The Three Personality Theories
According to Sigmund Freud, the “key” to a healthy personality is a balance between the Id, and the Ego within the Psychoanalytic theory of personality. The Id and Ego are the most important theoretical constructs and components of the personality.
The Id is the only component in the personality structure that is present from birth. It includes all the instinctive and primitive behaviors and this is what causes us to get our basic needs as a newborn child. Freud believed that this aspect is controlled by a pleasure principle and it makes newborn’s seek gratification for all their needs and urges, such as sleep and food. As the child begins to interact in their environment, the Ego starts to develop. This part of the personality understands that people are selfish and their ways will hurt us in some way, shape, or form. So, because of this, the Ego strives to achieve the previous desires of the Id in socially appropriate ways.
The behavioral and humanistic perspectives are similar because they deal with learned behaviors, but how those behaviors are learned is what sets them to the opposite sides of the psychological spectrum. The behavioral perspective can be explained with a criminal. Criminals are said to be a product of their environments, such as a parent being a drug dealer and living the life of crime with all its consequences. The child will follow the parent’s footsteps because this is what they have learned throughout their life and will image this behavior in their own lives. This example leads to the humanistic perspective to personality. It attends matters of ethics and personal worth, and also includes love. This in basic terms is emphasizing free will and the control of the free will within the individual.
In my opinion Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic personality perspective makes the most sense to me because it is the most basic and straightforward. It has to deal with an infant getting its...