In a compromise formation, the ego attempts to express these id impulses in socially appropriate ways while accounting for the moral and societal values of the superego there is a compromise between the original wish and the anxiety against the wish. Defense mechanisms are employed by the ego to defend against this anxiety. When unacceptable and unconscious id drives approach conscious awareness, a sense of danger and anxiety develops. These conflicts are at the heart of both classic and modern psychoanalytic theories ’ understanding of symptoms, psychopathology, and defense mechanisms. Freud compared the conflict between the id and the ego to that between an unruly horse and its rider the rider (ego) has to direct the unbridled energy of the horse (id) in a way that is neither too permitting nor too restrictive. The superego is the moral part of the mind that represents an individual ’s internalized sense of parental and societal values. The ego helps to regulate the frustration from ungratified id drives. The ego operates mostly out of the reality principle, which accounts for reality factors and social norms that prohibit instinctual urges from being immediately gratified. It operates according to the pleasure principle, which has as its sole goal the immediate gratification of all urges. The id is unconscious and active at birth, and encompasses all of the instinctual and bodily wishes. Most of the mind lies in the unconscious, below the level of awareness.Ĭomplementing the topographical model, Freud also proposed a structural model of the mind that includes three parts: id, ego, and superego. Freud used the analogy of an iceberg to describe this model: Only a small tip of a much larger iceberg is visible above water, much like only a small fraction of the mind is conscious. Information that is not in immediate awareness but is easily retrievable is called preconscious. The unconscious contains all that is outside of immediate awareness, whereas the conscious contains those parts of which individuals are immediately aware. His topographical model posited conscious, unconscious, and preconscious parts of the mind. Freud also argued that jokes can be derivative expressions of unconscious sexual or aggressive feelings disguised as humor.įreud ’s explication of dreams and the unconscious led him to develop a more comprehensive theory of the mind. For instance, a man who calls his wife “mom ” may unconsciously reveal repressed thoughts or feelings that he has about either woman. For example, what Freud called a parapraxis, known today as a “Freudian slip ” or “slip of the tongue, ” is popularly understood to describe the occurrence of an unconscious wish “accidentally ” being revealed in an individual ’s speech or writing. The latent content of the dream represents its unconscious hidden meaning and can only be discovered through the process of interpretation.įreud described other ways in which the unconscious is revealed in everyday life. The surface details and narrative structure of the dream -what we remember -are referred to as the manifest content. These wishes are symbolically expressed in dreams. Freud contended that there are core sexual and aggressive wishes that the conscious mind finds unacceptable and represses. To this day, psychoanalytic theory and the practice of psychoanalysis continue to evolve in ways that support, discard, and expand some of Freud ’s original principles.Īt the heart of Freud ’s ideas was his seminal work The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), which describes dreams as unconscious wish fulfillments. Psychoanalysis is the forerunner of most forms of modern psychotherapeutic techniques. Psychoanalysis, the clinical application of Freud ’s theory, is a tool that explores the unconscious mind in order to relieve painful emotional symptoms and increase self-awareness. Borne out of Freud ’s treatment of patients with neurological disorders, psychoanalytic theory describes both normal and abnormal human experience and emphasizes the lasting impact of early childhood events on adult personality and psychological development. Freud posited that most of what motivates individuals lies outside of their immediate awareness. Founded by the Austrian neurologist and physician Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), psychoanalytic theory is a framework for understanding the impact of the unconscious on thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
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