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Sigmund Freud's Theory On The Id, Ego, And Superego

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Sigmund Freud, also known as the founder of psychoanalysis, has introduced his theory on the id, ego, and superego to the psychology world. He came up with three different component of personality: the id, ego, and superego. Each personality has a different function, and they develop into a person at different age.

According to Freud, the id is the most primitive part of the human personality, and it is developed during infancy, which means the id is already present in the new-born infant ( Wierzbicki, 1999). Freud believed that even the infant have sex drives. At birth, the infant is already completely influenced by the unconsciousness, which seek for the basic biological drives, for example, hunger, thirst and high sex drive ( Smith, Hoeksema, Fredrickson, and Loftus, 2003). The basic biological drives are very …show more content…

According to Freud, every individual will undergo different stages in the developmental of personality within the first 5 years of life (Smith, Hoeksema, Fredrickson, and Loftus, 2003). According to Weiten(2007), Freud explains that the sexual urges in a child will divert from one stage to another stage. At different stages in psychosexual development, the pleasurable feelings will be focused at different area of the body which is important, and become the source of conflict. When someone fail to solve a conflict completely, he or she will result in fixation (Ciccarelli and White, 2014). In short, for each psychosexual stages, challenges has to be faced, and failure to handle this challenges carefully will lead to fixation. Fixation is known as a failure for someone to proceed from one developmental stage to the next stage. This is due to excessive gratification or frustration for a particular need at a particular stage. Fixation which is experienced during childhood will relatively affect the same person when he or she becomes an adult (Weiten,

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People who can kill animals or people, they do not feel blame and fear of punishment. Kuklinski was raised in a family without love and respect that impact on his personality in the childhood. Sigmund Freud claimed that earlier childhood experiences affected personality development. Freud emphasizes three theory of personality, such as id, ego and superego, which established at the earlier childhood. The main point on these is about superego because superego develops as a preschool- age child learns the rules, customs, and expectations of society.

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Freud’s theory breaks the psyche up into 3 elements: the id, superego, and ego. The id is said to be the most powerful part, and solely unconscious. It controls our basic drives and is demanding and has no regard for morality, rules, or order. The superego is the smallest element of the psyche and deals with ethics and provides standards for the other elements of personality to abide by. Lastly, the ego is the “middle-man” between the id and the superego, as they tend to conflict.

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Obsessions can be defined as reoccurring negative thoughts and/or urges meanwhile compulsions are repetitive behaviors that may become ritualistic in order to cope with the obsessions. Common examples of obsessions are fear of contamination, aggressive thoughts, thinking of violent images, and constantly feeling doubt. Meanwhile, common compulsions are frequently washing hands, repeating words or phrases, arranging items, and counting. Adult OCD and pediatric OCD differ due to the fact that children usually “lack insight into the unreasonable nature of their obsessions” (Chowdhury and Marsden 42). In other words, they are unaware of what may be causing their obsessions.

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One of Freud’s theories is that the “Id – Ego combination dominates a person’s behavior until social awareness leads to the emergence of the superego, which recognizes that

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Sigmund Freud’s ego theory describes the id as the seat of our impulses, a desire so strong that it must be satisfied. In the novel “Lord of the Flies,” Jack resembles the id ego in a variety of ways. Throughout the story, Jack becomes more and more interested in hunting, to the point where he needs to hunt. He becomes more focused on killing and hurting and less focused on the idea of survival; he wants to be at the top of the chain. He kills because he wants to and is able to, not because he has to.

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Sigmund Freud and his theories on childhood development were extremely popular and widely accepted all the way up until the 1960s (Felluga). Freud put great emphasis on the impact early childhood development had on becoming a well-adjusted adult. He claims, “The structure of the psyche receives its final form during childhood, specifically at the time of the Oedipus complex” (U. of California). This complex is essential in identifying with either the mother or father, in order to establish sexual orientation (Felluga). During this stage, from ages 4-7, the child finds ways to deal with separation anxiety, and it is also the time that the ego fully matures into the superego: “an internalization of the parental function that eventually manifested itself in your conscience” (Cherry).

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Theory According to Vito and Maahs (2011), Psychodynamic Theory is A view that explains personality in terms of conscious and unconscious forces, such as unconscious desires and beliefs. Sigmund Freud proposed a psychodynamic theory according to which personality consists of the id (responsible for instincts and pleasure-seeking), the superego (which attempts to obey the rules of parents and society), and the ego (which mediates between them according to the demands of reality) (p.113). Homicide and psychodynamics come together because people act according to their mental state.

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The Id, Ego and Superego make complete sense to any person who might be interests in learning about the Psyche. Freud’s use of the psychoanalytic theory is relevant when explaining my current behaviour in regards to my past experiences that have occurred throughout my lifetime. Freud’s theory does apply to my own life as he made his theory a way to help understand and focus on the behavioural problems of the human being, and to resolve them in a way that forces me to accept my own destructive

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Psychoanalysis was first introduced by Sigmund Freud and is now known as classical psychoanalysis. The theory, as defined by Sigmund Freud, is the dynamic between underlying forces that determine behavior and personality. He stressed the importance of human sexuality, childhood experiences, and the unconscious processes. However, his theory was seen as misogynistic and narrow focused. Consequently, classical psychoanalysis was criticized and rejected by many scholars.

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Sigmund Freud formed the basis of psychoanalytic theories which are also known as the Freudian theories or psychodynamic theories. One of the theories that he proposed was the theories on instincts which are the life and death instinct. The life instinct is also known as the libido, which is the sexual energy that motivates us to seek pleasure while the death instinct is that human developed an unconscious desire to die which

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This is the stage of object permanence. Toddlers learn how to grasp at objects. Piaget used his daughter and

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Freud argues that the unconscious molds the personality as it accommodates the id, the ego, and superego (Freud, 1962). Essentially, the id is primitive and is widely believed to already exist at the time of birth. It acts on the pleasure principle, which thrives on hedonism and abstains from pain. However, the id is detached from reality so it can only obtain gratification indirectly such as through reflex actions and mental images (Morris & Maisto, 2013).

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Freud also drove a strong movement that sex drive is the most important motivating force. “He went on to identify that at times in our lives we find different areas on our bodies pleasurable and today these are known as erogenous zones. These ideas mixed together to form Freud’s Psychosexual Stage Theory which is still taught in textbooks today”. This theory consisted of five different stages. The first is the oral stage, in it a newborns to eighteen month old infants find pleasure from the mouth, specifically, sucking.

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He describes this development in a series of five fixed psychosexual stages. In each stage, the child’s energy or libido is focused on a different parts of the body, also known as an erogenous zone. The five development stages are Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency and Genital. The first stage being the Oral stage (birth to 18 months), main focus is its gratification. For example, sucking and eating.

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If the child is fulfilled with these needs, the child develops trust. Stage 2: (1 to 3 years) Freud called this stage as Anal Stage of development. In this stage, children gain sense of mastery by controlling erogenous zone or in other word it is anal region. Children who are succeeded in this stage are capable and productive.

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