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Freud's Conflict Between The Ego, Ego And Super-Ego

824 Words4 Pages
Freud’s image of man was somewhat distorted, believing man is an intellectual beast doomed for destruction; a man who is chained to his sexual impulses is deprived of his freedom of choice. As a result, a person’s behaviour is determined by the struggle of the human psyche - the id, ego and super-ego. Freud viewed man as a psychological prisoner of instinctual inheritance and childhood upbringing, and that thoughts and actions are determined by forces, shackled by primitive impulses operating in the unconscious that clash with internalised parental moral standards. Freud considered the conflict between the reality of the ego and the unconscious primitive id resulted always in the unconscious winning every time, and therefore a person is governed by their unconscious with no freedom of choice. He had a pessimistic outlook of man itself, focusing on stress, conflict, chaos and a diverse range of psychopathological illnesses due to the turmoil caused by the hidden forces of the psyche, mainly the unconscious. According to Freud, all behaviour is determined by the drives (urges) and moral rules in the personality (psyche), where there is little freedom of choice for the individual. Freud saw an individual’s development as practically complete by the age of six - which may account for his preoccupation with early childhood experiences and obsession with psychosexual stages of development, sexual drives and instincts. Freud seemed to believe that all tension was due to the
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