Psychodynamic Theory of Personality

Personality Concepts: Psychodynamic Approach

• Personality refers to the unique characteristics of feelings, cognitions, and behaviors shaped by biological and environmental factors.
• Personality theory aims to explain individual differences in response to life experiences and motivational factors behind behaviors like crime, job performance, or health outcomes.
• Personality is relatively consistent, but traits can change over time and often improve, usually due to illness or injury.
• The study of personality encompasses various concepts and perspectives, including psychodynamic, humanistic, and trait theory, along with personality assessment and applications.
• Freud's theory, under the psychodynamic umbrella, explores how childhood shapes the adult.

Psychodynamic Theory

• Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), an Austrian neurologist, developed psychodynamic theory which emphasizes unconscious psychological processes like fears, wishes, and desires, and the role of childhood experiences in shaping personality.
• Freud developed psychoanalysis to treat mental illness, systematically analyzing his patients' words to understand their unconscious inner world and its influence on psychological wellbeing and behavior.
• Early psychodynamic theories were controversial, but Freudian theory was the first model to introduce talking therapy into mainstream mental health treatment.

Freud's Key Concepts

• The human psyche comprises three levels: conscious (ego), preconscious, and unconscious (id).
• The conscious level contains current awareness and perceptions.
• The preconscious level contains information accessible to awareness, like past memories.
• The unconscious level, according to Freud, is the repository of deepest wishes, fears, unacceptable sexual desires, instincts, and trauma-based memories, which drives much of our behavior and shapes personality.
• The unconscious serves as a self-protector of the psyche, repressing information that could cause psychological distress.
• Freud compared the psyche to an iceberg, where the conscious mind is the tip, and the unconscious holds most information related to drive and personality.
• Dreams are considered the "royal road to the unconscious" because the ego's defenses are lowered, allowing repressed material to surface in distorted form. Dreams perform important functions for the unconscious mind and offer insights into behavior.
• Freud distinguished between manifest content (the dream material presented) and latent content (the hidden meaning behind the dream), suggesting the psyche disguises distressing material in dreams for acceptability.
• Freud used the phenomenon of "Freudian slips" as evidence of the unconscious mind revealing itself, such as calling a teacher "mother" due to unconscious associations.

Structures of the Psyche

• Freud later theorized three interactive structures within the psyche: Id, Ego, and Super-ego, developing through childhood to satisfy basic urges and corresponding with previous levels of the psyche.

• Freud noted conflict between these structures, reinforcing the role of early childhood in personality development.

• Freud theorized unresolved conflict between the Id, Ego, and Super-Ego results in abnormal psychopathology.

• The Id is based on the pleasure principle, exists from birth, drives instinctive and primitive urges, demands immediate gratification, motivates libido and aggression, and is completely selfish.

• The Ego is based on the reality principle, develops in early childhood, mediates between the id and superego, develops a balanced personality, and is considered one's true self.

• The Superego is based on the morality principle, the last structure to develop (by age 5), informs us of obligations and expectations, develops through socialization, and is responsible for guilt and shame.

• A healthy personality relies on a dominant Ego acting as a mediator between the instinctual Id desires and the moral Superego demands.

• Defense mechanisms protect the ego from unpleasant emotions and distress caused by the constant conflict between the id and superego.

• According to Freud, the Id and Superego are in constant conflict. This can result in feelings of anxiety, which the ego resolves with defence mechanisms.

Defense Mechanisms

• Repression: Pushing threatening memories into the unconscious mind, for instance, not remembering trauma-based experiences from childhood.
• Regression: Reverting to childlike behavior when overwhelmed, like throwing a tantrum.
• Projection: Attributing unacceptable feelings onto others, such as accusing a partner of cheating when you have cheated.
• Denial: Refusing to acknowledge reality.
• Displacement: Redirecting feelings onto a substitute.
• Rationalization: Justifying unwanted outcomes with excuses.
• Sublimation: Replacing unacceptable feelings with socially acceptable behaviors, such as being aggressive on the sport field.

Freud's Psychosexual Stages of Development

• Oral Stage (birth to 18 months): Focus on the mouth, feeding, and weaning. Fixation can lead to over/under eating, smoking, or excessive talking.

• Anal Stage (18 months to 3 years): Focus on the anus and toilet training. Fixation can result in expulsive (messy) or retentive (obsessively tidy) personalities.

• Phallic Stage (3-7 years): Focus on the genitals and sexual identification. Fixation can result in narcissistic behavior or compulsive sexual behavior.

• Latency Stage (6/7 years to puberty): Dormant sexual urges. Focus on learning and same sex relationships. Fixation leads to inability to form fulfilling relationships.

• Genital Stage (puberty+): Focus on the genitals, expressing with intimate relationships with the opposite sex, no fixation.

• The Id drives instinctive urges, while the ego and superego are brought into line through socialization. Having a controlling Id in adulthood can result in narcissistic personalities.

• The superego considers right and wrong, often results in personality traits such as being very strict, overcontrolling, rigid and often neurotic. Successful completion of the Phallic stage involves identification, where the child internalizes the behaviors and characteristics of the same-sex parent.

Evaluation of Freud's Theory

• Freud's theory, while widely misunderstood and controversial, is a key theory which provides underpinning knowledge of Psychodynamic theory and talking therapies.
• Neo-Freudians agree with Freud regarding the role of the unconscious and early experiences shaping personality but apply their own unique perspectives with less emphasis on sexual drives and more focus on socio-cultural implications regarding the development of personality.
• The subjective nature of Freud's work makes it impossible to empirically test to the wider population since much of Freud's theory was based on case studies and accounts of one's experience compromising the reliability of the data.
• Freud's theory is biologically deterministic at the expense of excluding social and cultural factors. Some concepts have strong empirical support such as the existence and importance of the unconscious with a strong need for more investigation and research.
• Neuropsychoanalysis has enhanced understanding on numerous aspects of behaviour such as sleep and dreams, that have now incorporated principles from both domains.

Concepts: Humanistic Approach

• Humanistic psychology was a positive perspective developed in the early 1950s. It was developed as a reaction to psychoanalysis and behaviorism dominant in previous decades.
• Psychoanalysis focused on unconscious motivations that shape our behaviour, while behaviourism focused on learning through the classical and operant way.
• Humanist researchers Maslow and Rogers were interested in researching into whole individual, concepts such as free will, self-efficacy, personal choice and self-actualisation.
• The humanistic approach strives to help people fulfill their potential and maximize their well-being, rather than focusing on the most tragic of emotions or overcoming dysfunction as a result of what was wrong.
• This school of thought has contributed significantly and differently, depending on how people think, feel and behave.

Abraham Maslow and Self-Actualization

• Maslow wanted to discover an individuals' drive to achieve their highest level of capability. Maslow studied historical figures like Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein and Eleanor Roosevelt alongside colleagues, because he believed them to be exceptional in their careers with good mental health.
• There was a good sense of humour, the ability to develop close friendships and they found enjoyment and mission in their work.
• People often described peak experiences during which they felt such an intense degree of satisfaction that they seemed to transcend themselves.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

• 5 step - Self-actualization: morality, creativity, spontaneity, acceptance, experience purpose, meaning and inner potential
• Esteem: confidence, achievement, respect of others, the need to be a unique individual*
• Love and belonging: friendship, intimacy, family, sense of connection*
• Safety and security: health, employment, property, family and social stability*
• Physiological: breathing, food, water, shelter, clothing, sleep*

First physiological needs must be met, before safety needs, then the need for love and belonging, esteem and finally self-actualisation.

• Deficiency needs and growth needs is similar to the oak tree, if there is a deficiency in the basic needs, then the individual will seek to repair or return to that level until it is satisfied. Maslow believed that the lower four levels of physiological, safety, love and belong and esteem were deficiency needs, without which an individual is unable to thrive.

Expanded Hierarchy of Needs

• cognitive and aesthetic needs (Maslow, 1970a) and transcendence needs (Maslow, 1970b). Transcendence - a person is motivated past themselves
• Self-actualisation needs - seeking personal growth Aesthetic needs - Appreciation for the world around them Cognitive needs - Seeking knowledge Esteem needs - Self esteem/ acceptance by others Safety needs - The need to feel safe and secure Physiological needs The need to eat/drink stay stay safe and sleep

Explore the psychodynamic perspective on personality, including Freud's theory and the influence of unconscious processes and childhood experiences. Understand how these factors shape individual behavior and development.