Sigmund Freud 's Psychodynamic Theory

The Psychodynamic Model, developed by Sigmund Freud, views the cause of mental disorders as the result of childhood trauma, anxieties, and unconscious conflicts. According to Freud, human behavior tends to express instinctual drives that function at the unconscious level. These instinctual drives can be afflicted with sexual or aggressive impulses and any threatening experiences that we block from our consciousness which results in emotional symptoms.

The psychodynamic theory would explain an individual’s personality in terms of conscious and unconscious forces, such as unconscious desires and beliefs. In the early 20th century, Sigmund Freud proposed the psychodynamic theory consists of the id (accountable for instincts and pleasure-seeking), the superego (attempts to submit to the rules of parents and society), and the ego (which facilitates between the id and superego according to the stresses of reality) (Cherry, n.d.). Psychodynamic theories believe childhood experiences shape a person’s personality.

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

In the four major theories of personality one of these theories is psychodynamic. Psychodynamic personality theory focuses on the role of the unconscious mind in the development of personality. In Freud’s study, one of the advantages that prove to be present in psychodynamic theory is its ability to recognize there is subconscious and how it has impact on one’s life. As well, it brought the importance that childhood experiences have an effect on an individual’s life. For example, many of Freud’s patients proved this case when discussing the effects of being sexually abused as a child altered their way of living. However, one of the disadvantages of this theory would be its claim that human behavior is pre-determined and individuals do not have free will. For instance, the psychosexual stages that Freud claim that lead to the end result personality of an individual.

The concept of psychological evaluation covers a range of techniques and theories that have evolved and developed throughout history. Understanding and comparing different theories to explain behaviour is important to further understand the behaviours of humans, how these behaviours are explained by psychologists and how these theories have changed over time and compare to each other. Psychodynamic theory, developed first by Sigmund Freud, attempts to explain human behaviour in relation to subconscious processes outside of the individuals awareness, that have their origins in childhood experiences (Deal, Kathleen Holtz, Psychodynamic Theory, Advances in Social Work8.1 (2007): 184-195.). Freud developed Drive Theory, founded on the belief that

Sigmund Freud played a key role in the development of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic therapy. The theory of personality development is primarily based on the first six years of life because those times are the most significant in the psychological development of personality. The psychoanalytic theory focuses on the three different levels of awareness such as the preconscious, the conscious, and the unconscious mind and how they all motivate our behavior (Tan, n.d.)

Sigmund Freud’s psychodynamic theory focuses on our mental issues and behavior. He said that the origin of these problems can stem from beyond our consciousness, that our subconscious mind may not be aware of. Freud believed that the psyche was composed of three parts, the Id, the Ego, and the Superego. The Id represents our impetuous, feral desires that doesn’t focus on what’s acceptable or reasonable.

Psychodynamic Approach was first established by Freud in the 1880’s (Reeves 2013). It can be defined as a therapy that distinguishes individuals based upon the collaboration of initiatives and influences within the person, predominantly unconscious, and amongst the diverse forms of their personality (Hough 1994). Hence the counsellor’s aim is to support the client in bringing their unconscious mind into consciousness.

Psychoanalysis describes searching the subconscious mind to find the origin of all thoughts, behaviors, and desires. Authors of many notable works of literature have used Sigmund Freud and his psychoanalytical approach to further analyze their character 's inner thoughts and desires, and to give reasons for their faults and flaws. People tend to repress their shameful desires in the present, because they cause dissonance and because it makes them feel uncomfortable. Freud believed conflicts occur due to one’s repressed desires, which cause inconsistencies in the id, ego, and superego. The id describes the part of one’s unconscious personality which contains the primitive impulses, thrives off of the pleasure principle, and aids in helping people achieve their basic needs. The id serves as a part of one’s deep subconscious and exists as an inaccessible part of one’s personality, which one cannot control Contrary to the id, the superego describes the conscious part of human personality, which contains the morals and values of the society and tries to restrain one from engaging in behaviors that go against those values. Between the id and superego lies the ego, the mediator of “instinctual pleasure and societal authority” (Baym 210). The ego determines which desires to satisfy. When in harmony, the three create a stable and healthy personality, but when one offsets others and disobeys commands, guilt and shame occur. In the psychological romantic novel, The Scarlet Letter,

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist best known for developing the theories and techniques of psychoanalysis. His theories on child sexuality, libido and the ego, are among other topics that, were some of the most influential academic concepts of the 20th century. In 1905 he proposed that psychological development in childhood takes place in a series of fixed psychosexual stages: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. These are called psychosexual stages because each stage represents the fixation of a different area of the body. As a person grows physically certain areas of their body become important as sources of potential frustration, pleasure or both. Freud believed that life was based on pleasure and tension, and all tension was

Sigmund Freud was the father of psychoanalysis and it was his belief that by considering a client’s dreams and memories, he could gather essential information from the client’s unconscious mind to assist him in supporting his finding and assist the client in therapeutic process (Corey, 2009). This would then lead Freud in defining the internal inconsistency within the client that produced the psychological crisis (Corey, 2009). Freud often took risk in his therapeutic practice and was not disheartened by the professional separation his experienced from his colleagues (Norcross & Prochaska, 2014). Often he questioned his own theoretic ventures and even studied his family of origin to support his research (Norcross & Prochaska, 2014).

One of Freud’s greatest contribution was his theory that the human psyche has multiple levels of consciousness structured into three parts, the id, ego, and superego (Van Der hart & Horst, 1986). Ranking amongst the most influential psychoanalytic theories of the aetiology of DID is Kelly and Kodman’s, (1993) ego state theory, which proposes that the psyche of an individual with DID comprises of multiple conflicts between the incompatible ego states that represents themselves as separate individuals. According to Kelly and Kodman (1993) within both the normal and the abnormal individual the mind is polypsych with multiple psychological systems and processes existing synchrony with one another. The theory argues that the distribution of personalities lies on a continuum ranging from normal adaptive differentiation at one end to pathological maladaptive dissociation at the other (Kelley & Kodman, 1987, Watkins, 1993).

“Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist best known for developing the theories and techniques of psychoanalysis.” Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis, a method through which an analyst unpacks unconscious conflicts based on the free associations, dreams, and fantasies of the patient.” He is most popular for his theories on child sexuality, libido, and the ego. (Sigmund Freud Biography) He believed that traumatic things that happened in people’s childhoods influenced their behavior and personality as they got older. He believed that traumatic events that happened in childhood had been forgotten and hidden from conscious. He treated his patients by getting them to recall the experience and bring it to consciousness.

For some reason I have been having difficulty grasping this chapter. I hope this assignment will help me pick something up and will also answer some questions I have about Freud. Immediately I went to the websites that offer more information about Freud and the psychodynamic perspective. I would like a better understanding of why everything is so heavily linked to sex and the subconscious or unconscious mind? What made Freud propose the belief that small children desire their parents? Did Freud himself experience these feelings or thoughts?

It is difficult to summarize psychodynamic theory without a brief discussion of Freud. Sigmund Freud is the father of psychoanalysis, the father of psychodynamic theory, and in effect the father of modern psychotherapy. Freud's notions retain quite a bit of popularity, especially his ideas that things are not what they seem on the surface. Because of his understanding of the mind and behavior, Freud considered that overt behaviors were not always self-explanatory (or perhaps "not often explanatory" would be the better term). Instead, these overt or manifest behaviors represent some hidden motive. Sigmund Freud was trained as a neurologist and specialized in the treatment of nervous disorders. His early training involved using hypnosis with the French neurologist Jean Charcot in the treatment of hysteria, the presentation of baffling physical symptoms (mostly in young women) that appeared to have no physical origin (Hall, Lindzey, & Campbell, 1998). Freud also partnered with the Viennese physician Josef Breuer who practiced a revolutionary "talking cure" to reduce patients' symptoms by talking with them about how they felt as well as using hypnosis to remove emotional barriers to their feelings. He eventually abandoned the use of hypnosis in favor of a process he termed "free association" in which he had patients talk about what was on their minds without censoring their train of thought. This led Freud to develop his theory of the human mind as a complex system that is