THEORY OF THE MIND
Sigmund Freud said that all behaviour is meaningful and when people say
things that are different from what they intended, their unconscious
thoughts are breaking through to consciousness. Freud- ian slips are part of
everyday language in western societies.
Freud developed a structure of the mind, which includes three components:
Id
Ego
Superego
Id
This is the part of personality or mind that a person is born with. It
is the largest part of the unconscious structure of the mind. The id
holds the sexual and aggressive instincts of the person and demands
instant gratification. It is sometimes referred to as the psychic energy.
Ego
This part of the personality or mind is the largest part of the conscious
mind but at least half of it is preconscious. The ego develops in
childhood and fulfils a function of balancing the desires of the id
with the social constraints of the world which are internalised by the
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superego.
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Superego
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The superego is often referred to as the conscience of the person, which
is developed at about the age of five. The superego uses guilt and pride to
facilitate compliance with social norms. The superego is partly con- scious
but also exists in the preconscious and unconscious.
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Developmental process
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Freud also offered a developmental process by which this structure of the
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personality was achieved. He suggested children are born with the id but
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develop the ego and superego through psychosexual develop- mental stages.
These experiences in early childhood have a strong impact on the later
personality. Freud’s stages of psychosexual development are:
Oral 0–18 months
Anal 18–36 months
Phallic 3–6 years
Latent 6 years to puberty
Genital puberty onwards
Freud suggested that the child derives pleasure from different bodily areas at
different times of their life. These areas of fascination become the label for the
psychosexual stages. If the child successfully pro- gresses though each stage
they will develop a full self-concept, but if they are over or understimulated in
any area they will be fixated in that area. If a child becomes fixated at a
particular stage they will have a certain type of personality.
It has been suggested that the most important of these psychosexual stages is
the phallic stage; this is where the child experiences either the Oedipus or
Electra complex and where the superego or conscience starts developing. It
is where the child becomes aware of their own gender and a rivalry develops
towards the same sex parent to compete for the affection of the opposite sex
parent. Boys and girls resolve this in different ways; the boys identify with the
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father due to fears the father will castrate them. If children do not identify with
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the same sex parent, they may go on to develop homosexual relationships.
Girls recognise that they do not have a penis and believe themselves to be
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castrated already, and develop penis envy. Girls go on to change this desire for a
penis into a desire to have a baby, preferably a boy baby.
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COPY OF: GABANULE DERRICK
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