Sigmund freud

• Humans


  • Born with innate, biologically based drives such as hunger, sex, and aggression
  • Early experiences shaped later functioning
• People


  • Driven by motives and emotional conflicts of which they are largely unaware
  • Shaped by their earliest experiences with the family
• Newborn


  Viewed as "seething cauldron", an inherently selfish creature driven by Instincts (inborn biological forces that motivate behavior)
• Strongly believed in unconscious motivation – the power of instincts and other inner forces to influence our behavior without out awareness
• Biological instincts provide unconscious motivation for actions
• Selfish and aggressive


  Negative view of human nature
• Id


  Pleasure principle, impulsive, irrational, selfish, seeks immediate gratification
• Ego


  • Reality principle, rational, finds realistic way to gratify instincts
  • Emerge during infancy when psychic energy is diverted from the id to energize cognitive processes
• Superego


  • Morality principle, individual's internalized moral standards
  • Develops from the ego as 3-6 years old internalize the moral standards and values of their parents
• Healthy Personality


  Balance of the id, ego, superego
• Psychological problems arise when the individual's supply of psychic energy is unevenly distributed among the id, ego, and superego
• Fixation


  Arrest in development that can show up in adult personality; libido remains tied to an earlier stage of development
• Oral Fixation


  • May grow up to become nail-biters or smokers
• Anal Fixation


  • May be obsessively clean, rigidly tied to schedules and routines, or defiantly messy
• Oral


  • Mouth
  • Experience anxiety and the need to defend against it if denied oral gratification by not being fed on demand or being weaned too early
  • Oral Fixation manifested in adults: alcoholic, smoking, overeating, Pica, nail biting, thumb sucking
• Anal


  • Anus
  • Toilet training era
  • Anal-Retentive: perfectionist, orderly, tidy
  • Anal-Expulsive: lack of self-control, messy, careless
• Phallic


  • Genitals
  • Youngsters develop an incestuous desire for the parent of the other sex and must defend against it
  • Oedipus Complex: loves his mother, fears that his father will retaliate by castrating him, and resolves the conflicts through identification with his father
  • Electra Complex: a girl having desire with her father, seeing her mother as a rival
  • Castration Anxiety: son believes his father knows about his desire for his mother and fears that his father will castrate him
  • Penis Envy: a girl wants a penis as she desires her father
• Latency


  Sexual urges sublimated into sports and hobbies
• Genitals


  • Physical sexual urges reawaken repressed needs
  • Direct sexual feelings towards others lead to sexual gratification
  • May have difficulty accepting their new sexuality, therefore, reexperiencing conflict towards their parents and distance themselves to defend against anxiety-producing feelings
• Personality formed from unconscious childhood conflicts between the inborn urges of the id and the requirements of civilized life
• Defense Mechanisms


  Ego adapts unconscious coping devices
• Repression


  • Unacceptable or unpleasant impulses are pushed back into the unconscious
  • A woman who experienced sexual harassment cannot recall what happened to her
• Regression


  • Behaving as if they were at an earlier stage of development
  • Your father throws a tantrum when he was left alone at home
• Displacement


  • The expression of an unwanted feeling or mere thought is redirected from a more threatening, powerful person to a weaker one
  • An employee shouted at his child after being scolded by his boss
• Rationalization


  • People distort reality in order to justify something that has happened
  • A swimming athlete who lost her competition took her loss as something she expected anyways and she did not want the trophy
• Denial


  • People refuse to accept or acknowledge an anxiety-producing piece of information
  • A widow never accepted that her husband died in an accident
• Projection


  • People attribute unwanted impulses and feelings to someone else
  • A woman fat-shamed another woman because she is insecure about her body
• Sublimation


  • People divert unwanted impulses into socially approved thoughts, feelings, or behaviors
  • An angry man jogged instead to cool down his anger
• Reaction-Formation


  • Unconscious impulses are expressed as their opposite in consciousness
  • A mother who unconsciously resent her child, acts lovingly consciously
• Personality is stage-oriented
• Personality is reactive