Abnormal Psychology

18 CHAPTER 1

Id
According to Freud, the seat of sexual and
aggressive drives, as well as of the desire for
immediate gratifi cation of physical and
psychological needs.

Superego
According to Freud, the seat of the
conscience, which works to impose morality.

Ego
According to Freud, the psychic structure that
is charged with mediating between the id’s
demands for immediate gratifi cation and the
superego’s high standards of morality, as well
as the constraints of external reality.

Psychosexual stages
According to Freud, the sequence of fi ve
distinct stages of development (oral,
anal, phallic, latency, and genital) through
which children proceed from infancy to
adulthood; each stage has a key task that
must be completed successfully for healthy
psychological development.

According to Freud, people have sexual and aggressive urges from birth onward.

Freud argued that when we fi nd such urges unacceptable, they are banished to

our unconscious, where they inevitably gain strength and eventually demand re-

lease. Unconscious urges can be released as conscious feelings or thoughts, or as

behaviors. Freud believed that abnormal experiences and behaviors arise from

this process. For example, according to psychoanalytic theory, one woman’s ex-

treme fear of eating dust—which drove her to cover cooked food on the stove,

not to serve food until she had brushed off her clothes and the tablecloth, and to

wash her plate repeatedly to remove any speck of dust—arose from unconscious

sexual impulses related to “taking in” semen (the dust symbolically represented

semen; Frink, 1921).

Freud (1923/1961) also distinguished three psychological structures of the

mind—the id, the ego, and the superego:

The • id is the seat of sexual and aggressive drives, as well as of the desire for imme-

diate gratifi cation of physical and psychological needs. These physical needs (such

as for food and water) and psychological drives (sexual and aggressive) constantly

require satisfaction. The id follows the pleasure principle, seeking gratifi cation of

needs without regard for the consequences.

• The superego, the seat of an individual’s conscience, works to impose moral-
  ity. According to Freud, the superego is responsible for feelings of guilt, which
  motivate the individual to constrain his or her sexual and aggressive urges that
  demand immediate gratifi cation. People with an infl exible morality—an
  overly rigid sense of right and wrong—are thought to have too strong
  a superego.
  
  
  • Meanwhile, the ego tries to mediate the id’s demands for immediate
    gratifi cation and the superego’s high standards of morality, as well
    as the constraints of external reality. Normally, the ego handles the
    competing demands well. However, when the ego is relatively weak,
    it is less able to manage the confl icts among the id, superego, and re-
    ality, which then cause anxiety and other symptoms.
  
  
  
  

Figure 1.2 shows how the three mental structures are related to the

three kinds of consciousness. As is evident, both the ego and the su-

perego are privy to conscious thoughts, but also have access to precon-

scious ones (which can be called to mind voluntarily). Similarly, some

aspects of both of these structures lie beneath consciousness, in the un-

conscious. The id is entirely in the realm of the unconscious. Thus, ac-

cording to Freud, you cannot be directly aware of the basic urges that

drive your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. You only find out about

these urges by observing their effects on the ego and the superego—

usually in the form of confl icts. One of Freud’s lasting contributions to

the field of psychopathology—and all of psychology, in fact—is the

notion of the unconscious, the mental processes that occur outside

of our awareness and influence our motivations, thoughts, feelings,

and behaviors.

Psychosexual Stages

Freud also identifi ed fi ve distinct stages of development (the oral, anal, phallic,

latency, and genital stages) through which children proceed from infancy into adult-

hood. Four of these stages involve particular erogenous zones, which are areas of the

body (the mouth, genitals, and anus) that can satisfy the id’s urges and drives. Freud

called these fi ve stages psychosexual stages because he believed that each erogenous

zone demands some form of gratifi cation and that each stage requires a person suc-

cessfully to complete a key task for healthy psychological development. All of these

stages arise during infancy or childhood, although they may not be resolved until

adulthood, if ever.

Figure 1.2

1.2 • The Iceberg Metaphor

of the Organization of the

Mind According to Freud Freud

proposed that the mind is made up of

three structures: id, ego, and superego.

Each individual is aware (conscious) of

some of what is in his or her ego and

superego; some of the preconscious

contents of the ego and the superego can

be brought into awareness, and some

of those contents—along with all of the

id—remain unconscious.

g

Conscious

Preconscious

Unconscious

Superego

Ego

Id