Freud’s Components of Personality and his Defense Mechanisms Sigmund Freud, an Austrian physician, developed the psychoanalytic theory in which he believed that personality is composed of three elements and each of them interacts with each other to influence human behaviors. According to Freud’s theory, some parts of personality are primitive, and other parts deal with reality (Cherry, What are the id, ego, and superego?, 2017). This essay will talk about the three elements of personality and the different defense mechanisms that protect people from things they don’t want to deal with.
According to Freud, personality is composed of three elements: the id, the ego, and the superego. He believed that an individual’s behavior is determined mainly …show more content…
They defined defense mechanisms as tactics to reduce and protect people from anxiety or from things that are too difficult for the mind to cope with (Cherry, 20 Common Defense Mechanisms Used for Anxiety, 2017). The first defense mechanism is denial, in which it is used to describe “people who are unable to face reality or admit an obvious truth”, therefore they are more inclined to falsify information in order to protect themselves from reality (Cherry, 20 Common Defense Mechanisms Used for Anxiety, 2017). For example, an alcoholic person may refuse to admit that drinking too much alcohol is bad for his/her health. Regression, on the other hand, happens when an individual behaves like a child when he/she is in trouble or confronted by stressful events, rather than acting in a more adult way. For example, a 13-year old girl clings to her father’s leg to stop him from leaving the house because of business trip. In this example, the girl went back to an earlier stage maybe because she feels safer when her dad is around. The third defense mechanism is sublimation, in which people divert unwanted impulse into something that is positive or useful (Feldman et al., 2016). For example, a person experiencing anger might go to the gym as a means of cooling down. Sublimation takes place when people decided to put …show more content…
We use it when we are unable to face reality. When I left the Philippines back in 2014, I knew that my grandmother would be left behind. In order to escape from reality at that time, I kept convincing myself that I was just visiting my cousins for a week in a different city because I didn’t want to accept the fact that we were going to another country and start a new life without her by my side. It was an indeed painful reality that I sometimes just pretend that it did not happened at all. In conclusion, Sigmund Freud believed that a human mind is governed by three components of personality: the id, ego, and the superego. The id is concerned with a man’s immediate gratification of wants and needs, the ego balances the demands of the id and the superego, and the superego adds morality to the behavior. By analyzing these defense mechanisms, one can learn that they help to cope with difficult and painful situations and experiences, making things feel better for an
According to Freud, personality is composed of three elements: the id, the ego, and the superego. He believed that an individual’s behavior is determined mainly …show more content…
They defined defense mechanisms as tactics to reduce and protect people from anxiety or from things that are too difficult for the mind to cope with (Cherry, 20 Common Defense Mechanisms Used for Anxiety, 2017). The first defense mechanism is denial, in which it is used to describe “people who are unable to face reality or admit an obvious truth”, therefore they are more inclined to falsify information in order to protect themselves from reality (Cherry, 20 Common Defense Mechanisms Used for Anxiety, 2017). For example, an alcoholic person may refuse to admit that drinking too much alcohol is bad for his/her health. Regression, on the other hand, happens when an individual behaves like a child when he/she is in trouble or confronted by stressful events, rather than acting in a more adult way. For example, a 13-year old girl clings to her father’s leg to stop him from leaving the house because of business trip. In this example, the girl went back to an earlier stage maybe because she feels safer when her dad is around. The third defense mechanism is sublimation, in which people divert unwanted impulse into something that is positive or useful (Feldman et al., 2016). For example, a person experiencing anger might go to the gym as a means of cooling down. Sublimation takes place when people decided to put …show more content…
We use it when we are unable to face reality. When I left the Philippines back in 2014, I knew that my grandmother would be left behind. In order to escape from reality at that time, I kept convincing myself that I was just visiting my cousins for a week in a different city because I didn’t want to accept the fact that we were going to another country and start a new life without her by my side. It was an indeed painful reality that I sometimes just pretend that it did not happened at all. In conclusion, Sigmund Freud believed that a human mind is governed by three components of personality: the id, ego, and the superego. The id is concerned with a man’s immediate gratification of wants and needs, the ego balances the demands of the id and the superego, and the superego adds morality to the behavior. By analyzing these defense mechanisms, one can learn that they help to cope with difficult and painful situations and experiences, making things feel better for an