Psychodynamic Theory Of Personality Essay

The term personality refers to the combination of characteristics or qualities that forms an individual’s distinctive character, affecting their behaviour, thoughts and feelings. Many psychologists over the years have proposed theories that try to explain the origins of personality, but one of the most highly influential set of theories comes from the work of Sigmund Freud in the 20th century, who first proposed the theory of psychoanalysis. Collectively, these theories are known as psychodynamic theories and although many different psychodynamic theories exist, they all emphasize unconscious motives and desires, as well as the importance of childhood experiences in shaping personality. Freud’s main psychodynamic theories are the topographical model of mind, the structural model of mind, the defence mechanisms and the psychosexual stages.

Freud proposed that people have three levels of awareness/consciousness: the conscious mind, the preconscious mind and the unconscious mind. The conscious is the part of the mind that holds what you’re aware of and contains all the information that a person is paying attention to at any given time. You can talk about your conscious experience and you can think about it in a logical fashion. The preconscious is ordinary memory that contains feelings and information from the past that aren’t stored in the conscious, but they can be brought into consciousness without a problem. The unconscious is the largest part of the mind that contains thoughts, feelings, desires, and memories that the person is not aware of, but that influences every aspect of their day-to-day lives. Freud believed that the majority of what we experience in our lives such as our emotions, beliefs, feelings, impulses and actions, is buried in our unconscious, and that we are only aware of a very small part of what makes up our