Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionII. Psychodynamic
Theories- Freud: Psychoanalysis © The McGraw−Hill^69
Companies, 2009
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. - Consciousimages are those in awareness at any given time.
- Freud recognized three provinces of the mind—id, ego, and superego.
- The idis unconscious, chaotic, out of contact with reality, and in service
of the pleasure principle. - The egois the executive of personality, in contact with the real world, and
in service of the reality principle. - The superegoserves the moral and idealistic principlesand begins to form
after the Oedipus complex is resolved. - All motivation can be traced to sexual and aggressive drives. Childhood
behaviors related to sexand aggressionare often punished, which leads to
either repressionor 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 dreamsand Freudian slipsare disguised means of
expressing unconscious impulses.
Chapter 2 Freud: Psychoanalysis 63