Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory
In Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, he believed that human personality is complex and involves more than one component. These components include the id, ego, and superego. All these components work together to influence the personality of an individual. In this essay, I am going to look at the three of them, the five stages of the theory, its application, and what would have been added to make the theory more applicable.
The Id is the only element of personality that is seen right from birth. This component is exclusively unconscious. The id is compelled by the pleasure principle which struggles for immediate satisfaction of all desires, needs, and wants. For instance, an increase in thirst or hunger should produce an attempt to drink or eat. The ego component deals with reality and is a development of the id which makes sure that impulses of the id are expressed in a manner that is acceptable in the real world. It functions in both the conscious, preconscious as well as the unconscious mind. For example, if you are stuck in a meeting and are feeling so hungry, the id compels to go and eat but the ego guides you to wait till the meeting is over. The superego component holds all ideals and standards that we acquire from the society and the parents which is our sense of what is wrong and right. It is present in both the conscious, the preconscious as well as the unconscious. For example, it is against the norm of society for a lady to be married by her father.
The id includes both primitive and instinctive components. If the desires, needs, and wants of the id are not fulfilled, they result in anxiety or tension. Human beings tend to escape or avoid anxiety by developing defense mechanisms. the mind responds to anxiety in two ways. First, the efforts of solving a problem are increased, and second, the defense mechanisms are activated. These are the tactics applied by the ego and superego. All defense mechanisms can distort, falsify, or transform reality in some way and also operate unconsciously. When the perceived reality is changed, anxiety lessens thus reducing the psychological tension that the individual was feeling. For example, when one is hungry and there is nothing that they can eat immediately, their mindset adapts to the reality that they have to take time and cook thus lessening the anxiety of hunger till the food is ready.
There are several types of defense mechanisms which are as follows, Denial, projection, reaction formation, intellectualization, sublimating, and repression. Denial involves denying yourself in conscious thought of something that has happened. For example, a student who scores a “D” in an exam and automatically assumes that the professor made a mistake during grading. Projection involves seeing the negative qualities that you have denied yourself in another person. For instance, one might assume that the person you hate, hates you in return. Reaction formation occurs when you express the opposite of the unaccepted emotion. For example, laughing over an issue that you are supposed to cry about. Intellectualization is when you rationally emphasize for the sake of avoiding the unacceptable emotion. For instance, when a loved one is dying one of a disease one may emphasize finding the solution to help them forget. Sublimating involves shifting the original focus of satisfaction to a higher goal and repression involves forcefully withholding the feeling and trying to forget it.
Every child grows through different stages and erogenous zones. The stages include oral, anal, phallic, latent, and genital. In the oral stage, the erogenous zone is the mouth. At this stage, the human source of pleasure is placed in the mouth for instance through sucking fingers and breastfeeding. At the anal stage, the erogenous zone is the anus and bladder. At this stage, the pleasure is in pushing out not inserting for instance when pooping. At the phallic stage, the erogenous zone is the genitals. It is at this level that children begin to note the difference between males and females. Freud developed the Oedipus complex at this level where a boy named killed his father to marry his mother. This was so because boys are lust over their mothers at this level and are anxious that their penis may be removed if caught. At the latent stage, there is no erogenous zone since the sexual feelings are inactive. At the genital stage, the erogenous zone is the genitals. It begins at puberty and it is where people begin to fall into love relationships.
Growth in the erogenous zones is progressive. If one fails to progress from one level, then they experience psychopathology-fixation as well as regression. A person may be stuck at the oral stage for example such that you find them sucking fingers even at puberty. Regression on the other hand means going back to a stage that one had already bypassed. For example, a child who should be at the anal stage may want to go back to the oral stage when another child is born. Fixation and regression are conflicts that can be solved through interventions, free analysis, working with transference, interpretation, and dream analysis.
Freud’s theory is applicable even in today’s growth but it is not as relevant as it was during his days. This is because the theory forms a reference point on what to expect during the growth and development of an individual. One of the problems of his theories is that they lack scientific evidence to support them. For instance, there is no scientific evidence to prove that boys hate their fathers and lust over their mothers as in the Oedipus complex. In his position, I would have provided enough evidence to back my claims to keep the theory relevant even at the centuries to come.
In a nutshell, through the components of human personality and the stages of growth, we get a rough idea of how human growth occurs. Humans tend to develop defense mechanisms to deal with anxiety. These stages may not be progressive and thus one falls into fixation or regression but the good thing is that there is a treatment for this.