Freud's Psychology

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Sigmund Freud’s active role in intellectual and scientific history has paved the road for psychology as we know it today. Freud’s life span included some of the most interesting and creative times in history. Freud owes half of his success to Gustav Fechner, the founder of the science of psychology. Freud combined all the ideas of Fechner, Darwin, and physics to create a new view of man. It’s hard to deny Freud’s influence on twentieth century thought. Freud inspired scientific, cultural and social interactions across the globe. Freud devoted majority of his scientific studies to dynamic psychology. Freud’s studies reached farther into the study of the human mind than any other scientist before him had tried. Freud developed the psychoanalytic

Freud 's life work was dominated by his attempts to find ways of penetrating this camouflage that obscures the hidden structure and processes of personality.

The id consists of all the inherited components of the personality. These components include the Eros and Thanatos instincts. An instinct is a sum of psychic energy which imparts direction to psychological processes. It’s when you are driving your car too fast to control, when you stand too close the edge of a high cliff or the rush you feel from unprotected sex. We have all asked ourselves “Why the hell am I doing this?” when we engage in chaotic and risky behavior. We are constantly purposefully taking part in behavior that we know too well to be bad for us. We know these behaviors could possibly lead to our death, so why do we continue to do them over and over again? The death instinct is the reason for all of our irrational behaviors. The idea that we want to harm ourselves and test our limits is argumentative. However it’s not hard to point out the examples of Thanatos in our everyday lives. Every morning when I hit the snooze button three times I’m nearly late for class and my professors never miss my obnoxious entrance to class. I wait until the night before to type a huge paper or turn in my

The ego acts upon the reality principle and is the decision making branch of the personality. The reality principle is working out realistic ways of satisfying the id’s demands while trying to avoid negative consequences from society. Without a sense or right or wrong the ego is weak. The ego tries to point the id in the correct direction while using secondary process thinking. The ego can take energy from the id and use it for other purposes. Once the ego has control of the energy it is easy to develop the processes of perceiving, attending, learning, remembering, judging, discriminating, reasoning, and imagining. The ego can also create object cathexes. Object cathexes are objects that do not directly fill the needs of the organism but each one of them contributes to doing so. The ego is also in charge of reality testing in order to ensure that things will work out according to the plan. The ego has a job which pertains to resembling the process of the id by producing day dreams and