Psychoanalytic Perspective & Approach

• Unconscious: Psychic domain of which the individual is not aware, but which is the storehouse of repressed impulses, drives, and conflicts that are unavailable to consciousness.

• Unconscious and mental processes

• Importance of sexual and aggressive instincts

• Consequence of early childhood

Psychoanalytic Approach 

• Developed by Sigmund Freud

• Psychoanalysis is both an approach to therapy and a theory of personality

• Emphasizes unconscious motivation – the main causes of behavior lie buried in the unconscious mind

Psychodynamic Perspective 

 A more modern view of personality that retains some aspects of Freudian theory but rejects other aspects

• Retains the importance of the unconscious mind

• Less emphasis on unresolved childhood conflicts

Personality Structure & Psychoanalytic Divisions of the mind

Id, ego, superego

• Ego defense mechanisms to reduce anxiety for when 

ego can not find a compromise

Id: instinctual drives present at birth        (“I want”)

• does not distinguish between reality and fantasy

• operates according to the pleasure principle

Ego: develops out of the id in infancy       (“I will”)

• understands reality and logic

• mediator between id and superego

Superego                                                (“I should”)

• internalization of society’s & parental moral standards

• One’s conscience; focuses on what the person “should” do

• Develops around ages 5-6

• Partially unconscious

• Can be harshly punitive using feelings of guilt