1. Psychodynamic Theories of
Personality
Sigmund Freud

2. What’s Ahead
• In Freud’s theory of personality, why are the id
and the superego always at was?
• When people say you’re being “defensive” what
defenses might they be thinking of?
• How do psychologists regard Freud-today- as a
genius or a fraud?
• What would Carl Jung have had to say about
Darth Vader?
• What are the “objects” in the object- relations
approach to personality?

3. • Personality-A distinctive pattern of behavior,
mannerisms, thoughts, & emotions that
characterizes an individual over time
• Consists of many distinctive traits, habitual
ways of behaving, thinking, & feeling
• Examples: Shy, reliable, friendly, hostile,
gloomy, confident, ambitious, etc

4. Freud & Psychoanalysis
• Psychodynamic-Emphasis on unconscious
intrapsychicdynamics, in the form of
attachments, conflicts, & motivations
• Unconscious processes within the mind
• Belief in the importance of early childhood

5. • Belief that development occurs in fixed stages
• Focus on fantasies and symbolic meanings of
events
–Unconscious motives, guilty secrets,
unspeakable yearnings, & conflicts between
desire & duty
–The unconscious reveals itself in art, dreams,
jokes, apparent accidents, & slips of the tongue
• Reliance on subjective rather than objective
methods

6. The Structure of Personality
• 3 major systems
• Any action we take
or problem we have
results from the
interaction & degree
of balance among
these systems

7. • Id: Operates according to the pleasure principle
–Present at birth
–Primitive and unconscious part of personality
–Reservoir of unconscious psychic energy & the
motives to avoid pain & obtain pleasure
• 2 competing instincts
• Life or sexual instinct
• Death or aggressive instinct

8. • Ego: Operates according to the reality
principle
–Mediates between id and superego
–Represents reason & good sense
• Superego: Moral ideals and conscience
–Judges the activities of the id

9. Summary of Freud’s Model of the Mind
Id Ego Superego
What It Does Expresses sexual Mediates between desires of Represents conscience
and aggressive the id and demands of the and the rules of
instincts superego; uses defense society; follows
mechanisms to ward off internalized moral
unconscious anxiety standards
How conscious it is Entirely Partly conscious, partly Partly conscious,
unconscious unconscious mostly unconscious
When it develops Present at birth Emerges after birth, with Last system to develop;
early formative experiences becomes internalized
after the phallic
(oedipal) stage
Example “I’m so mad I Might make a conscious “Thou shalt not kill”
could kill you” choice (“Let’s talk about
(felt this” ) or resort to an
unconsciously) unconscious defense
mechanism, such as denial
(“What, me angry? Never.”)

10. • If a person feels anxious or threatened when
the wishes if the Id conflict with social roles,
the ego has weapons to relieve the tension
• Defense mechanisms deny or distort reality
but also protect us from conflict & anxiety

11. Defense Mechanism
• Repression: Threatening idea is blocked from
consciousness
–Unconscious expulsion of disturbing material
from awareness & conscious suppression of
such material
• Projection: Unacceptable feelings are
attributed to someone else

12. • Displacement: Directing emotions toward objects
or people that aren’t the real target
–When it serves a higher, socially useful purpose
(art or inventing) it’s called sublimination
• Reaction Formation: A feeling that produces
anxiety is transformed into its opposite.
–The professed feeling is excessive & the person
is extravagant & compulsive about demonstrating
it

13. • Regression: A person reverts to a previous
phase of psychological development.
• Denial: A person refuses to admit that
something is unpleasant.
–Protects a person’s self image & preserves
the illusion of invulnerability

14. The Development of Personality
• Stage 1: Oral Stage
–Occurs during the first year of life when
babies experience the world through their
mouths
–Adults seek oral gratification by smoking,
overeating, nail biting, or chewing on pens

15. • Stage 2: Anal Stage (2-3)
–When toilet training & control of bodily
wastes are the key issues
–May become “anal retentive” holding
everything in, obsessive about neatness &
cleanliness or “anal expulsive” messy &
disorganized

16. • Stage 3: Phallic
(Oedipal) Stage (3-5)
–Most important to
formation of person
–Child unconsciously
wishes to possess the
parent of the other
sex & to get rid of the
parent of the same
sex Freud believed that
–Oedipus Complex during the oedipal
stage, little boys
fantasize about
marrying their mothers
and regard their
fathers as rivals.

17. • Boys are discovering the pleasure & pride of
having a penis, seeing a girl he gets worried &
starts to identify with his father
• Girls don’t have the motivation to give up the
oedipal feelings leading to “penis envy”
• By 5 or 6 personality is fundamentally formed
–Unconscious conflicts with parents,
unresolved fixating, guilt & attitudes towards
the same & opposite sex will continue to
replay themselves throughout life

18. Other Psychodynamic
Approaches
Carl Jung

19. Jungian Theory
• Carl Jung
• Freud’s closest friend until a quarrel over the
nature of the unconscious
–Includes the concepts of the collective
unconscious (the universal memories of the
species) and archetypes (universal symbolic
images in myths, art, and dreams).

20. Archetypes Examples
• The Mother: feeding, soothing
and nurturing.
• The Self: spiritual connection to
the universe
• The Shadow: dark, unknown and
mysterious part
• The Child: birth and beginnings
• The Trickster: deceiving In The Wizard of
• The Scarecrow: outcast Oz, the Wicked
Witch of the West
• The Hero: rescuer, champion is a beloved
example of the
archteype of evil.

21. • 2 most important archetypes are maleness &
femaleness
–Problems can arise if a person tries to repress
their internal opposite archetypes
• People are motivated not only by past
conflicts, but also by future goals & their
desire to fulfill themselves
• Introversion/extroversion

22. The Object Relations School
• Emphasizes the importance of the infant’s first
two years of life and the baby’s formative
relationships, especially with the mother.
• The central problem in life is to find a balance
between the need for independence & the
need for others

23. • Requires constant adjustment to separations
& losses
• The way we react to these separations is
largely determined by our experiences in the
first year or two.

24. Evaluating Psychodynamic Theories
• All share a general belief that to understand
personality we must explore its unconscious
dynamics & origins
• Failings
–violate the principle of falsifiability
• Impossible to disconfirm unconscious motives

25. • Drawing universal principles from the
experiences of a few atypical patients.
• Basing theories upon the retrospective
accounts and fallible memories of patients.
–Creates an illusion of causality between
events

26. Today
• Psychologists are testing psychodynamic ideas
empirically
• Identified nonconscious processes in thought,
memory, & behavior & found evidence for
many defense mechanisms
• Research confirms the psychodynamic idea
that we are often unaware of the motives
behind our actions