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The Psychology of Freud
After Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud (1836 – 1939) probably revolutionized Western thought more than any other thinker in the past century. His psychodynamic approach to psychology and the forces behind human motivations is best known for its focus on childhood sexuality and his picture of the mind. His research focused on case studies of individuals and their motivations first through hypnosis and later through a technique that he called “psychoanalysis” where he allowed the patient to talk freely and experience a cathartic release of emotions.
Freud was greatly influenced by the science of the time, especially the Darwinian revolution and advances in physics. The Darwinian idea that people are merely refined animals allowed Freud to delve into the human psyche and break it down into tangible parts, rather than attributing the human mind to God’s divinity. But rather than observing man as the sum total of his ancestors, Freud made a person the sum total of his experiences. In physics he especially drew upon the newly discovered principle of the “conservation of energy” when he created his “psychodynamic” approach to personality. (Thornton)
The psychodynamic approach concerns the “dynamics” of psychological forces which act against each other. He assumed that people each had a fixed amount of “psychic energy,” which is expressed in emotion (Seligman). This energy must be distributed between the different personality processes of “id,” “ego,” and “superego”, which are present at either the “conscious” or “unconscious” levels.
The Psychological Processes on the Mind
Freud divides the mind into three levels of consciousness, the conscious, the preconscious, and the ...
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“Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development.” AllPsych Online: The Virtual Psychology Classroom. March 21, 2004. http://allpsych.com/psychology101/sexual_development.html
Gazzaniga, Michael S. and Todd F. Heatherton. Psychological Science. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2003.
Seligman, Martin, et al. Abnormal Psychology, Fourth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2001.
“Sigmund Freud.” <http://oldsci.eiu.edu/psychology/Spencer/Freud.html>
Thornton, Stephen P. “Sigmund Freud (1856-1939).” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2001. http://www.iep.utm.edu/f/freud.htm.
Wittenberg, Judith Bryant. “Teaching The Sound and the Fury with Freud.” Approaches to Teaching Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. Stephen Hahn and Arthur F. Kinney, eds. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1996.
For the past few decades, there have been ongoing discussions involving the preferred educational level for nurses entering the field of healthcare. Two routes can be taken to entering the field: one can finish a two-year program and obtain their associate or add two years and get their baccalaureate instead. There are differences, albeit minor ones, between nurses prepared at the associate degree level versus those prepared at the baccalaureate level. However, an increase in technological advances in nursing field, and a higher demand for patient care has recently sparked the discussion of whether or not it is beneficial for nurses to further their education and obtain a baccalaureate degree or even a master’s degree as the case may be.
Sigmund Freud’s theories on the construction of the mind are simple, but fundamentally changed the field of psychology. He proposed, among other things, that the human mind is composed of three parts: the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. The preconscious consists of information, such as a telephone number, that is “accessible to consciousness without emotional resistance” (Schellenberg 21). In Freud’s estimation, the unconscious is the most important area of the mind. The information stored within it has “very strong resistances” to becoming conscious (Freud 32). Residing in the unconscious is the id, which “contains everything…that is present at birth… – above all, therefore, the instincts which originate from somatic organization” (14). From birth, all action is instinctual, from the id. The id recognizes and entertains no desires but its own and is impatient to have its needs met. This phase lasts until a part of the id changes “under the influence of the real external world” (14). This changed portion b...
Freud, Sigmund. 1953-74. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works. 24 vols, trans. James Stachey. London: Hogarth.
There has been great debate in the nursing community for years regarding what should be the educational requirements for a practicing nurse. There are currently many options for men and women to enter the field through LPN, ADN, and BSN programs. More recently, programs have been popping up allowing accelerated BSN obtainment through second degree programs. The debate stems from the conflicting ideas of whether nursing as a whole is a trade, requiring an associate’s degree, or should be considered a profession, often requiring a Baccalaureate degree. In this paper this author will use past nursing history, current medical demands and advancements, and clinical patient outcomes to argue that the minimum education for a nurse should be a Baccalaureate degree.
The psychoanalytic perspective grew out of subsequent psychoanalytic theories (1901, 1924, and 1940) following decades of interactions with clients with the use of an innovative procedure developed by Sigmund Freud that required lengthy verbal interactions with patients during which Freud probed deep into their lives. In a nutshell, the psychoanalytic perspective looked to explain personality, motivation, and psychological disorders by focussing on the influence of early childhood experiences, on unconscious motives and conflicts, and on the methods people use to cope with their sexual and aggressive urges. The Biological perspective on the other hand looks at the physiological bases of behaviour in humans and animals. It proposes that an organism’s functioning can be described in terms of the bodily structures and biochemical processes that cause behaviour. This paper attempts to examine the similarities and differences between the psychoanalytic perspective and the biological perspective with the key focus on the core assumptions and features of these perspectives as well as their individual strengths and weaknesses.
In addition to Freud’s stages of development his best-known concepts are those of the id, ego, and superego (Crain, p. 268). The id personality called ‘the unconscious” is the personality that focuses on maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain through reflexes and drives such as hunger or bladder tensions (Crain, pp. 268-269). The id concept is impulsive, chaotic and unrealistic.
Jacobs, L., DiMattio, M. K., Bishop, T. L., & Fields, S. D. (1998). The baccalaureate degree in nursing as an entry-level requirement for professional nursing practice. Journal of Professional Nursing, 14(4), 225-233.
Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist, was the principle proponent of the psychoanalytic personality theory. Psychoanalytic personality theory is tells us that the majority of human behavior is motivated by the unconscious, a part of the personality that contains the memories, knowledge, beliefs, feelings urges, drives, and instincts that the individual is unaware, and that only a small part of our psychological makeup is actually derived from the conscious experience. The problem is our unconscious mind disguises the meaning of the material it contains. As such, the psychoanalytic personality theory is ver...
Freud for Historians. By Peter Gay. (Oxford University Press, 1985. Pp. vii + 252. Preface, bibliography, acknowledgments, index.)
Freud, S., Strachey, J., Freud, A., Rothgeb, C., & Richards, A. (1953). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (1st ed.). London: Hogarth Press.
The psychodynamic approach lends itself to being a controversial yet highly influential theory in the history of psychology. The theory has become one of the most significant psychological approaches and its originator, Sigmund Freud, has become a major influence in modern psychology. The psychodynamic approach largely focuses on motivation and past experiences which develop and individual’s personality. Freud used the iceberg metaphor to outline the three states of consciousness and argued that only twenty percent of the mind represents the conscious. In addition he theorised that there was a pre-conscious mind which represents general memory. Finally, the unconscious mind which is essentially the reservoir of repressed or hidden experiences and desire.
The psychodynamic theory focuses on the unconscious mind. Freud’s credence is that different mental forces operate in the mind. The unconscious mind can be described as being like an iceberg. The tip of the iceberg represents the part of the mind that is conscious, everyday thoughts. The iceberg just below the water’s surface represents the pre conscious, thoughts and information that can be retrieved easily. And finally the base of the iceberg is the unconscious part of the mind where fears, traumas and bad experiences are contained, almost impossible to retrieve.
Barlow, D., Durand, V., & Stewart, S. (2009). Abnormal psychology an integrative apporach. (2nd ed.). United States of America: Wadsworth
Sigmund Freud is best known for his development and use of psychoanalysis. The theory of psychoanalysis focuses on the concept of how our unconscious thoughts, feelings, and emotions play an active role in our daily lives. The id, ego, and superego are the three mental zones that encompass our psyche. Each zone has a specific function: The id functions on the pleasure principle; the ego on the protection of the individual; and the superego on protection of society. The degree of which each zone has been developed can be broken down and then analyzed. These three zones can be visualized by imagining a pie cut into three slices.
Sigmund Freud was one of the trailblazers of modern-day psychology. After several years of clinical practice, Sigmund Freud became concern about finding a new way to cure his patients. He developed a new way of treatment, the psychoanalytic therapy based on the existence of the unconscious. According to his theory, our behavior is driven by sexual and destructive feelings. Freud mentions in his psychoanalytical theory of personality there are five stages of psychosexual stages structure of personality. However, the three main elements of a personality are id, ego and superego, which come together to generate intricate human behavior. The three essential parts of human psyche are listed below.