Psychoanalytic Psychology

Type of psychology: Origin and definition of psychology
Fields of study: Psychodynamic and neoanalytic models; psychodynamic
therapies
Psychoanalytic and neoanalytic schools of thought provide explanations of human
and neurotic behavior. Each of these models contributes to the understanding of personality
development and psychological conflict by presenting unique theoretical
conceptualizations, assessment techniques, research methodologies, and psychotherapeutic
strategies for personality change.
Key concepts
• analytic psychology
• dynamic cultural schools of psychoanalysis
• individual psychology
• neoanalytic psychology
• psychoanalytic psychology
• psychosocial theory
One grand theory in psychology that dramatically revolutionized the way in
which personality and its formation were viewed is psychoanalysis. Orthodox
psychoanalysis and later versions of this model offer several unique perspectives
of personality development, assessment, and change.
The genius of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the founder of psychoanalysis,
is revealed in the magnitude of his achievements and the monumental
scope of his works. Over the course of his lifetime, Freud developed a theory
of personality and psychopathology (disorders of psychological functioning
that include major as well as minor mental disorders and behavior disorders),
a method for probing the realm of the unconscious mind, and a therapy
for dealing with personality disorders. He posited that an individual is
motivated by unconscious forces that are instinctual in nature. The two major
instinctual forces are the life instincts, or eros, and the death instinct, or
thanatos. Their source is biological tension whose aim is tension reduction
through a variety of objects. Freud viewed personality as a closed system
composed of three structures: the id, ego, and superego. The irrational id
consists of the biological drives and libido, or psychic energy. It operates according
to the pleasure principle, which seeks the immediate gratification
of needs. The rational ego serves as the executive component of personality
and the mediator between the demands of the id, superego, and environment.
Governed by the reality principle, it seeks to postpone the gratification
of needs. The superego, or moral arm of personality, consists of the
conscience (internalized values) and ego ideal (that which the person aspires
to be).
According to Freud, the origins of personality are embedded in the first
seven years of life. Personality develops through a sequence of psychosexual
stages which each focus upon an area of the body (erogenous zone) that
gives pleasure to the individual; they are the oral, anal, phallic, latency, and
genital stages. The frustration or overindulgence of needs contributes to a
fixation, or arrest in development at a particular stage.
Freud also developed a therapy for treating individuals experiencing personality
disturbances. Psychoanalysis has shown how physical disorders have
psychological roots, how unbearable anxiety generates conflict, and how
problems in adulthood result from early childhood experiences. In therapy,
Freud surmounted his challenge to reveal the hidden nature of the unconscious
by exposing the resistances and transferences of his patients. His
method for probing a patient’s unconscious thoughts, motives, and feelings
was based upon the use of many clinical techniques. Free association, dream
interpretation, analyses of slips of the tongue, misplaced objects, and humor
enabled him to discover the contents of an individual’s unconscious mind
and open the doors to a new and grand psychology of personality.