated by the reality principle, mediates the conflicts between the Id and Superego and uses defence mechanisms to achieve this

  Superego: develops from 3-5 years, motivated by morality principle which punishes the ego with guilt for wrongdoing
• the three parts of the mind identified by Freud

  Conscious: the pat we are aware of and can access without any effort which contains part of the ego

  Preconscious: we can't access without effort, containing the ego and some of the superego

  Unconscious: cannot be accessed without the help of a trained psychoanalyst, contains superego and id
• When there are unconscious conflicts between the id and superego, if it can't be resolved by the ego they create anxiety which is reduced by using defence mechanisms such as repression
• The Electra complex: during the phallic stage, a girl desires her father and realises she does not have a penis. This leads to the development of penis envy and desire to be a boy, resolved by the girl repressing her desire for her father and substituting the wish for a penis with the wish for a baby. Freud claimed that little girls blame their mothers for their 'castrated state', creating tension. However, these feelings are repressed in order to remove the tension, and instead a little girl identifies with her mother and internalises her mother’s gender identity, so that it becomes her own.
• During the genital stage of personality development, boys experience the Oedipus complex. At around age 3 or 4, the young boy begins to desire his mother and wants her complete attention. This means he sees his father as a rival and wishes he was dead. This then creates anxiety and the repressed fear that his father will castrate him. The complex is eventually resolved by the boy’s identification with his father. It is at this point that the superego is formed.
• oral stage

  Age - 0-1y

  Info - mouth (sucking, swallowing etc.)

  Consequences - smoking, biting nails, sarcastic, critical
• anal stage

  Age - 1-3y

  Info - withholding of expelling faeces

  Consequences - retentive (perfectionist, obsessive) or expulsive (thoughtless, messy)
• phallic stage

  Age - 3-5y

  Info - genitals, masturbation

  Consequences - personality (narcissistic, reckless, possible homosexual)
• latency stage

  Age - 5-puberty

  Info - sexual drives repressed

  Consequences - immaturity
• genital stage

  Age - puberty onwards

  Info - adult derives pleasure from masturbation and sex

  Consequences - difficulty forming heterosexual relationships
• There are three levels of the mind: conscious, preconscious and unconscious (the most important part).
• All children go through 5 psychosexual stages: Oral, Anal, Pallic, Latency and Genital.
• Mental illnesses can be treated by psychological rather than medical means using techniques such as dream analysis.
• The structure of personality is divided into three parts: Id (pleasure principle), Ego (reality principle) and Superego (morality principle).