Sigmund Freud's Key Theories Of Human Development

Great Essays
The aim of this essay is to translate Freuds key theories of personality and the human development. This essay will show how Freud understands the human drives, how he came about the model of consciousness and also the defences against anxiety, and lastly Freud's theory of psychosexual development, Freud was also known as a psychiatrist who discovered psychoanalysis.
Sigmund Freud understood the human drive as the life drive (Eros) and the death drive (Thanatos). he (saw) the two drives as impetus, which are forces or an energy source that could cause excitation or tension which could also cause biological and psychological demand on the mind. (Feist, Feist and Roberts p34). For example, the pleasure principle which seeks satisfaction and
…show more content…
Freud discovered that the defence mechanism are part of the unconscious mind and are designed to help eliminate any negative feelings for that individuals. For example, if an individual is having anxiety about a certain situation, that individual's ego will then have a defence mechanism that will help stop that individual from feeling anxious. Freud investigated that an individual's unconscious mind will use different defence mechanism to help restrain any stressfully problems in that individual's life. One defence mechanism that was identified by Freud is repression; repression is an unconscious mechanism that is designed to keep any disturbing, frightening memories from conscious back to unconscious so that they do not have to experience the negative experience. (Saul McLeod published 2007, updated 2016 ONLINE) For example, if an individual has experienced a traumatic event in their lives, they will tend to repress that experience back to their unconscious mind so that they can forget the experience and memory. According to Freud, repression is one of the most basic defence mechanism. (Tony Malim and Ann Birch 1998 P34). Another defence mechanism was projection. Projection is when an individual start attributing their own negative thoughts and feelings towards other people, to try and hide how they really feel about the person. …show more content…
He perceived that each individual must pass through a series of stages during childhood, and if the individual lack any proper nurturing and parenting during the stage, that the individual may become stuck or fixated on that stage. According to Freud, every individual goes through the five stages which are the oral, anal, phallic, latency and genitals. The first stage is the oral stage which is when a child is born and ends from the age of 1 years. Freud discovered that during this stage, the mouth is the pleasure centre for development meaning that infants are born with sucking reflexes and other desires that involve the mouth, for example when a child starts to suck their mothers breast at a young age. However, if the mother stops or refuses to breast feed the child, and the child's oral needs are not met during their infancy, that child may then develop negative habits which may be biting their nails or even being frustrated as they grow. For example, if a child has grown up to be an adult and they are fixated in the oral stage because they lacked proper nurturing when they were an infant, that individual may grow to be a nail biter or even a finger chewer because their oral stage was not met. The anal stage (1-3 years of age) consists of when children begin to experiment with urine and faeces meaning that with this stage, a child is toilet trained, however if a

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Initially Freud had proposed self-preservation and sex as the two basic drives, much like the evolutionary concept of reproductive success, which includes survival and reproduction. His decision to change from self-preservation to aggression stemmed in part from living through World War I and witnessing the beginning of World War II in Europe. If aggression on such a massive scale kept breaking through in the most ‘civilised’ societies, he reasoned, it must be a basic motivational force. Psychodynamic views of motivation have advanced considerably since Freud’s death in 1939.…

    • 141 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Everybody has a unique personality that influences who we are, how we act, and the nature of our relationships. Our personality is inescapable and essentially shapes us as individuals. Despite its centrality to human existence, defining what impacts attribute to specific personalities, and consequent behaviour patterns, is something that is still heavily debated today, and as such, many alternating theories have evolved in an attempt to explain these concepts. (Shultz & Shultz, 2009). Sigmund Freud was the first psychologist to formally theorise what factors contribute to the construction of an individual’s personality, and suggested that the unconscious mind emulated great power over our behaviour and personality.…

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Running Head: INFANCY DEVELOPMENTAL PROFILE There are many different perspectives on how people develop, one of these is that of Sigmund Freud. Freud’s theory of development is called Psychoanalytic theory. In the Psychoanalytic Theory, Freud has five stages he says children go through in development. The first of these stages is the oral stage, the second is the anal stage, the third is the phallic stage, and the fourth is the latency stage and the fifth is the genital stage (Boundless Open Textbook.…

    • 1218 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Analyse and evaluate the major theories of physical, social and emotional, cognitive, sensory and language development in relation to the development of children from birth to three years. Do they apply to all children’s development? This essay will be analysing and evaluating the major theories of development in relation to the development of children aged from birth to three years, and whether the theories apply to all children’s development.…

    • 1482 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The psychosexual stages of development are: oral (0-18 months), anal (18 months to 3 years), phallic (3-6 years) Latency (6 years – puberty), and genital (puberty – death). In the oral stage infants, will gain sexual pleasure…

    • 741 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Freud is the father of the psychodynamic approach in psychology. This is interested in energy, or biological forces which influence the mind. This approach has a theory of personality which says it has 3 structures and is very influenced by the unconscious thoughts and experiences many which happened in our childhood. Freud’s main idea is the importance of the unconscious mind i.e. mental processes, as a theory that explains human behaviour.…

    • 637 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    These are called the psychosexual stages of development because every stage represents the fixation of libido on a separate part of the body. Libido can be defined as sexual drives or instincts. The first stage is the oral stage. This occurs between 0 to 18 months and the main focus during this time is directed towards the pleasure centers of the mouth. Examples of this would be sucking, biting, and chewing.…

    • 1592 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents concludes that if a person can not fulfil their needs, then they will use “substitutive satisfactions” which give them the feeling they are looking for--feeling of satisfaction (Freud, 24). In addition, he explains how the “question of the purpose of human life” has been asked by multiple times and yet, no one has come up with an answer that shows that life has a purpose (Freud, 25). Additionally, Freud states that religion as come up with the most satisfactory answer (Freud, 24). As a result, Freud’s assessment of “civilization” as a place where happiness is difficult to achieve relates Freud 's theory of instinct which include the id, ego and superego.…

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The id demands, the superego denies, and the ego tries to pacify the id and superego (Cervone, & Pervin, 2010). Freud’s personality development views involve psychosexual stages. The oral stage starts at birth and lasts until the child is about a year old. The anal stage takes over at 12 moths and lasts until the child is about two years old. The phallic stage lasts from three years to about five years old.…

    • 1146 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In this stage the libido is dormant and sexual energy can be used in areas such as school work, or growing friendships. During this stage most of the child’s energy is put into learning new things and developing new skills. Any play time they have is spent with children of the same sex (McLeod, 2008). The final stage in Freud’s theory is the genital stage which take place in the years after puberty into adulthood.…

    • 1370 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Freud, perhaps made the greatest contribution to Psychotherapy and as part of that contribution, most of the current theories of Psychology are developed based on or in part of Freud’s views on development and personality (Sharf, 2012, p. 28). As part of Freud’s Psychoanalysis, he developed the drive theory of personality, Ego Psychology, Object Relations Psychology, Self Psychology, and Relational Psychoanalysis. Freud’s Drive Theory is one of the most controversial therapeutic views, which contains the theories of innate drives that differ from the self-preservation drive, and the species-preservation drives (2012, p.32). The concepts of the drive theory include drive, instinct, libido, eros, and thanatos.…

    • 1118 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Compare and contrast Psychoanalytic Theory to that of Social Cognitive Perspective and the Humanistic Perspective. Also, tell me who are the primary psychologists who came up with each theory/perspective? Sigmund Freud was an influential psychiatrist and clinical psychologist. Freud began his work when he found that the disorders of the patients he was seeing made no neurological sense. What could be causing feelings that had no physical cause?…

    • 1455 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst who is known as the founding father of psychoanalysis. His book “Civilization and Its Discontents” show how civilization can cause discontent in human beings and why people must undergo the civilization process. In it, he proposes a theory, which states that civilization itself is the main reason why there is unhappiness among civilized people. He describes civilization as “a process in the service of Eros, whose purpose is to combine single human individuals, and after that families, then races, peoples and nations, into one great unity, the unity of mankind.” (Freud, pg. 396) During this process, civilization pushes people into a constant state of guilt, which ultimately causes this unhappiness.…

    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sigmund Freud, an Austrian doctor who developed a therapeutic method for analysing the unconscious, argued “that desire was the root of human civilisation” (D’alleva 2005: 89). Freud’s work revolutionised the way people thought about desire, the workings of the mind, basic human interactions and the human self. He stated humans must work to survive thus individuals repress some of their tendencies of pleasure and gratification. For the individual, managing repressed desires is difficult; the place where unfulfilled desires are stored is known as the unconscious (Sayers 2007: 9). “The unconscious stands as the central pillar in psychoanalytic thought” (Knafo 2012: xxii).…

    • 773 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Human is the most complex creature. Scientist Throughout the ages seek to know more about the human nature. They made lots of theories and hypotheses to know more about Human soul. In the human there are lots of conflicts, feelings, dreams, thoughts and moralities. One of the most famous scientists that cared about the human soul is Freud.…

    • 995 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays