Sigmund Freud: An Overview
Sigmund Freud is by far the world's most renown psychologist. His work has significantly influenced Western culture. As a child, long before he entered university, Freud was considered independent and brilliant. An avid reader and learner with a prodigious mind, Freud ran up a bookstore debt beyond his means and was known to take his meals alone in his room so that he was not distracted from his studies. It was after medical school, when Freud was specializing in nervous disorders, that Freud's influence began. Facing patients whose disorders made no sense neurologically, Freud began his search for the cause of these disorders. This search would eventually lead Freud's mind in a direction that was destined to change human self-understanding.
Id, Ego, and Superego: An Iceberg Analogy
The id contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification. Ego is the largely conscious, “executive” part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the ids desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain. Superego is the part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations.
The iceberg analogy is used to illustrate Freud’s idea that the mind is mostly hidden beneath the conscious surface. The id is totally unconscious, but ego and superego operate both consciously and unconsciously. Unlike the parts of a frozen iceberg, id, ego, and superego do indeed interact with each other.
The iceberg analogy is used to illustrate Freud’s idea that the mind is mostly hidden beneath the conscious surface. The id is totally unconscious, but ego and superego operate both consciously and unconsciously. Unlike the parts of a frozen iceberg, id, ego, and superego do indeed interact with each other.
Freud's Psychosexual Stages
Freud's psychosexual stages of development include the oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages, each with it's own unique age range and description. However, these stages are not definite age-range wise, because of the concept of fixation. If a person was to have too little or too much
gratification in one of the stages, a person could become fixated within that
stage. The person’s pleasure seeking energies in that stage would be fixated
and unchanging.
Defense Mechanisms
Defense mechanisms are tactics that reduce or redirect anxiety by distorting reality.
Repression reduces anxiety by banishing arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness. According to Freud, repression underlines all the other defense mechanisms. Freud said we repressed our childhood sexual feeling for our parents, but he did not believe that repression was complete. Instead, he said that those repressed urges seeped into dreams as symbols and slipped off the tongue.
Regression is when an individual is faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated. Facing the anxious first days of school, a child may regress to the oral stage.
Reaction formation is when the ego unconsciously switches the unacceptable impulses into their opposites. Thus, people may express feelings that are the opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings. En route to consciousness, the unacceptable proposition “I hate him” becomes “I love him.” Timidity becomes daring. Feelings of inadequacy become bravado.
Projection when people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others. Thus “He doesn't trust me” may be a projection of the actual feeling “I don’t trust myself” or “I don’t trust him.”
Rationalization offers self-justifying explanations in unconscious reasons for one’s actions. such as when habitual drinkers say they drink with their friends, therefore they are a social drinker rather than an alcoholic.
Repression reduces anxiety by banishing arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness. According to Freud, repression underlines all the other defense mechanisms. Freud said we repressed our childhood sexual feeling for our parents, but he did not believe that repression was complete. Instead, he said that those repressed urges seeped into dreams as symbols and slipped off the tongue.
Regression is when an individual is faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated. Facing the anxious first days of school, a child may regress to the oral stage.
Reaction formation is when the ego unconsciously switches the unacceptable impulses into their opposites. Thus, people may express feelings that are the opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings. En route to consciousness, the unacceptable proposition “I hate him” becomes “I love him.” Timidity becomes daring. Feelings of inadequacy become bravado.
Projection when people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others. Thus “He doesn't trust me” may be a projection of the actual feeling “I don’t trust myself” or “I don’t trust him.”
Rationalization offers self-justifying explanations in unconscious reasons for one’s actions. such as when habitual drinkers say they drink with their friends, therefore they are a social drinker rather than an alcoholic.
Projective Personality Tests
In order for a personality test to reflect the Freudian tradition, it would first have to be some sort of a road to the unconscious, tracking down remains from early childhood experiences. It would have to move beyond surface pretensions and reveal hidden conflicts and impulses. Because objective assessment tools such as agree-disagree and true-false questionnaires would only tap the conscious surface, they would prove inadequate. Projective personality tests, therefore, aim to provide a sort of "psychological X-ray." These tests would provide an ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics.
The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is a type of projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes. For example, if people are shown a daydreaming boy, those who imagine that he is thinking about an achievement are presumed to be projecting their own goals.
The most widely used test is the Rorschach inkblot test, which contains a set of 10 inkblots. This test, designed by Hermann Rorschach, seeks to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots. The Rorschach tests have been used in a variety of ways: some clinicians use to it reveal unconscious aspects of the test-taker's personality (perhaps by linking a negatively perceived inkblot to anger or aggressiveness); other clinicians use it as an icebreaker or to supplement other information. The figure to the left shows an example of the Rorschach inkblot test.
The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is a type of projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes. For example, if people are shown a daydreaming boy, those who imagine that he is thinking about an achievement are presumed to be projecting their own goals.
The most widely used test is the Rorschach inkblot test, which contains a set of 10 inkblots. This test, designed by Hermann Rorschach, seeks to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots. The Rorschach tests have been used in a variety of ways: some clinicians use to it reveal unconscious aspects of the test-taker's personality (perhaps by linking a negatively perceived inkblot to anger or aggressiveness); other clinicians use it as an icebreaker or to supplement other information. The figure to the left shows an example of the Rorschach inkblot test.