setrdeep.blogg.se

Psychoanalytic concepts such as denial, rationalization, and acting out, although at times applied pejoratively and indiscriminately to any difficult patient, shed some light on what were otherwise incomprehensible, bizarre behaviors, and offered guidance in intervention. For example, the idea of personality disorders representing a collection of maladaptive defenses (maladaptive in that they no longer serve the survival function they might have had in a traumatic childhood) is one shared by many researchers in the field, regardless of theoretical orientation. Many Freudian concepts continue to be useful, however. (Indeed, many of his earlier models viewed the psychic apparatus in hydraulic or mechanical terms "psychical energy" was "absorbed" or "discharged".) Freud's goal in formulating his theories of what drives people to do the things they do was to create an all-encompasising theory of human behavior and emotion, something akin to the universal laws of thermodynamics and physics that were being developed and popularized during his lifetime. This called into question the Eurocentricity of Freudian ideas. The female equivalent is more fuzzy and feminists and others have objected to the phallocentrism of his ideas (why, for example, should a girl suffer penis envy why shouldn't a man suffer breast envy?)įurther criticism of psychoanalysis developed during the mid-twentieth century, when it was observed that a number of cultures had no recognizable Oedipal complex. The Oedipus complex is perhaps one of the most controversial and widely criticized aspects of psychodynamic theory. Successful resolution of this conflict involves acceptance that mother is unattainable and belongs to father, but that one day a mate might be found who will be a substitute for the relinquished mother. Based on the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex, in which a boy banished as an infant by his father, the king, comes back and murders his father - unaware of his identity - at a crossroads, then marries his mother - also unaware until too late of her identity, the Oedipus complex posits that 3-5 year-old boys go through a crisis in which they seek to seduce their mother while fearing retaliatory castration by their father. The superego is also where your conscience lives and is responsible for the experience of guilt.Ĭentral to Freud's theory was the idea of an Oedipus complex. It is the repository of your ego ideal, your idealized self, the self you want yourself ideally to be. It also is what probably drove you to attend medical school or become a physician. The superego is what compels men to climb out of foxholes under fire to pull a wounded comrade back to safety.

Superego: locus of the internalized moral values, prohibitions, and ideals of the person. The ego also can delay or discharge various impulses of the id, leading to release or tension. Patients with good control of their impulses and ability to tolerate difficult emotional challenges are said to have good "ego strength." This is where Freud felt the real action was: viewing it in somewhat neurological terms, he described it as critically involved in self-preservation of the organism through memory, awareness of stimuli, and making changes in the external environment to gain advantage. More organized than the id, the ego attempts to avoid displeasure and pain. A wild sexual fantasy or dream is pure id.Įgo: balances the drives of the id against the reality of the world. The id operates under the pleasure principle, meaning it has no regard for reality, constraints, or consequences. Your id is what steers you toward that car on the showroom you know you can't afford or your eyes toward that person across the room even if you're there with your significant other. The main difference exists between the id and the ego. (These unfortunately latinate terms are klunky translations of the much more simplistic and direct German ones, which translate more literally into the "It", the "I", and the "Above Me" or "Higher I".

Freud's Structural Theory: the Id, the Ego, and the Superegoįreud's Structural Theory: the Id, the Ego, and the Superego.įreud divided the mind into three provinces, not necessarily anatomical, but theoretical: the Id, the Ego, and the Superego.