Personality Psychology : Social Relationships And Childhood Experiences

Personality is a concept that will continue to studied and improved upon. Theories of Sigmund Freud, Carl G. Jung, Alfred Adler, Karen Horney, Anna Freud, and Heinz Hartmann and several others have contributed significant ideas to the study of personality and have had impacts on our current approaches. The purpose of this paper is to compare two sources of the motivations concerning why people behave the way they do. Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic approach will be discussed and compared to the approach of neo-analyst Karen Horney. Karen Horney claimed that psychoanalysis is not the only way to resolve inner conflicts and she offered a uniquely feminist perspective for her time that disputed the Freudian theory of penis envy.

The unconscious mind houses the preconscious, a small section that houses material that is non-threatening, and easily brought to mind. But deeper in the unconscious mind are the instinctual drives, the wishes, desires, demands, and needs that are kept hidden from out conscious selves because of the conflicts and pain they would cause if they were brought to bear every day. Psychoanalytic personality theory tells us that the personality consists of three separate, but forever intermingling elements, id, ego, and superego. The id section of a personality is by far the largest, the only section that we are born with, and the section that contains the unconscious thoughts, it is raw, unorganized, and from the time of birth it tries to reduce tension caused by our primary drives. The ego, a section that develops soon after birth, balances the instinctual desires of the id and the realities of the outside world. Last of course is the superego, the final personality structure that is developed in childhood, and represent the rights and wrongs of society, contained within the superego is the conscience, the part of us that prevents us from behaving in a morally deplorable way and is responsible for guilt. Psychoanalytic personality theory is not without its virtues; Freud’s proposed five psychosexual stages – oral, anal, phallic-oedipal, latency and genital – are all supported in life.

Freud believed human behavior was not consciously controlled, and credited three parts in the mind to any psychological activity. These are called the unconscious, the preconscious and the conscious. Personality too was given three parts, the id, the super ego and the ego. Freud believed these parts in our mind have their individual parts to play in the way we go about life. He also stated the only way to work through conflicts that arise from our subconscious and unconscious mind is through dream analysis and psychoanalysis. Other key concepts in psychodynamic theory are the psychosexual stages of development, anxiety, defence mechanisms, and free association.

Freud’s theory of personality examined the interplay between the primitive, instinctual urges—the ‘id’; the practical and rational ‘ego’; and the morally attuned ‘superego’; ‘object relations’ refer to the "object" of an instinct”, which is “the agent through which the instinctual aim is achieved”—most often a person and, according to Freud, most often the mother (Ainsworth 1969, p. 1). The psychosexual development theory that Freud launched reduces our behaviour to mechanistic responses to an instinctive need for pleasure fueled by the ‘libido’ and barriers or distortions to the gratification of the libido at various delineated stages of development were responsible for later problems in life (Kail & Zolner 2012, p. 5). Erik Erikson later added depth to the approach by including more humanistic elements to Freud’s stages and including more periods of development (p.

His theory suggests that unconscious forces act to determine personality and behavior. In which is a part of the a person’s personality where they 're unaware “conscious awareness”, such as infantile wishes, desires, demands, and needs that are hidden because of their disturbing nature. He states that “the unconscious is responsible for a good part of our everyday behavior” (Robert 13). Freud would argue that personality is formed during childhood and that everyone’s personality is among three necessary structures of the human mind: the id, ego, and superego. According to Freud, children go through five stages the oral stage (0 to 18 months), anal stage (18 months to 3 years), phallic stage (3 to 6 years), latency stage (6 to puberty), genital stage (puberty to

The psychodynamic approach founded by Sigmund Freud was a lot of our behavior, is determined by unconscious thoughts, memories. Freud developed the first complete theory of mind and is the founder of a series of techniques called psychoanalysis. This aims to explore the unconscious mind by using techniques, such as free association, dream interpretation etc. and then and be used treat abnormal behavior. Psychodynamic psychology ignores the aspects of science and instead focuses on trying to get inside the head of individuals to make logic of their relationships, experiences and how they see the world. (McLeod, 2007). Freud’s theories

The first assumption of this approach is of the importance of the unconscious mind and motivation. Freud believed that much of what determines our behaviour is on a mental level that is hidden to us, and that there are three levels of consciousness:

Freud’s theory states that the human mind and behavior is governed by 3 parts and each part plays a significance in a

Freud created the Psychodynamic Approach to explain behaviour. Within it, he describes that there are 3 components of the human mind: The conscious, Pre-conscious and Unconscious. The conscious is the part of the mind which is in our awareness; it contains behaviours and desires which we are aware of. The pre-conscious is the part of the mind between the conscious and unconscious, it contains items such as memories and desires which we are not currently thinking about but can easily bring to conscious awareness. Lastly is the unconscious. This part of the mind is

Psychodynamic Andy’s lack of self-discipline, poor planning and anxious behavior can be explained by Freud’s analysis of personality development. Andy’s age would indicate that he is in the genital stage of psychosexual stages. The genital stage focuses on a maturation of sexual interest that is causing the inability to focus on day to day activities as well as prohibiting the conscious mind from exhibiting appropriate behavior when interacting with peers. The anxiety is a product of Andy’s trying to retain control of his sexual and aggressive impulses.

The psychoanalytic theory by Sigmund Freud has always been argued to be one of the most controversial theories in the school of psychology. Critics have questioned how relevant the perspective of Freud is due to the fact that it holds no scientific basis. Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality argues that human behavior is the result of the interactions among three component parts of the mind: the id, ego, and superego. This theory, known as Freud's structural theory of personality, places great emphasis on the role of unconscious psychological

Freud developed the psychoanalytic theory of personality development, which argued that personality is formed through internal conflicts among three fundamental structures of the human mind: the id, ego, and superego. According to this model of the psyche, the id is the set of uncoordinated trends; the super-ego plays the critical and moralizing role; and the ego is the organized, realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego (Wikipedia, 2017).

The psychoanalytic perspective, is the outlook that behavior and personality are effected by the conflict between one’s inner dreams n and expectation of society. Most of this conflict occurs in unconscious, which is outside the knowledge of an individual. Renowned psychologist, Freud established the psychoanalytic theory as an explanation for perplexed phenomena such as the meaning behind dreams, slips of the tongue, and behavioral reflex reactions to stressful situations. The unconscious is a primary focus in psychoanalytic theory due to its typical development in childhood and the ways in which it influences nearly every detail of an individual’s life. The unconscious mind also holds unvented memories and unexpressed urges that make their process into the conscious mind through a variety of different means. However, topographical theory of the mind states that conscious, preconscious, and unconscious serve as motivating forces in human behavior. Corsin & Wedding (2011) define the conscious as mental activity which individuals are fully aware of, preconscious as thoughts and feelings that could be easily brought to mind and unconscious as thoughts, feelings, and desires of which one is unaware of.

Psychoanalysis was the first formal theory of personality influenced by Sigmund Freud. Freud divided personality into three levels: the conscious, the preconscious and the unconscious. He later revised this notion and

At the age of 40 in 1896, Sigmund Freud introduced the world to a new term- psychoanalysis (Gay 1). Psychoanalysis is a method of treating patients with different nervous problems by involving them in dialogues which provide the physician with insight into the individual’s psyche. These dialogues provided the basis for Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, which “attempts to explain personality, motivation, and psychological disorders by focusing on the influence of early childhood experiences, on unconscious motives and conflicts, and on the methods people use to cope with their sexual and aggressive urges” (Weiten 363). Part of this theory involves the structure of the mind. This is a concept that touches