PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY

UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

Submitted by: DIANE PATRICIA B. MATANGUIHAN

Submitted to: MS. MARCELINA ARCILLA

HANDOUT#1 PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY

Sigmund Freud (1856 to 1939) was the founding father of psychoanalysis, a method for
treating mental illness and a theory which explains human behaviour. Freud believed
that events in our childhood have a great influence on our adult lives, shaping our
personality. He believed that people could be cured by making conscious
their unconscious thoughts and motivations.

Personality – An individual’s unique and consistent pattern of thinking, feeling and

behaving.

Personality Theory - Attempt to describe and explain how people are similar, how their
different and uniqueness.

Psychodynamic Perspective:

Conscious Mind – All the thoughts, feelings and sensations that you are aware of at this
moment.

Preconscious Mind – Holds thoughts and memories not in one’s current awareness but
can easily be retrieved.

Unconscious Mind – A region of mind that includes unacceptable thoughts, wishes,

feelings and memories.

Example of mental illness: Anxiety and depression

Various Techniques used by psychoanalyst

Rorschach Ink Blots- is known as a projective test as the patient 'projects' information
from their unconscious mind to interpret the ink blot.

Parapraxes/Freudian Slip - unconscious thoughts and feelings can transfer to the

conscious mind in the form of parapraxes, popularly known as Freudian slips or slips of
the tongue. We reveal what is really on our mind by saying something we didn't mean
to. Freud believed that slips of the tongue provided an insight into the unconscious mind
and that there were no accidents, every behavior (including slips of the tongue) was
significant (i.e., all behavior is determined).

Free Association - in which a patient talks of whatever comes into their mind On the
other hand, the presence of resistance (e.g., an excessively long pause) often provides
a strong clue that the client is getting close to some important repressed idea in his or
her thinking, and that further probing by the therapist is called for.
Dream Analysis - analysis of dreams is "the royal road to the unconscious." He argued
that the conscious mind is like a censor, but it is less vigilant when we are asleep. As a
result, we need to distinguish between the manifest content and the latent content of a
dream. The former is what we actually remember. The latter is what it really means.
Freud believed that very often the real meaning of a dream had a sexual significance
and in his theory of sexual symbolism he speculates on the underlying meaning of
common dream themes.

Clinical Applications - is an example of a global therapy which has the aim of helping
clients to bring about a major change in their whole perspective on life. Global therapies
stand in contrast to approaches which focus mainly on a reduction of symptoms, such
as cognitive and behavioural approaches, so-called problem-based therapies.

Freud’s (3) Personality Theory (Tripartite/Triumvirate)

ID- is the most unknown of the three but consists of a mass of wild, blind instincts that
does not have direction. Freud says that it is “a chaos, a cauldron of seething
excitement.” It is the raw, savage part of personality, it has no logical sense of time,
values and it cannot distinguish between good and evil. The most important instinct in
the id is the libido.

Libido is defined by Freud as the bodily and mental aspects of sex instinct. It is the
mental desire and longing for sexual relations.

EGO- it is considered a part of the id but a modification, it is the realistic portion of

personality by virtue of its nearness to the external world. The ego dethrones the
pleasure principles of the id and makes the reality principle prevail. Chaplin and Krawiec
(1979) explain that the ego is the logical, ordered aspect of personality. It possesses the
organization, critical and synthesizing abilities to make a “lif of reason despite the
fundamentally animalistic nature of a man.”

SUPEREGO- regarded as the conscience of man. Freud believes that the moral and
judicial aspects of the superego mainly from internalization of parental restrictions,
prohibitions and customs throws the process of identification. For this reason, the child’s
superego is modelled on his parent’s superego not on his ego.

Id wants to press its carnal, savaged desires but the superego thrusts its moralistic
pressures all on the ego. Due to the demands of the id, that the ego cannot satisfy, the
latter experiences anxieties. When on the other hand it satisfies the id, the superego
punishes the ego by inflicting on it sense of guilt and inferiority.

Id is considered the biological component of personality, ego the psychological and

superego the social.
Defense Mechanism - Unconscious mental processes employed by the ego to reduce
anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.

Repression- Puts anxiety, producing thought, feelings and memories into the
unconscious mind. The basis for all other defense mechanism.

Denial - Lets an anxious person refuse to admit that something unpleasant is happening

Regression- Allows an anxious person to retreat to a more comfortable, infantile stage

of life

Reaction Formation - Replace an unacceptable wish with its opposite

Projection - Reducing anxiety by attributing unacceptable impulses or problems about

yourself to someone else

Rationalization - Displaces real, anxiety-provoking explanation with more comforting

justifications for one’s action

Displacement - Shifts an unacceptable impulse toward a more acceptable or less

threatening object or person

Sublimation - A form of displacement in which sexual urges are channeled into

nonsexual activities that are valued by society.

Undoing - Unconsciously neutralizing an anxiety causing action by doing a second

action that undoes the first.