Foundations of Psychoanalysis

Foundations of Psychoanalysis






Foundations of Psychoanalysis
Catina Hunter
Psy/301
Sept 7, 2015
Dr. Sadie Fine
Foundations of Psychoanalysis
Austrian physician Sigmund Freud (1856)founded the psychoanalysis theory which views sex, aggression and the unconscious as being major influences on behavior.Freud believed the mind operated on three levels: unconscious, preconscious, and conscious and that the mind was composed of three elements: the id, the ego, and the superego. He also looked at the psychosexual stages of development and the use of defense mechanisms Freud used the metaphor of an iceberg to describe human personality. The visible tip of the iceberg represents the conscious, the submerged middle represents the preconscious and the larger submerged bottom represents the unconscious. This concept states that human behavior is largely influenced by the unconscious therefore most times we are not aware of what we think. Most of the contents of the unconscious are unacceptable or unpleasant, such as feelings of aggression, anxiety or sex. Things that the conscious mind wants to keep hidden from awareness are repressed into the unconscious mind. The preconscious contains information that we are not thinking of at the moment but can easily draw into conscious awareness like remembering a pin number or phone number. The preconscious acts as gatekeeper between the conscious and unconscious. It allows only certain pieces of information to pass through and enter conscious awareness.The conscious mind includes everything that is inside of our awareness. This is the aspect of our mental processing that we can think and talk about freely. The conscious mind includes such things as perceptions and feelings inside our current awareness. According to Freud the mind is composed of three elements that is the id, the ego, and the superego.The id, which is completely unconscious, serves the pleasure principle andseeks immediate gratification of basic instincts like eating, sleeping,...

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