Psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud
Psychoanalysis
Background Information

• Grew up in Victorian era


• Strict public morality


• Strict parents


• Studies at University of Vienna - Loved studies


• Early practice in nervous disorders (medical)


• Many physical disorders had no physical cause - mental cause?


• Clientele became mostly sexually repressed women


• Very small sample = criticism of theory

Theory of Psychoanalysis

• Theory first published in book Interpretation of Dreams (1900)


• Importance of Unconscious influences


• Forces forming personality = sex & aggression


• Development finished by age 5 or 6. Childhood very important

Id

• Pleasure principle


• Seat of appetites necessary for survival


• Main appetites = sex and aggression

Superego

• Perfection principle


• Seat of the “ideal self”


• Seat of morals and “rules” of life


• Seeks to tame and civilize the id, causing conflict

Ego

• Reality principle


• Referees between id and superego


• Delayed gratification


• Should be strongest of the three in a healthy personality