Keysi Aquino
Abnormal Human Behavior
Professor Weissman
December 2, 2014
Final Exam Paper
Psychoanalytic theory created by Sigmund Freud in the late 19th century. The definition of psychoanalytic theory is personality organization and the dynamics of personality development that underlie and guide the psychoanalytic and psychodynamic psychotherapy, called psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is a clinical method for treating psychopathology. Freud first began his studies on psychoanalysis and in collaboration with Dr. Josef Breuer. Their first study was with Anna O. Anna O was a subject both physical and psychological disturbances, such as not being able to drink out of fear. Breuer and Freud both found that hypnosis was a great help in discovering more about Anna O and her treatment. These observations led Freud to theorize that the problems faced by hysterical patients could be related to painful childhood experiences that could not be remembered. The influence of these lost memories shaped the feelings, thoughts and behaviors of patients. These studies contributed to the development of the psychoanalytic theory and these influenced him. Sigmund Freud determined that personality consists of three different elements, the id, the ego and the superego. The id is the aspect of personality that is driven by internal and basic drives and needs. These are typically instinctual, such as hunger, thirst, and the drive for sex, or libido. The id acts in unity with the pleasure principle, this avoids pain and seeks pleasure. The ego is driven by the reality principle. The ego works to balance the id and superego. In order to balance these, it works to reach the id’s drive. It seeks to explain the id’s real, and realistic of our drives as well as being accurate about the ethics that the superego sets for the individual. The superego is driven by morality principle. Instead of acting impulsively like the id, the superego works to act in socially tolerable ways. It employs morality, judging our sense of wrong and right and using guilt to encourage socially acceptable behavior. The unconscious is the portion of the mind of which a person is not aware. Freud says that the unconscious that exposes the true feelings, emotions, and thoughts of the individual. There are variety of psychoanalytic techniques used to access and understand the unconscious, their called hypnosis, free association, and dream analysis.
Dreams allow us to explore the unconscious; according to Freud, they are "the 'royal road' to the unconscious". Dreams are composed of latent and manifest content. Latent content is the primary meaning of a dream that may not be remembered when a person wakes up, manifest content is the content from the dream that a person remembers upon waking and can be analyzed by a psychoanalytic psychologist. Exploring and understanding the manifest content of dreams can tell the individual of complexes or disorders that may be under the surface of their personality. The ego balances the id, the superego and reality in order to maintain a healthy state of consciousness. It thus reacts to protect the individual from any stressors and anxiety by distorting reality. There are different types of defense mechanisms and they are repression, reaction formation, denial, projection, displacement, sublimation, regression, and rationalization. Freud's take on the
