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Sigmund Freud's 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle'

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In 1920 Sigmund Freud described the id, ego and superego in his essay “Beyond the Pleasure Principle.” He introduced the idea of defence mechanisms, which we humans use to suppress anxiety created when we feel we cannot do what we want and still be rational. While Freud was the first to describe the concept of these mechanisms, it was one of his colleagues who identified one defence mechanism in particular a few years earlier. In 1908, Ernest Jones wrote the article “Rationalization in Every-Day Life”. In his article, he stated that “Everyone feels that as a rational creature he must be able to give a connected, logical, and continuous account of himself, his conduct, and opinions, and all his mental processes are unconsciously manipulated and revised to that end.” https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/rationalization_in_decision_making American psychologist Abraham Maslow conducted research to decode the factors that motivate human behaviour and came to five categories of needs. Based on this classification, Maslow made three suggestions to explain human motivation. First, people are constantly trying to better meet their needs and they want more and more, based on what they have each time. The degree of satisfaction of needs changes and the effort to satisfy them does not stop as long as they live. …show more content…

On the one hand, there is a tendency to explore, treat, experience, choose and enjoy. It is a trend that consists of a group of forces that pushes us forward, towards the completion of our self and the full operation of all our abilities. On the other hand, there is the power of the unsatisfied needs of our defence “system” against fear, pain, loss, etc. which makes people regress, fear to move forward, grow, risk, fear independence and freedom. For this reason, development is a process of free choice that we face every moment of our life. That means that our will determines our

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