Structure and Functioning of the Personality in Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory

Structure and Functioning of the Personality in Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory

Sigmund Freud, as the creator of psychoanalytic theory, has begun his

career as a neurologist, treating patients with hypnosis to cure

hysteria. Because it had almost no affect on curing the patient, he

discovered the method of free association, in which patients say

whatever comes to their mind. By listening and noticing what patients

were saying, he found some similarities in their memories of dreams

and their childhood memories.

For an easier understanding he compared our mind to an iceberg. One

part (that is above the surface) represents our conscious mind; the

other part (that is under the surface) represents our unconscious

mind. The unconscious mind should not be confused with "being

unconscious" and unconsciousness which is loss of consciousness.

He claimed that unconscious mind affects the largest part of our

thoughts and behavior and that all our emotions and actions have

causes in our unconscious mind. Although many people don’t agree with

Freud, his idea that people react for a reason is accepted. (The

Psychopathology of Everyday life – 1901). Most of our behavior is,

however, led by our unsatisfied drives and unconscious wishes. For

Freud, the unconscious was a powerful force in behavior: thoughts and

actions, which a patient didn’t even realize were very important in

his researches. Freud based his ideas on this claims.

The unconscious mind (or subconscious) is the feature of the mind of

which we are not directly conscious or aware. Unconscious contains all

those experiences and feelings that are »hidden« in our mind and we

cannot re...

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...at his

theory has to be tested by experiments and observations and its truth

or falsity has to be objectively determined. Kline, for instance,

thought that his theory should be seen as a collection of hypothesis

and Fisher and Greenburg thought that some parts of his theory are

true and they should just be reshaped. On the other side, Boring

thought that Freud’s genius in commonly accepted, despite of his

theories.

Human personality is relatively fixed. That means that we truly have

inborn drives and our personality is determined by them, as well as by

environmental events. We also appear from psychoanalytic theory as

passive creatures. Our unconscious seems to control all what we say,

do and think. And finally, as Freud noted, the goal of psychoanalysis

was to ensure that “were Id was, there shall ego be.”(1933)