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Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis and one of the bestknown figures in psychology..
Freuds Major Theories:
Freuds theories were enormously influential, but subject to considerable criticism both
now and during his own life. However, his ideas have become interwoven into the fabric of
our culture, with terms such as "Freudian slip," "repression" and "denial" appearing
regularly in everyday language.

The Conscious and Unconscious Mind


The Id, Ego, and Superego
Life and Death Instincts
Psychosexual Development
Defense Mechanisms
What Is a Freudian Slip?

Psychoanalytic theory of the conscious and unconscious mind is often explained using an iceberg metaphor.
Conscious awareness is the tip of the iceberg, while the unconscious is represented by the ice hidden below
the surface of the water.
Image by historicair

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Psychodynamic Theory
Freud Theory
Conscious Mind
Jung Theory

Many of us have experienced what is commonly referred to as a Freudian slip. These


misstatements are believed to reveal underlying, unconscious thoughts or feelings.
Consider this example:
James has just started a new relationship with a woman he met at school. While talking to
her one afternoon, he accidentally calls her by his ex-girlfriend's name.
If you were in this situation, how would you explain this mistake? Many of us might blame
the slip on distraction or describe it as a simple accident. However, a psychoanalytic
theorist might tell you that this is much more than a random accident. The psychoanalytic
view holds that there are inner forces outside of your awareness that are directing your
behavior. For example, a psychoanalyst might say that James misspoke due to unresolved
feelings for his ex or perhaps because of misgivings about his new relationship.
The founder of psychoanalytic theory was Sigmund Freud. While his theories were
considered shocking at the time and continue to create debate and controversy, his work
had a profound influence on a number of disciplines, including psychology, sociology,
anthropology, literature, and art.
The term psychoanalysis is used to refer to many aspects of Freuds work and research,
including Freudian therapy and the research methodology he used to develop his theories.
Freud relied heavily upon his observations and case studies of his patients when he formed
his theory of personality development.
Before we can understand Freud's theory of personality, we must first understand his view
of how the mind is organized.
According to Freud, the mind can be divided into two main parts:
1.

The conscious mind includes everything that we are aware of. This is the aspect of
our mental processing that we can think and talk about rationally. A part of this
includes our memory, which is not always part of consciousness but can be retrieved
easily at any time and brought into our awareness. Freud called this ordinary memory
the preconscious.

2.

The unconscious mind is a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories


that outside of our conscious awareness. Most of the contents of the unconscious are
unacceptable or unpleasant, such as feelings of pain, anxiety, or conflict. According to
Freud, the unconscious continues to influence our behavior and experience, even
though we are unaware of these underlying influences.

Psychology
Psychodynamic Theory
Jung Theory
Personality
Freud Theory

According to Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality, personality is


composed of three elements. These three elements of personality--known as the id, the
ego and the superego--work together to create complex human behaviors.
The Id
The id is the only component of personality that is present from birth. This aspect of
personality is entirely unconscious and includes of the instinctive and primitive behaviors.
According to Freud, the id is the source of all psychic energy, making it the primary
component of personality.
The id is driven by the pleasure principle, which strives for immediate gratification of all
desires, wants, and needs. If these needs are not satisfied immediately, the result is a
state anxiety or tension. For example, an increase in hunger or thirst should produce an
immediate attempt to eat or drink. The id is very important early in life, because it ensures
that an infant's needs are met. If the infant is hungry or uncomfortable, he or she will cry
until the demands of the id are met.
However, immediately satisfying these needs is not always realistic or even possible. If we
were ruled entirely by the pleasure principle, we might find ourselves grabbing things we
want out of other people's hands to satisfy our own cravings. This sort of behavior would
be both disruptive and socially unacceptable. According to Freud, the id tries to resolve the
tension created by the pleasure principle through the primary process, which involves
forming a mental image of the desired object as a way of satisfying the need.
The Ego

The ego is the component of personality that is responsible for dealing with
reality. According to Freud, the ego develops from the id and ensures that the
impulses of the id can be expressed in a manner acceptable in the real world.
The ego functions in both the
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Freud Theory
Sigmund Freud
Instincts

Freuds theory of drives evolved throughout his life and work. He initially described a class
of drives known as the life instincts and believed that these drives were responsible for
much of behavior. Eventually, he came to believe that these life instincts alone could not
explain all human behavior. Freud determined that all instincts fall into one of two major
classes: the life instincts or the death instincts.

Life Instincts (Eros)


Sometimes referred to as sexual instincts, the life instincts are those that deal with basic
survival, pleasure, and reproduction. These instincts are important for sustaining the life of
the individual as well as the continuation of the species. While they are often called sexual
instincts, these drives also include such things as thirst, hunger, and pain avoidance. The
energy created by the life instincts is known as libido.
Behaviors commonly associated with the life instinct include love, cooperation, and other
prosocial actions.
Death Intincts (Thanatos)
Initially described in his book Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud proposed that the goal
of all life is death (1920). He noted that after people experience a traumatic event (such
as war), they often reenact the experience. He concluded that people hold an unconscious
desire to die, but that this wish is largely tempered by the life instincts.
In Freuds view, self-destructive behavior is an expression of the energy created by the
death instincts. When this energy is directed outward onto others, it is expressed as
aggression and violence.

What is Psychosexual Development?


According to Sigmund Freud, personality is mostly established by the age of five. Early
experiences play a large role in personality development and continue to influence
behavior later in life.
Freud's theory of psychosexual development is one of the best known, but also one of the
most controversial. Freud believed that personality develops through a series of childhood
stages during which the pleasure-seeking energies of the id become focused on certain
erogenous areas. This psychosexual energy, or libido, was described as the driving force
behind behavior.
If these psychosexual stages are completed successfully, the result is a healthy personality.
If certain issues are not resolved at the appropriate stage, fixation can occur. A fixation is a
persistent focus on an earlier psychosexual stage. Until this conflict is resolved, the
individual will remain "stuck" in this stage. For example, a person who is fixated at the oral
stage may be over-dependent on others and may seek oral stimulation through smoking,
drinking, or eating.

Defense Mechanisms and Ego Anxiety


You've probably heard people talk about "defense mechanisms," or ways that we protect
ourselves from things that we don't want to think about or deal with. The term got its start
in psychoanalytic therapy, but it has slowly worked its way into everyday language. Think
of the last time you referred to someone as being "in denial" or accused someone of
"rationalizing." Both of these examples refer to a type of defense mechanism.
In Sigmund Freud's topographical model of personality, the ego is the aspect of personality
that deals with reality. While doing this, the ego also has to cope with the conflicting
demands of the id and the superego. The id seeks to fulfill all wants, needs and impulses
while the superego tries to get the ego to act in an idealistic and moral manner.
What happens when the ego cannot deal with the demands of our desires, the constraints
of reality and our own moral standards? According to Freud, anxiety is an unpleasant
inner state that people seek to avoid. Anxiety acts as a signal to the ego that things are
not going right.
Freud identified three types of anxiety:
1.

Neurotic anxiety is the unconscious worry that we will lose control of the id's
urges, resulting in punishment for inappropriate behavior.

2.

Reality anxiety is fear of real-world events. The cause of this anxiety is usually
easily identified. For example, a person might fear receiving a dog bite when they are
near a menacing dog. The most common way of reducing this anxiety is to avoid the
threatening object.

3.

Moral anxiety involves a fear of violating our own moral principles.

In order to deal with this anxiety, Freud believed that defense mechanisms helped shield
the ego from the conflicts created by the id, superego and reality.
A Freudian slip
A Freudian slip is a verbal or memory mistake that is believed to be linked to the
unconscious mind. Common examples include an individual calling his or her spouse by an
ex's name, saying the wrong word or even misinterpreting a written or spoken word.
Discovered by Sigmund Freud, he described a variety of different types and examples of
Freudian slips in his 1901 book The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. According to Freud,
these errors reveal an unconscious thought, belief or wish.
"Two factors seem to play a part in bringing to consciousness the substitutive names: first,
the effort of attention, and second, and inner determinant which adheres to the psychic
material," Freud suggested in his book. "Besides the simple forgetting of proper names
there is another forgetting which is motivated by repression," Freud explained (1901).
According to Freud, unacceptable thoughts or beliefs are withheld from conscious
awareness, and these slip help reveal what is hidden in the unconscious.

The term is popularly used today in a humorous way when a person makes a mistake in
speech. In these situations, observers often suggest (in a comic way) that the mistake
reveals some type of hidden emotion on the part of the speaker.

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