Chapter 2 Freud: Psychoanalysis 69A fifth dimension is social versus biological influences. As a physician,
Freud’s medical training disposed him to see human personality from a bio-
logical viewpoint. Yet Freud (1913/1953, 1985) frequently speculated about
the consequences of prehistoric social units and about the consequences
of an individual’s early social experiences. Because Freud believed that
many infantile fantasies and anxieties are rooted in biology, we rate him low
on social influences.
Sixth is the issue of uniqueness versus similarities. On this dimension,
psychoanalytic theory takes a middle position. Humanity’s evolutionary past
gives rise to a great many similarities among people. Nevertheless, individual
experiences, especially those of early childhood, shape people in a somewhat
unique manner and account for many of the differences among personalities.
Key Terms and Concepts
∙ (^) Freud identified three levels of mental life—unconscious, preconscious,
and conscious.
∙ (^) Early childhood experiences that create high levels of anxiety are
repressed into the unconscious, where they may influence behavior,
emotions, and attitudes for years.
∙ (^) Events that are not associated with anxiety but are merely forgotten
make up the contents of the preconscious.
∙ (^) Conscious images are those in awareness at any given time.
∙ (^) Freud recognized three provinces of the mind—id, ego, and superego.
∙ (^) The id is unconscious, chaotic, out of contact with reality, and in service
of the pleasure principle.
∙ (^) The ego is the executive of personality, in contact with the real world,
and in service of the reality principle.
∙ (^) The superego serves the moral and idealistic principles and begins to
form after the Oedipus complex is resolved.
∙ (^) All motivation can be traced to sexual and aggressive drives. Childhood
behaviors related to sex and aggression are often punished, which leads
to either repression or anxiety.
∙ (^) To protect itself against anxiety, the ego initiates various defense
mechanisms, the most basic of which is repression.
∙ (^) Freud outlined three major stages of development—infancy, latency, and
a genital period—but he devoted most attention to the infantile stage.
∙ (^) The infantile stage is divided into three substages—oral, anal, and
phallic, the last of which is accompanied by the Oedipus complex.
∙ (^) During the simple Oedipal stage, a child desires sexual union with one
parent while harboring hostility for the other.
∙ Freud believed that dreams and Freudian slips are disguised means of
expressing unconscious impulses.