PSYCHOANALYSIS

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

• Founder of psychoanalysis
• Austrian neurologist
• He is widely acknowledged as the
father of modern psychology
•Proposed the first complete
theory of personality
•A person’s thoughts and
behaviors emerge from tension
generated by unconscious motives
and unresolved childhood conflicts.
• Sigmund Freud‘s psychoanalytic theory of personality
argues that human behavior is the result of the
interactions among three component parts of the mind:
the id, ego, and superego.
 Level of Mental Life
UNCONSCIOUS PRECONSCIOUS CONSCIOUS

• Contains all the • Facts stored in a • Only level of mental

feeling, urges or part of the brain, life that are directly
instinct that are which are not available to us.
beyond our conscious but are • The awareness of
awareness but it available for our own mental
affect our possible use in the process (thoughts/
expression, feeling, future. feelings).
action.
Structure of
Personality
(Id, Ego, Superego)
“You passed someone playing with a ball,
what will you do?”
1. Id
• is the primitive part of the mind that seeks immediate
gratification of biological or instinctual needs.
• operates on pleasure principle – to gain pleasure,
to avoid pain.
• is the unconscious part of the mind.
“You passed someone playing with a ball, what will you
do?”

 If your Id passed through a boy playing with a ball, the

immediate urge to get that ball will drive you to snatch it by
any means.
2. Super-Ego
• The Super-Ego is related to the social or the moral
values that an individual inculcates as he matures.
• Operates on moral principles
• It acts as an ethical constraint on behavior and helps an
individual to develop his conscience
• Freud believed the superego was mostly formed within
the first five years of life based on the moral standards
of a person’s parents.
 “You passed someone playing with a ball, what will you
do?”

 If the super-ego passed that boy playing with a ball, it would

not snatch it, as it would know that snatching is bad and
may lead to a quarrel. Thus, super ego act as a constraint
on your behavior and guides you to follow the right path.
3. Ego
• is the logical and the conscious part of the mind
which is associated with the reality principle.
• is conscious and hence keep a check on Id through a
proper reasoning of an external environment.
“You passed someone playing with a ball, what will you
do?”

 Your ego will mediate the conflict between the Id and

super-ego and will decide to buy a new ball for yourself.
• If you don’t resolve this conflict between the ID and
the EGO, you may experience unhappiness or
mental distress.

• Thus, in order to understand motivation, you must

understand what is in your unconscious memory.
This is the basis for PSYCHOANALYSIS.
“Psychoanalysis has as its core the idea that
each of us has an unconscious part whose
existence, activities and thoughts are hidden
behind a mental barrier that we cannot
voluntarily remove. Behind this barrier are
repressed and psychologically dangerous
thoughts that give rise to unconscious
conflicts, which in turn, can result in
psychological and physical symptoms.”
•- Plotnik, p. 514
1.) FREE ASSOCIATION

- Ink blot pictures, word association (Way of

“tricking” you to lull your conscious mind to sleep to bring
out the unconscious).
2.) HYPNOSIS

- Freud was one of the first to use this. This is a

way of freeing the unconscious mind or opening up
drawers to remember vivid details of the past.
3.) DREAMS
- Freud believed dreams were your unconscious
mind talking to you. Dreams were very symbolic and
difficult to analyze.

Example: driving a car

• (driver) means you feel in
control of your life
• (passenger) –someone else
is in control of your life
• Horses –symbolize freedom
THANK YOU!