Freudian Approach to Personality Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Freudian Approach to Personality - Essay Example It considers the reality of the situation; but its main function is satisfying id. At the end of the phallic stage of development, when the child attains the age of approximately 5 years, super-ego develops due to the moral and ethical constraints placed on the individual by the parents or caregivers. Super-ego is the budding morality or the human conscience that dictates right and wrong and makes the individual hesitate from hurting others. Super-ego is the careful side of the growing child which will stand by it all its life and makes the child more responsible and sociable. Freud said that in a healthy person, ego remains the strongest, because it has to satisfy id, but it will not override super-ego and that makes the individual judgemental, moral, self-righteous, caring and considerate. He believed that at a conscious level, we experience feelings, emotions, desires, impulses and beliefs. He said most of what drives an individual is buried in the unconscious and the unconscious would keep affecting the individual all his life. The impact of the unconscious can never be ruled out and most of the individual's decisions are based on the unconscious. But the unconscious is buried and inaccessible meaning the individual knows only a small portion of his personality because most of it is not accessible. We are mainly aware of the conscious and not much of unconscious. Here, we are confronted with pre-conscious or subconscious or available memory. This is not actively conscious, but an individual can have an access to it whenever he wants, but to a limited extent, though he has to search for it. Sigmund Freud's theory is likened to an iceberg, because the conscious is a small part that shows above the surface, while the biggest unconscious cunningly stays below the surfac e and does not become visible at all. "Freud suggested that all our behavior is motivated by the desire to feel pleasure. That motivation is organized and directed by two instincts: sexuality (Eros), and aggression (Thanatos). Freud conceptualized both these instincts as being powered by a form of internal psychic energy that he called libido" http://intropsych.mcmaster.ca/intropsych/1aa3/Person/lec2-1.htm Allpsychonline - http://allpsych.com/psychology101/ego.html Dr. Freud presented the best known theories of personality that have remained equally controversial. His stages of Psycho-Sexual development consisting of the Oral Stage (birth to 18 months), the Anal Stage (18 months to three years), the Phallic Stage (3 to 6 years), the Latency period (6 to puberty) and the Genital stage (puberty on) shocked the prudish late Victorian and other European societies. He said throughout life, a person tries hard to overcome and control many conflicts, mainly all psychological. ""For Freud life is principally concerned with the management of these conflicts with individuals attempting to maximise instinctual gratification while minimising guilt and punishment. Freud's approach has therefore, been described as a conflict management model of the inner world," Pearce (2003, p.2). According to him, instincts are the driving forces of personality and basic conflicts are individual instincts versus society's needs. He said all human behaviour is motivated by life instincts, and he called this motivational energy libido and called sex the most