View of Human Nature
Freud placed great emphasis on the influence of biology and of early childhood experiences. Freud believed that people go through predictable stages of development and must learn to find a balance between their strong sexual desires and their need to behave in a socially acceptable way. Freud believed that individuals could benefit from psychotherapy to gain insight, lessen the power of the unconscious, and free ourselves to make conscious, healthy decisions.
Personality Structure
According to Freud, the personality is made up of three structures: the id, the ego, and the superego. These three structures work together as internal forces that develop our personalities.
- Id - the id wants what it wants when it wants. It is our selfish desires for pleasure and avoids pain. The id is present from birth and is very noticeable in babies, for example, who cry until they are fed. The id encompasses all inherited systems, including instincts, and is largely unconscious. It is demanding and its needs rather than logic, morality, or the constraints of society, determine the direction of its wants. The id has two strategies for obtaining what it wants: reflex actions and primary processes. Reflex actions are simply blinking or coughing and primary processes allows people to form an image in their head of a remedy for their discomfort or a wish fulfillment.
- Superego - is a rigid conscious that internalizes rules and guideline's of a person's world. Messages from parents, teachers, and society as well as racial, cultural, and national traditions are all important contributions to a person's development of their superego. The superego is very morally based and diligently discriminates between good and bad and right and wrong. When a person ignores the superego, they experience feelings of shame and guilt. The superego controls the id from making any rash, immoral decisions.
- Ego - the ego is not present at birth, but develops as the baby realizes its separateness from the mother. The ego balances out both the desires of the id and the constraints of the superego. It is a mediator and an organizer. Using logic, intelligence, objectivity, and awareness of external reality, a healthy ego considers , modifies, and integrates both internal and external pressures on a person; decides when and how the person should respond to those demands; and identifies wise choices and behaviors that promote self-preservation." (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2014).
Stages of Development
- Oral - makes up the first year or so of the infant's life. The mouth is a very important zone for the child, sucking and eating provide nutrients that will sustain the child during this stage and biting displays aggression or anger in the baby. Freud believed that developmental issues at this stage can later lead to gullibility (swallowing anything), overeating, or argumentativeness (oral aggression).
- Anal - is between ages 18 and 36 months. This is called the anal stage because of the importance of toilet training and the process of elimination during these years. The focus of gratification shifts from the oral functions to pleasing parents by emptying their bowels. Depending on how the parents treat toilet training, it will produce a stingy, controlling, and compulsive child, or a creative child.
- Phallic - is between ages 3 and 5 and is strongly related to our adult sexual relationships. During these years, feelings of pleasure become associated with the genitals, and masturbation and sexual fantasies begin to develop.
- Latency - occurs between the ages of 5 and 11 and is a quiet time during development. Sexual drives become less important and social interests increase. Children turn outward, form relationships, progress through school, and develop rewarding hobbies and activities. Emotional development focuses on their ability to take on and succeed in new challenges and to set and achieve realistic goals.
- Genital - this stage follows latency and one remains in this stage for the rest of their lives. Adolescents and adults solidify their personal identities, develop caring and altruistic feelings toward others, establish positive loving and sexual relationships, and progress in successful careers.
Levels of Consciousness
- Conscious - is material in awareness and is always available to us
- Preconscious - holds information that may not be part of current awareness but which can readily accessed.
- Unconscious - holds memories that are highly charged including repressed drives and impulses and recollections of experiences that may be too painful or unacceptable to be allowed in the preconscious or conscious.
Freud believed the unconscious held many more memories than the conscious or preconscious and that psychoanalysis can bring the memories from the unconscious to the conscious.
Dreams and the Unconscious
This is most popularly known as the Freudian slip. Freud believed that errors, fantasies, and dreams all reflect an unconscious wish or feeling. He also believed that all dreams are meaningful and that a dream analysis may be the most important way to understand people. He viewed dreams as fulfilling wishes or impulses that were not allowed into awareness, providing a way for the individual to work through disturbing thoughts and feelings.
Defense Mechanisms
Defense Mechanisms are typically learned in early childhood and are used as a way of dealing with inner conflict, anxiety, pain, shame, sorrow, and other negative emotions. There are more than 40 different defense mechanisms which are categorized in various ways including the following: primary vs. secondary defense mechanisms, relationship to developmental stage, psychotic vs. neurotic defenses, and immature vs. healthy defenses.
Healthy, Adaptive Defense Mechanisms
Affiliation Altruism Anticipation Humor Sublimation Suppresion |
Immature or Potentially Maladaptive Defense Mechanisms
Acting Out Avoidance Denial Displacement Dissociation Idealization Identification Isolation Passive Aggression Regression Repression Resistance |
Treatment
- Therapeutic Alliance - the patient lies on the couch facing away from the therapist in an attempt to have the therapist remain as anonymous as possible as well as relaxing and to reducing distractions for the client. Therapist neutrality is important in the development of transference.
- Transference and Countertransference - in transference, the clients project onto the therapist characteristics of another person and reacts to the therapist as if he/she really did possess those characteristics. Transference can be positive, negative, or mixed. Once the transference develops, it is further established and explored in order to elicit repressed material. Gradually, the original dysfunctional pattern reemerges, now in terms of the transference to the therapist. Finally, the origins of the transference are understood and resolved. Countertransference (the therapist's feelings about the client) was originally supposed to be avoided. Clinicians should carefully monitor any strong emotional reactions they have to clients for the possibility of countertransference.
- Free Association - the most important rule of psychoanalysis: people should say whatever comes to mind without censoring or judging.
- Abreaction - recalling a painful experience that has been repressed, working through that painful experience and the conflicts it created by reliving in memory the experience and its associated emotions, analyzing that experience, and achieving an emotional release as the culmination of that process.
- Interpretation and Analysis - are designed to provide insight and awareness. Analysis is the process of thoroughly exploring and understanding the unconscious representations in the material people present in treatment. Interpretation is the process of elucidating the unconscious meaning of the symbols in material that clients present and of linking those new insights to their present corners and blocks (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2014).