Psychoanalytic Approaches to Personality :: Psychoanalysis Psychology Freud essays

The area of psychology with perhaps the most controversial history, ascribable to its completelacking of empirical evidence, psychoanalysis, has its origins in the teachings of SigmundFreud. depth psychology is a form of therapy developed by Freud in the early 1900s,involving burning examinations into ones childhood, thought to be the origins of mostpsychopathology which surfaced during adulthood. Ideas slightly the subconscious, whichsaw the human mind as being in never-ending internal conflict with itself, and theories that allactions are symbolic, for there are no accidents, were also major themes of thepsychoanalytic approach. Successful therapy was a long-term and high-priced process, whichmost people during that time, with the exception of the wealthy, could not afford.Sigmund Freuds main percentage to this new field of studying personality was in thearea of the understand the unconscious, an aspect of the mind to which, he claimed, wedid not have ready access code to, but was the source of our actions and behavior. Freud believedthe human mind was divided into three part the id, ego, and super-ego. The id is mans(generic meaning, referring to both sexes) instinctual, primitive, and hedonistic urges forpure pleasure, which the id was bent on experiencing, without regard to any consequences. The super-ego is mans senses of morality, first brought on by experiences with authoritativefigures and parents, which basically hold ideas of what is right and wrong, and is almost a unionize paradox to the id. The ego, which can be seen as the mediator between the id and thesuper-ego, takes into distinguish the activities of the external world, and attempts to invokesome balance among all three split of the mind, with failure resulting in neurosis of somekind.Freuds Lecture common chord provides, what I believe to be another important theory inunderstanding personality from this perspective, stemming from his notion of parapraxes, orunintentional acts tha t are truly unconsciously intentional. Such is the case with thefamiliar Freudian slip, where something is verbalise which is actually a distortion or paradox ofwhat is actually meant. This goes along with what are called symbolic acts, which areactions we take that, although we insist they have no meaning, or were accidental in nature,are actually intentional. For example, the act of forgetting is, fit to Freud, a kind ofintentional defense mechanism, that we unconsciously use to cramp memories, or put thingsout of our minds. Although much of Freuds work has been extremely criticized by many of his detractors,there are certain aspects of his theories which I rise quite important to the study of