Chapter 2
The Basis of the
Psychoanalytic Approach
to Personality
Key themes
Sigmund Freud and the psychoanalytic method
Levels of consciousness
Dreams and dream analysis
Human nature and human motivation according to Freud
The structure of personality and personality development
Defence mechanisms
Clinical applications of Freudian theory
Evaluation of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory
Learning outcomes
After studying this chapter you should:
Understand what is meant by the psychoanalytic method
Understand the Freudian conception of human nature and
human motivation
Have developed an understanding of the way that
psychoanalysis attempts to understand human behaviour
Be aware of the way Freud structured personality and how he
saw it developing
Appreciate some of the clinical applications of Freudian theory
Know how to critically evaluate the work of Freud
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Description of Freud’s theory of
personality
We will first describe Freud’s theory of personality that
comprises:
levels of consciousness;
the nature of human beings and the source of human
motivation;
the structure of personality;
the development of personality.
Levels of consciousness
When Freud began theorising, there was a strong tradition
within intellectual circles of regarding human beings as
basically rational creatures whose behaviour is determined
by will or the seeking of goals in a conscious manner.
Human beings were conceptualised as being in control of
their lives and exercising free will in their behaviour to the
extent their social circumstances allowed. Freud did not create
the idea of unconscious mind. Philosophers had been
discussing the idea of unconscious mind for hundreds of
CHAPTER 2 THE BASIS OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH TO PERSONALITY 21
Sigmund Freud was a major intellectual figure of the
twentieth century and founded the psychoanalytic
approach to personality. At the core of the psychoanalytic
approach is the belief that most of our behaviour is
driven by motives of which we are unaware. These
motives are conceptualised as unconscious forces that
make it difficult for us to truly know ourselves. This may
lead us occasionally to behave in ways that we have difficulty
explaining. In our everyday life, for example, people
frequently refer to factors in their unconscious
having influenced their behaviour. A colleague might forget
to go to a meeting, despite having it in his diary and
being reminded about it earlier in the day. When thinking
about it, he admits that he knew it was likely to be a boring
meeting; and consequently, Freud would have suggested
that he was unconsciously motivated to forget
about it.
The psychoanalytic approach, as we shall see,
explains how much of our psychological energy is taken
up with suppressing our unconscious urges or finding
socially acceptable ways of expressing them. Freud’s
theory is controversial, and some current psychologists
are keen to dismiss him as merely a historical figure,
albeit an important one. Freud is a central figure in the
development of the clinical strand of personality theorising
that we discussed in Chapter 1. Freud’s work is
important historically, but Freud and related psychoanalytic
theories are included here because of the continuing
influence that his concepts have, not just on psychology
but in many other disciplines also. Many psychoanalytic
concepts provide such useful descriptions of human
behaviour that they have been incorporated into our
everyday language. By the end of the chapter, you will
have come across many of these examples.
We begin by exploring in some detail the work of
Sigmund Freud. Biographical details of Freud are
included in the Profile box on p. 23 to help us under-
Introduction
stand how his life experiences have helped shape the theory
that he produced, as we discussed in Chapter 1. The discussion
of Freud reflects on the importance and extent of
his contribution to personality theory. At the end of the
chapter, the criteria described in Chapter 1 are used to
evaluate the theory.
Source: Pearson Education Ltd. Jules Selmes
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22 PART 1 PERSONALITY
years. However, the predominant view as popularised by the
German philosopher Johann Friedrich (1776–1841) in his
two-volume book, Psychology as Knowledge Newly Founded
on Experience, Metaphysics and Mathematics (1824–1825),
was that unconscious ideas were weaker ideas that had been
pushed from consciousness by the stronger conscious ideas.
Freud (1940/1969) disagreed strongly both with the
rational view of human beings and with the suggestion that
unconscious ideas were weaker than conscious ones.
Instead, Freud (1940/1969) suggested that there were levels
of consciousness and unconsciousness.
Firstly, there is the level of conscious thought. This consists
of material that we are actively aware of at any given
time.For example,as I am writing this I am aware of trying to
think of an example of conscious thought, indeed what to
write next is my conscious thought at this moment. Next to
this is what Freud termed preconscious mind. This consists
of thoughts that are unconscious at this instant, but which
can be easily recalled into our conscious mind. An example
might be the colour of your car or what you did last evening.
Preconscious material can easily be brought to mind when
required.The final level is the unconscious mind.It consists
of thoughts, memories, feelings, urges or fantasies that we are
unaware of because they are being actively kept in our unconscious.
Freud argued that they were kept in our unconscious
due to their unacceptable nature. It may be sexual urges that
we would find unacceptable, or aggressive instincts that
frighten us, so they are kept repressed in our unconscious.
The term he used for this process of keeping material unconscious
was repression. He saw it as an active, continuous
process and described repressed material as being dynamically
unconscious to reflect this sense of activity.
Although three levels of thought are described, there are
no clear-cut divisions between conscious, preconscious and
unconscious thought; rather, there are different degrees or
levels within each. For example, at times repression may
weaken, so that previously unconscious material becomes
conscious. This unconscious material is usually in a modified
form, such as in dreams when we are asleep, at stressful
times in symptoms of illness or psychological disturbance,
or in the emergence of apparently alien impulses under the
influence of drugs or alcohol.An example might be the quiet
student who appears easygoing and unassertive, but under
the influence of alcohol becomes ready to argue with her
shadow and is loud and quite aggressive. Drugs like alcohol
are disinhibitors, and unconscious urges are more likely to
emerge into our consciousness. Freud compared the content
of mind to an iceberg, describing conscious and preconscious
thought as the small sections above the surface.
Related to these levels of consciousness, Freud suggested
that different thought processes are at work within the various
levels. Dreams exemplify this well. Freud (1901/1953)
suggested that the function of dreams is to preserve sleep by
representing wishes as fulfilled. Worries that we have may
disappear in the dream, or problems may be represented as
solved. Or desires that are unacceptable to our conscious
mind may find expression in our dreams. Freud argued that
representing these desires as fulfilled in our dreams helps to
preserve sleep, as we are no longer trying to solve our problems
or worrying about a situation as it is fixed in the dream.
Freud believed that dreams were a direct route into the
patient’s unconscious. He considered that there were two
important elements to dreams – the manifest content and
the latent content. The manifest content is the description
of the dream as recalled by the dreamer. However, he felt that
this was not a true representation of the unconscious mind,
as the dreamer unconsciously censors some of the true
meaning of the dream or uses symbols to represent key elements
to avoid becoming too disturbed by their recall of the
dream. The task of the analyst was to identify what Freud
called the latent content of the dream. He felt that skilled
interpretation was often necessary to get at the real meaning
of the dream. In line with the thrust of his theory, as we shall
see later, he suggested that much of the unconscious content
of dreams was sexual in nature. While most symbols used in
dreams have a personal meaning for the dreamer, Freud
(1901/1953) identified some commonly occurring dream
symbols. He suggested that snakes and knives symbolise the
penis; a staircase or ladder, sexual intercourse; baldness or
tooth extraction, castration fears; robbers, a father figure and
so on. Hence, a dream with a latent content of climbing a
ladder is actually about sexual intercourse (latent content).
Freud used dreams as a way to explore the patient’s unconscious
conflicts. He would get patients to keep dream diaries.
During treatment sessions, the patient would report the
manifest content of the dream, and Freud would analyse this
material to uncover the latent content. In this way, he could
access the patient’s unconscious mind.
Freud (1940/1969) claimed that different styles of
thinking were associated with different levels of consciousness.
Dreams, for example, represented what he
called primary process thinking. This is essentially irrational
mental activity. Dreams exemplify this activity by
the way in which events are often oblivious to the categories
of time and space, extreme contradiction is tolerated
and events are displaced and condensed in impossible
ways. The logically impossible becomes possible in our
dreams. Freud claimed that it was a result of our being
governed partly by what he called the pleasure principle –
an urge to have our drives met. This is not a desire to
actively seek pleasure, but rather an instinct to avoid
displeasure, pain and upset. It is about preserving equilibrium
within the organism in the face of internal and/or
external attacks. Thus, the irrational thinking of dreams
(primary process thinking) serves the function of keeping
us asleep by presenting our unconscious desires as being
fulfilled (pleasure principle).
Primary process thinking is contrasted with secondary
process thinking. This is rational thought, which is
logical and organised. Secondary process thinking is govM02_MALT2908_02_SE_C02.QXD
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CHAPTER 2 THE BASIS OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH TO PERSONALITY 23
Profile
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 to a Jewish family in
Freiberg, Moravia, now the Czech Republic. He was his
mother’s first child. His mother had seven more children,
the youngest of whom died aged 8 months. Later
in life, Freud reported experiencing great guilt over the
death of this sibling as he had resented having to share
his mother with his baby brother. He was his mother’s
favourite, and they had a very close relationship, while
relations with his father were colder and sometimes
hostile. Freud reported having guilt feelings about his
relationship with his father. Shortly after his father died,
he began to psychoanalyse himself to deepen his
understanding of his own unconscious feelings.
When Freud was three years old, his family moved to
Vienna. He was very able and studied physiology and medicine
at the University of Vienna. As a medical student, he
went to work for Ernst Brücke, one of the greatest physiologists
of the nineteenth century. Brücke was the first physiologist
to suggest that the laws of physics and chemistry
applied to human beings and to describe living organisms
as dynamic systems. By this, he meant that organisms were
constantly in a state of movement and change, constantly
energised. Freud was greatly taken with this conceptualisation
of human beings. He graduated from medicine in 1881,
but he never intended to become a doctor; instead, he specialised
in research on the nervous system. However, this
work was not well paid, and financial pressures created by
the wish to marry and support a family resulted in him
beginning to practise medicine. Given his interests, Freud
decided to specialise in nervous disorders in his practice. At
this time, there was little treatment available for the mentally
ill, as we saw in the last chapter.
Freud heard of the work of Jean Charcot, a French doctor
who was using hypnosis as a treatment method with
some success, particularly with patients with hysteria.
Hysteria is a condition where the patient reports physical
symptoms of illness, but no evidence of a physical condition
is present; the cause of the condition is therefore
thought to be psychological. Nowadays we call these
psychosomatic conditions. Charcot would hypnotise
patients; when they were under hypnosis, he would tell
them that they no longer suffered from their symptoms and
that they had overcome their illness. Freud studied hypnosis
with Charcot in Paris between 1885 and 1886. Although
initially enthusiastic about hypnosis, Freud came to feel that
its effects were only short lived and did not address the
roots of the individual’s problem. He was more interested in
what drove patients to develop hysterical symptoms in the
first place. Returning to Vienna, he met a Viennese doctor,
Joseph Breuer, who had developed a system of encouraging
his psychiatric patients to talk about their problems
while the doctor listened. Freud adopted this approach, and
it is from this time that he truly became a psychological
researcher and began to develop his own theory.
Freud spent much of the 1890s undertaking what he
termed a self-analysis of his own unconscious process.
He studied his own dreams and got his patients to report
their dreams to him. He developed Breuer’s approach of
encouraging patients to talk about their problems,
expanding it to embrace what is termed free association.
Free associations are thoughts that come spontaneously
into one’s mind. Freud encouraged patients to report
these thoughts to him as they occurred. He examined his
own free associations and compared them with those of
his patients. From this emerged his theory of how the
personality was created and functioned.
Freud was a prolific writer; he produced 21 books
between 1900 and 1931 and hundreds of journal articles
erned by the reality principle. This means that we operate
according to the actual situation in the external world and
the facts as we see them. Secondary process thinking is
characteristic of conscious and preconscious thought.
Freud suggests that the pleasure principle is an innate,
primitive instinct driving our behaviour while the reality
principle is learnt as we grow up. Daydreaming, imaginative
thought, creative activities, and emotional thinking are
claimed to involve a mixture of both primary and secondary
process thinking (Freud, 1940/1969).
The nature of human beings and the
source of human motivation
As we discussed in Chapter 1, personality theory aims to
address several questions about human nature; the biggest
of these is arguably what motivates us as human beings?
For Freud (1901/1965), the answer to this question lies in
the way that personality is structured and in how it develops.
When Freud began his work on the development of
personality, it was within a scientific culture where
Darwin’s evolutionary theory was dominant. The human
infant was seen to be somewhere between apes and human
adults in terms of development, hence it was assumed that
the same basic biological drives would be shared by human
infants and other animals. Hunger and sexuality were seen
to be the most important drives for animals and for human
infants also.
Linked to Darwinism, there was great interest in
explaining how specific behaviour arose and in explaining
how behaviour was energised. Freud (1901/1965) assumed
that each child was born with a fixed amount of mental
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24 PART 1 PERSONALITY
energy. He called this energy the libido. This libido, after
development, will in time become the basis of the adult
sexual drives. We will examine this concept in more detail
later in the chapter. In his approach to development, Freud
emphasised not only the child’s biological inheritance in
terms of instinctual drives – libido and the pleasure principle,
for example – but also the child’s environmental factors,
such as developmental experiences. All behaviour was
energised by fundamental instinctual drives. Freud initially
described two types of drives or instincts. There were the
sexual drives energised by the libido, as we have just discussed.
Then there were life-preserving drives, including
hunger and pain. Both of these drives can be conceptualised
as being positive and leading to prolongation of
life and renewal of life. Later in the 1920s Freud introduced
the death instinct, sometimes termed Thanatos, which
is thought to be a response to the First World War. He
suggests that human beings also possess a self-destructive
instinct. It is different from an aggressive instinct, as
the emphasis is not on destroying another but on wiping
out oneself. Hence, to Freud (1920/1977), the human
species appeared to possess a death instinct. It could be
observed both at the group and the individual level.
Human motivation is explained by our attempts throughout
our lives to satisfy these basic instinctual drives. The
form taken by this gratification of our instinctual needs
typically changes with age, as we shall see.
and lectures. These books mainly chronicled his scientific
theorising about how the mind worked. His extensive
writing resulted in him becoming the most
frequently cited psychologist of the twentieth century.
He was invited to lecture in the United States in 1909.
His books attracted great interest and provoked many
debates amongst intellectuals both outside and within
medical and psychological circles. He was careful to
write for a lay audience as well as the scientific community.
His books – The Psychopathology of Everyday Life,
Three Essays on Sexuality and The Interpretation of
Dreams – contributed to his fame, and it became fashionable
for the rich to be psychoanalysed.
Freud spent almost eighty years in Austria, only being
driven out by the increasing power of the Nazis. His
books were publicly burnt in Berlin in 1933. In 1938 when
Hitler invaded Austria, Freud fled to London with his family.
For the last 16 years of his life he suffered from cancer
of the jaw and was frequently in great pain, but he continued
to work. He died in London in 1939, aged 83. Freud
had six children, the youngest of whom, Anna Freud,
continued her father’s work by becoming a psychoanalyst
working extensively with children. There are conflicting
opinions about Freud’s own personality. He was
essentially a very private person. In appearance, he was
neat and well turned out, describing himself as having an
obsessive personality that required routine and dedication
to work. He smoked compulsively and despite his
diagnosis with cancer, he could not give up smoking. He
was obstinate and intolerant of those who disagreed with
his ideas, and this helps to explain his numerous splits
from colleagues. As a doctor, his professional life was not
beyond reproach. In 1884, Ernst Fleiss, a friend of
Freud’s, had become addicted to morphine to help him
cope with a painful illness. Freud recommended that
Fleiss use cocaine instead to control his pain, describing
it as a harmless substitute and writing an article proposing
cocaine for the management of chronic pain.
Freud regularly treated patients for eight or nine hours
each day, then wrote each evening and on Sundays.
Although offered opportunities to become rich, he had simple
tastes, never owning more than three sets of clothes. In
1924, he turned down a contract worth $100,000 to advise
on a project to make films about famous love stories for
Samuel Goldwyn. He also turned down lucrative deals to
write for and be interviewed by popular magazines, claiming
no wish for celebrity for himself but only wishing to be
known for his ideas – something he certainly achieved.
Freud’s thinking was influenced by events going on in
the world at the time of his writings.
Source: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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CHAPTER 2 THE BASIS OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH TO PERSONALITY 25
Unconscious
Conscious
Super ego Un
Co
Ego
Id
Figure 2.1 Freud’s structural model of the mind.
Stop and think
Id instincts and advertising
The id instinct demanding immediate gratification does
remain with us throughout our lives, and advertisements
are often directed at this instinct. Walk around any
shopping mall or along any high street and notice the
number of stores that advertise instant credit.
‘Buy what you like! £500 instant credit with our new
store card.’
‘Buy now, pay nothing till 2020.’
The whole concept of credit cards plays to our instinctual
need for immediate gratification. Why save up for
something if you can have it now? It encourages primary
process thinking. When the time will come to pay,
somehow we believe the money will be there. Reality is
distanced and postponed for our immediate gratification.
In this way, we can see how the instinctual needs
of the id continue to shape our behaviour even in adulthood.
I am sure you can recall other examples.
The structure of the personality
Freud’s theory includes a concept of a mental apparatus
consisting of three basic structures of personality that assist
us in gratifying our instincts. This apparatus can be
thought of as the anatomy of the personality and consists
of the id, the ego, and the superego (Freud, 1901/1965;
1923/1960). They develop in the order stated, and we shall
discuss each one in turn (also see Figure 2.1).
The id can be thought of as the basic storehouse of raw,
uninhibited, instinctual energy. It is the source of all cravings,
of all impulses and of all mental energy. All our survival
drives for food, warmth and safety, plus our sexual
drives for satisfaction and reproduction, our aggressive
drives for domination and our self-destructive instincts
originate in the id. Freud thought that only the id was present
in the baby at birth and that because of this, infants try
to gratify their needs very directly. The pleasure principle
with related-primary process thinking operates in the id.
Babies cry loudly when they are hungry, uncomfortable or
in pain. They want to be seen to immediately. Any delay in
feeding hungry babies, and they will simply cry more
lustily. Infants have no sense of what is termed delayed
gratification, that is, the notion that if you wait patiently
your needs will be met. Delayed gratification is something
that the child has to acquire as they develop. (See Stop and
think: Id instincts and advertising.)
These instinctual demands from the id become
socialised during development as the expression of id
impulses often runs counter to the wishes of the outside
world. We also learn that gratification of our id impulses
can frequently be achieved more successfully by planning,
requesting, delaying gratification and other techniques.
As the child develops, libido energy transfers from the id;
and the part of the personality called the ego develops. The
ego can be thought of as the executive part of the personality.
In Freud’s model, it is the planning, thinking, and organising
part of the personality. The ego operates according to the
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26 PART 1 PERSONALITY
reality principle with related secondary process thinking.
The ego becomes the mediator between the child and the
outside world. The child is still trying to get what they want,
but now they are taking into account social realities in
achieving this. Mummy will not give them a drink if they
simply shout that they are thirsty; but if they ask nicely and
remember to say please and add a smile, they are more likely
to get it.
Finally, the third structure of personality develops, the
superego. This can roughly be conceived of as being
the conscience of the child. It helps the child make judgements
about what is right or wrong and which behaviours
are permissible. It is thought to be composed of internalised
parental attitudes and evaluations. The superego
acts in opposition to the id, helping the ego to rechannel
immoral id impulses. Also, if the ego is seen to allow the
expression of bad instinctual demands, the superego turns
against the ego. As Freud describes it, these three parts of
the personality can be seen as being in conflict with each
other. The id says, ‘I want it now’. The ego says, ‘You can
have it later; or do a, b and c, and then you can have it’. The
superego says, ‘you can’t have it’ or ‘that way’s wrong, you
must find another way’. There will be elements of social
prescription contained within the superego, as what is
internalised from parents will depend on the values of the
family. Similarly, different societies will promote different
values, as will religious and educational institutions.
These interactions between the three structures of personality
create what is termed intra-psychic conflict
(Freud, 1965). The outcome of this conflict can be
observed as symptoms of mental upset or disturbance.
The basic symptom, which we are all thought to experience,
is anxiety. An example will help to clarify this. Suppose
you really want to go to an old school friend’s party
on Friday night, but the friend lives a two-hour train journey
away. When you check the train times, you realise that
you will have to miss a laboratory class on Friday afternoon
to get there in time. You already missed a class this
semester; and besides, the lab is on a topic that really interests
you. You are really torn and don’t know what to do.
The id instinct is saying, ‘Go to the party, have a good
time’. The ego is saying, ‘Perhaps we can find a way round
it, you can download the notes and get the results from a
friend’. Your superego is saying, ‘That is wrong, you can’t
go.You already skipped a practical for no good reason.You
want to do well at this, and it is a topic that interests you’.
The competing demands have made it difficult to decide;
and whatever the decision, there will be some anxiety
about the path you take. This is the basic anxiety that
Freud talks about. If you do go, you will feel guilty about
missing the practical; if you don’t go, you will feel guilty
about disappointing your friend and so on. We will see
later how we attempt to deal with this basic anxiety, but
first we will look at how the personality develops.
The development of personality
Freud (1940/1969) described the personality as developing
through five distinct stages (see Figure 2.2). His theory is
described as a theory of psychosexual development, as he
is concerned primarily with the development of the sexual
drives. He suggested that at each stage the libido or energy
source is invested in a single part of the body, which he
called the erogenous zone. The areas of the body selected
at any one stage are supposedly determined by the child’s
biological development. It is argued that the erogenous
zone, at any time, is the area that is most sensitive to stimulation
and the focus of pleasure and the source of gratification.
Freud believed that biological factors were the main
influence in development and paid little attention to social
factors. We will look at each stage in turn, with examples to
clarify the process.
Oral stage – birth to 1 year
Freud (1901/1965) argued that during infancy the earliest
pleasure is focused on feeding, so that the baby’s energies or
libidos are centred on satisfying their needs for nourishment.
The baby’s mouth, lips and tongue are said to be the
erogenous zones. Events around feeding are the most
important sources of gratification, meeting the drive for
self-preservation and thus providing sensual pleasure to the
infant. All of the events around feeding are said to be pleasurable,
even thumb sucking in the absence of food. Thus,
Freud conceptualised babies as deriving pleasure from
stimulation of the erogenous zone even without food.
According to Freud, when babies are being fed and cared
for, some of their libidinal energy becomes focused on the
person providing the gratification, frequently the mother.
This is claimed to be the source of their first human attachment.
This process of investing libidinal energy in the
mother is an example of what Freud (1901/1965) called
cathexis. It describes how some of the infant’s libidinal
energy becomes invested in the pleasure provider. For normal
development, infants must receive sufficient oral stimulation
so that their needs are met. Having their needs met
in this first relationship allows the child to develop trust in
the adult caregiver. This basic trust is a necessary prerequisite
for all relationships. Every time you meet someone
new, you trust that what they tell you is true, that they
are not setting out to deceive or hurt you. The infant whose
needs are met develops this basic trust in others, while the
child whose needs are not met develops a sense of mistrust.
While the amount of oral stimulation required for normal
development is not specified, the results of under- or
over-stimulation are clearly described. In either case the
baby will be fixated on oral gratification and continue to
seek oral stimulation in later life. Freud describes fixation
as an internal resistance to transferring the libidinal energy
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CHAPTER 2 THE BASIS OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH TO PERSONALITY 27
to a new set of objects and activities. Fixation can occur at
any of the stages of psychosexual development and is an
indication that the child has failed to progress satisfactorily
through that stage. Evidence of fixation can be observed
in the personality and behaviour of affected adults, according
to Freud (1901/1965). It is claimed that fixation at the
oral stage is linked to the seeking of excessive oral stimulation
in adulthood such as smoking, chewing gum or excessive
eating. The adult who was overindulged at the oral
stage is described as having an oral receptive character,
being overly dependent on other people for gratification of
their needs, being trusting, accepting and gullible (Blum,
1953). Oral under-indulgence can lead to the oral aggressive
personality, where the individual has an exploitative
attitude towards others and tries to get as much as possible
from them. In extreme cases they have sadistic attitudes,
envying others and always trying to dominate (Fenichel,
1945). Freud argues that the child who has received sufficient
oral stimulation will transfer their libidinal energy to
the next stage.
Anal stage – 18 months to 3 years
As the child matures, the lower trunk becomes physiologically
more developed and comes under increased voluntary
control. Freud (1901/1965) suggests that the baby comes to
receive sensual pleasure from bowel movements. At the
same time, parents begin to emphasise toilet training and
reward the child when they demonstrate control of their
bladder and bowel. These two developments come together
Latency stage
Phallic stage
Genital stage
Anal stage
Oral stage
Around age 5 to 12 years
From around 3 to 5 years
Around 12 to 18 years or older
From 18 months to 3 years
Birth to 1 year
Figure 2.2 Freud’s theory of psychosexual development.
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28 PART 1 PERSONALITY
and help to shift the child’s attention from oral stimulation
and the mouth area to the anal region, and this becomes
the new erogenous zone. At this stage, toilet training is the
issue that has to be handled appropriately by parents; otherwise,
fixation may result. Toilet training can involve the
child and the parent in interpersonal conflict, if the parents
make demands on the child to become toilet trained. The
child may resist these demands, and a battle of wills can
commence. Freud suggested that this experience of conflict
with demanding carers may lead individuals to rebel
against authority figures throughout their lives.
When toilet training is handled badly, fixation at the
anal stage can occur, resulting in the anal retentive personality.
This personality type is described as having a constipated
orientation, in that they are very orderly, stingy,
stubborn, with a tendency to hoard things and to delay
gratification until the last possible moment (Freud,
1901/1969). These behaviour patterns are thought to come
from meeting parental exhortations and delaying their
bowel movements until their parents deemed it appropriate.
The opposing type resulting from anal fixation is
the anal-expulsive personality. These individuals resist others’
attempts to control them, in the same way that they
resisted their parents’ attempts at toilet training. They are
untidy, disorganised and disregard accepted rules about
cleanliness and appropriate behaviour. The appropriate
approach for the parents to adopt is to be relaxed about the
child’s preferences and positively reward successes. This is
thought to foster positive self-esteem and encourages the
child to move on smoothly to the next psychosexual stage.
Phallic stage – from around 3 to 5 years
As the child’s genitals become more sensitive as a result of
physiological maturity, the libidinal energy moves from the
anal region to the genital area as the genitals are now the
source of pleasure for the child. Freud (1920/1977) claimed
that gratification at this stage is gained from masturbation.
This stage is thought to be particularly difficult for girls
as they become aware that while boys have penises they do
not. This realisation of their deficiency is thought to make
girls jealous of boys, experiencing what Freud calls penis
envy. This leads to feelings of deficiency in girls and a wish
to possess a penis. Boys respond to the girls’ lack of a penis
by becoming anxious about the thought of losing their
own penis, and Freud terms this castration anxiety.
These developments are accompanied by changes in the
children’s relationships with their parents. Boys are
thought to intuitively become aware of their mothers as
sexual objects (Rapaport, 1960). This leads to the boy
developing a sort of sexual attachment to his mother and to
regard his father as a sexual rival. This is termed the
Oedipal complex after the mythical Ancient Greek, Oedipus
Rex, who killed his father and married his mother. The
boy is envious of the father as he has access to the mother
that the boy is denied in that he sleeps with her and so on.
The boy also perceives the father to be a powerful, threatening
figure, someone with the power to castrate the boy. The
boy is thus trapped between his desire for his mother and
his fear of his father. This causes the boy to experience anxiety.
To resolve his anxiety, the boy begins to identify with
his father. The suggestion is that by trying to become as like
his father as possible, the boy not only reduces the likelihood
of attack by his father but also takes on some of his
father’s power. This ‘inner father’ comes to serve as the core
of the child’s superego.
A parallel process, the Electra complex, is thought to
occur in girls, but Freud did not spell this out in quite so
much detail, reflecting the lesser importance of women
within his theory. Girls are thought to develop the same
intuitive awareness of the father as a sex object as boys do
for the mother. For girls, the mother is seen as a rival for
the father’s love; the mother is also seen to possess some
power, although not as much as the father. The wish for the
father and the fear of the mother creates anxiety in the girl,
although at a lower level as the mother is less powerful,
having already lost her penis. Girls resolve this conflict by
identifying with their mother, although less strongly than
boys identify with their father. The girl also wishes to identify
with her father in the hope of obtaining the missing
penis from him. Thus, for girls, the Electra complex cannot
be satisfactorily resolved. According to Freud (1901/1965),
this conflict results in girls having weaker ego functioning,
which makes it more difficult for them to balance the competing
demands of the id and reality.
Fixation at this stage again is thought to result in problems
that will be apparent in adulthood. The male may
become promiscuous, seeking the sexual gratification that
was refused him when he was a child. The other alternative
is that the male fails to adopt masculine characteristics;
he develops feminine characteristics and may become
attracted to men. Similarly, women who are fixated at this
stage may develop masculine traits and be attracted to
women. This then is how Freud explains the process of
children being socialised into male and female roles. Boys,
by identifying with their father, become like him; and similarly,
girls become like their mothers. Freud also saw the
root cause of homosexuality in the unsatisfactory resolution
of the phallic stage.
Latency stage – around age 5 to 12 years
This stage is described as a resting period in the child’s psychosexual
development. The child’s energies are taken up in
socialisation and learning. Freud (1901/1965) suggested
that peer group interaction during this phase was predominantly
with same-sexed children. Identification with
same-sexed parent was followed by identification with
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CHAPTER 2 THE BASIS OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH TO PERSONALITY 29
Stop and think
Observational example
Try to observe a toddler having a temper tantrum. This
can often be observed in a supermarket, or you may see
it on some of the reality television shows about bringing
up children. The toddler wants something, and the parent
or carer says that they can’t have it. The ferocity
of the child’s emotions is truly amazing when their
wishes are frustrated. In Freudian terms, the child’s id
instincts are being denied. They want whatever it is with
a passion, and they want it now. The role of the parent
or carer is to socialise the child so that they learn not
only that they cannot have everything they want exactly
when they want it but also that there might be better
ways of trying to get what they want. In psychoanalytic
terms, this is about encouraging the development of the
child’s ego, so that they learn to moderate their instinctual
demands. They may initially demand sweets in the
supermarket and have a tantrum when sweets are
refused and they ultimately do not get the sweets, being
told that being naughty (tantrum) means that they do not
get sweets. The child learns that if they are good in the
supermarket and then ask for sweets at the end, they
are more likely to get them.
Can you think of alternative explanations for the
child’s behaviour?
same-sexed peers. As children learn more about the world
and become more involved in social interactions, they
develop defence mechanisms during this period to help
them cope with the basic anxiety caused by the conflicts
between the id, ego and superego that we discussed earlier.
The nature of defence mechanisms will be discussed later.
Genital stage – from around 12 to
18 years or older
Changes in the child’s body brought on by puberty are
thought to reawaken the child’s sexual energy or libido, and
a more mature form of sexual attachment occurs. Freud
(1901/1965) claimed that from the beginning of this
period, the sexual objects chosen were always members of
the opposite sex in normal development. However, he
pointed out that not everyone works through this period to
the point of achieving mature heterosexual love. Some may
have conflicts left from the Oedipal or Electra stage, so they
do not cope well with the resurgence of sexual energies in
adolescence. Others may not have had a satisfactory oral
stage and so do not have the basic foundation of trust for a
love relationship, as described earlier.
Freud sees the child’s personality emerging as a result of
these developmental processes. The crucial stages are the
earliest ones – the oral, anal and phallic – so Freud sees that
by age 5, the basic adult personality is formed in the child.
It is also at these ages that the process of containing the id
begins, first with the development of the ego as the child
learns about the world and parental discipline is applied to
frustrate the child’s id impulses. The young child has to
learn how to increase the chances of getting their own way.
(See Stop and think: Observational example for an illustration
of this process.)
Defence mechanisms
We discussed earlier how the conflicting demands of the id,
ego and superego create anxiety in the individual at every
age and that in the latency stage, the child is thought to
develop defence mechanisms. Freud is somewhat vague
about how this development occurs, seeing defence mechanisms
as emerging from the socialisation that occurs at this
stage. The purpose of defence mechanisms is to make
us feel better about ourselves and to protect us from pain –
in psychological terms, to protect our self-esteem. It may be
something upsetting that happens to us or aspects of ourselves
that we find disturbing, so we push those aspects
from our conscious minds and then employ defence mechanisms
to keep them in our unconscious. It is important to
stress that everyone needs and uses defence mechanisms at
some time. It is psychologically healthy to do so. The question
is, to what extent is their use healthy and adaptive, and
when is it problematic? The simple answer given by Freud
is that defence mechanisms become unhelpful when they
are used inappropriately or indiscriminately. Examples will
make this statement clearer as each defence mechanism is
described.
The first defence mechanism that Freud described was
repression. He observed this being used when he was studying
patients suffering from hysteria. Freud continued to
identify defence mechanisms being used by patients in his
clinical practice, so that by 1936 his daughter, Anna Freud,
who had also become a psychoanalyst, described 11 defence
mechanisms identified by her father: repression, denial,
projection, reaction formation, rationalisation, conversion
reaction, phobic avoidance, displacement, regression, isolation
and undoing (see Figure 2.3). Anna Freud (1966)
added a twelfth defence mechanism, sublimation, and
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Projection
Defence mechanisms
Repression Denial
Undoing
Sublimation
DisplacementRegression
Phobic
avoidance
Isolation
Reaction
formation
Conversion
reaction
Rationalisation
others have been added since then by later psychoanalysts,
as we shall see. Although each defence is described separately,
the examples included will illustrate how frequently
several defence mechanisms may operate together.
Repression
As discussed previously, at times we all suppress inconvenient
or disagreeable feelings. We push unacceptable
thoughts, feelings or impulses into our unconscious. We
act as if what we can’t recall can’t hurt us. An American
research study by Morokoff (1985) measured levels of sexual
guilt in women, identifying a group high in guilt and a
group low in guilt. The women were then shown an erotic
video while physiological measures of their levels of sexual
arousal were taken and verbal self-reports of arousal level
were given. In women high in sexual guilt, the reported levels
of arousal were significantly less than their physiological
levels of arousal, while in women low in sexual guilt, the
two measures were closely matched. In the high sexual guilt
group, the guilt associated with sexual arousal was causing
the women to repress their experienced arousal.
There is nothing pathological about repression unless it
is carried to extremes such as, for example, the person who
claims never to be angry. Anger is a natural human
response on occasions for everyone, so what is likely to be
happening is that the individual is not allowing themselves
to be angry for some reason; their anger is repressed.
Repression can be compared to a dam holding back the
flow of a river. If the volume of water becomes too great, a
problem arises, and similarly with repression. Excess use of
repression results in individuals being out of touch with
their true feelings, and this makes honest relationships
with others impossible (Freud, 1901/1965).
Denial
We deny unpleasant events or the reality of a situation. Consider
the individual who refuses to open the bank statement
month after month, even though they know they should
keep track of their finances. They suspect it may be bad
news, so the letter always goes unopened to the bottom of
the pile. An extreme form of denial is seen in the phenomenon
of experiencing a phantom limb after amputation, especially
as the experience is most common after unexpected
amputation. The most extreme form is seen in amnesia (loss
of memory) following traumatic events. This has been
observed quite frequently in troops in times of war.
Projection
The defence known as projection involves us blaming our
friends, neighbours, other nations and so on for our own
shortcomings. We externalise unacceptable feelings and
then attribute them to others. In an argument with a partner,
for example, we deny that we are jealous. Instead,
we claim that it is our partner who is jealous or angry. We
project our jealousy or anger onto the other person. We are
saying,‘I am not the problem – you are’. Regrettably, projection
is a normal human defence; but in extreme forms,
it can lead to the individual becoming paranoid.
30 PART 1 PERSONALITY
Figure 2.3 Common defence mechanisms.
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CHAPTER 2 THE BASIS OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH TO PERSONALITY 31
Reaction formation
We use reaction formation to overcome impulses that are
unacceptable to us,gaining mastery over the initial impulse by
exaggerating the opposing tendency.A good example of this is
the character Monica in the television programme Friends.
Monica comes across as obsessionally tidy and organised.
However,it is revealed that she keeps a locked cupboard that is
incredibly messy and disorganised. This mess is hidden from
her friends. In Freudian terms, she deals with her impulses
to be untidy by becoming obsessionally tidy, but her
reaction formation is not totally successful, as the impulse is
expressed via her untidy cupboard. In its extreme form, reaction
formation can develop into obsessional neurosis (Freud,
1901/1965). In this condition, the individual may become
obsessed with cleanliness, for example, and be unable to function
normally because of all the cleaning rituals they have
to follow. They may have to wash everything they touch and
so on.
Rationalisation
Rationalisation is the process whereby the reasons for a
course of action are given after it has happened. The reasons
given not only justify the action but also conceal its
true meaning. Someone may go eagerly for a job interview
and seem to really want the position. However, they are not
appointed; and then they say that they did not really want
the job and/or that it was not a very good position. This
example shows that denial can be useful in helping us to
save face and, in so doing, it can protect our self-esteem.
Much easier to say that you did not want the job than to say
that you really wanted it but you were not good enough.
Denial in these situations is useful in protecting us from
disappointments, and it can give us the courage to try again
at things we may not have succeeded at first time round.
Conversion reaction
A conversion reaction is observed when unacceptable
thoughts or emotions are converted into physical symptoms,
as in hysterical symptoms or psychosomatic symptoms.
Many of Freud’s patients presented with hysterical symptoms
– as in the famous case of Anna O, who presented with
paralysis of her arms, for which no physical cause could be
found (Freud and Breuer, 1966). Anna O had unconsciously
converted her psychological distress into paralysis of her
arms, which also meant that she could do nothing. Nowadays
hysterical conversion reactions are rarer, as people have
become more psychologically sophisticated; but psychosomatic
disorders are on the increase. These are conditions in
which no physical illness is identified, although the patient
presents with physical symptoms. Back pain is reported in
many cases to be psychosomatic in origin. The person who
hates their job but does not admit it instead has to have large
amounts of time off work due to back pain. The wish not to
go to work has been converted into a physical symptom that
then prevents the individual working.
How much are attempts to ban smoking in the workplace and public places a
repression of the oral stage?
Source: Photofusion Picture Library/Alamy Images
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Stop and think
Psychoanalytic explanation of mental illness
Within the psychoanalytic model, it is suggested that we
all have unresolved conflicts left over from our childhood.
For the most part, we use our defence mechanisms to
keep these conflicts in our unconscious. However, situations
may arise in life that reactivate the early conflict.
The individual who had dependency/independence conflicts
with parents may find that leaving home raises the
feelings associated with these earlier conflicts. The
anxiety is such that the defence mechanism can no
longer keep the worries out of consciousness. The individual
may then become very anxious and psychologically
unwell. Mental illness then results from a
breakdown of defence mechanisms. In these situations,
the defence mechanisms come to be used inappropriately
and/or applied rigidly. This causes more problems,
as we saw in the discussion of the various defences.
Phobic avoidance
To some extent, we all try to avoid places and situations that
arouse unpleasant emotions in us. This may be public
speaking, the site of an accident and so on. Phobic avoidance
is an extreme form of this. Situations or events that
arouse anxiety or other unpleasant emotions are avoided at
all costs. The intensity of the anxiety experienced even at the
thought of an encounter is totally out of proportion to the
situation. Phobic avoidance is different from phobias of spiders
or other animals; such phobias are relatively common
and can be explained on the basis of learning theory.
Displacement
Displacement is a defence mechanism that occurs when
we are too afraid to express our feelings directly to the
person who provoked them, so we deflect them elsewhere.
It is summarised by the common expression of ‘kicking
the cat’ when we come home annoyed by our boss, for
example. We take our frustration out on someone lower
down the pecking order or less likely to complain. This
defence mechanism can be useful in preventing unwise
conflict with powerful others; but when heavily used, it is
not conducive to good interpersonal relationships (Freud,
1901/1965).
Regression
The defence mechanism called regression occurs when
we are trying to avoid anxiety by returning to an earlier,
generally simpler, stage of our life. Where individuals
regress to is determined by the existence of fixation points
in their development. We have discussed this previously. At
times, regression is normal and a healthy response. For
example, going on holiday can be conceptualised as a form
of regression. You leave the normal cares of everyday living
behind.You play games, are often looked after, give up your
daily responsibilities and generally enjoy yourself in a way
that is more reminiscent of the carefree days of childhood.
More seriously, a young child who has achieved toilet training
may start wetting the bed after the birth of a new sibling.
This is seen as regression to an earlier age before the
birth of the other child, when the elder child felt no anxiety
about competing for attention with the new sibling. Often
adults when they are traumatised become much more
dependent and helpless in a similar way.
Isolation
Isolation occurs when the anxiety associated with an event
or threat is dealt with by recalling the event without the
emotion associated with it. The feelings that would normally
be associated with the event are separated and
denied. Freud (1965) called this intellectualisation, where
thoughts and emotions are separated into watertight compartments.
Such individuals come across as extremely
unemotional, merely reporting facts with no feeling.
Undoing
The defence mechanism called undoing frequently accompanies
isolation. It has an almost magic appeal to it, as ritualistic
behaviours are adopted that symbolically negate the
thoughts or actions that the person had earlier, and felt
guilty about having (Freud, 1901/1965). Children sometimes
indulge in such ritualistic behaviour, and childhood
incidences are good examples. Where I grew up, there was a
commonly held belief among young children that seeing an
ambulance was associated with bad luck; but this bad luck
was avoided if you then held your collar until you saw a
dog. The negative emotion associated with anticipating
‘bad luck’ was neutralised by the collar holding, and seeing
the dog negated the whole incident. Very anxious, disturbed
individuals may adopt all sorts of rituals to protect
themselves in this way.
32 PART 1 PERSONALITY
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1 All the patient’s thoughts lead
to material in the
unconscious that is
significant in some way.
3 Resistance is minimised by relaxation.
Three assumptions
underlying
free association
2 The patient’s therapeutic needs and the
knowledge that they are in therapy will
lead their associations towards what is
psychologically significant except so far
as resistance operates.
Figure 2.4 Three assumptions underlying free association.
CHAPTER 2 THE BASIS OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH TO PERSONALITY 33
Sublimation
Anna Freud (1966) described sublimation as the most
advanced and mature defence mechanism, as it allows partial
expression of unconscious drives in a modified,
socially acceptable and even desirable way. The instinctual
drives are diverted from their original aim and channelled
into something seemingly socially desirable. For example,
individuals who set themselves up to protect society from
pornography in films or television may actually spend
quite a lot of their time watching pornography so that they
can then protest about the decisions made by the official
censors. In Freudian terms, they have sublimated their
strong desire to watch pornography, sexual voyeuristic
drives, and expressed them in what can be perceived as a
socially desirable form. Some of the psychoanalytic examples
here are amusing, such as firemen conceptualised as
having sublimated their urethral drives (i.e., the urge to
urinate publicly) and gastroenterologists (surgeons who
deal with digestion and the bowel) as sublimating their
anal fixations. Art and music are often cited as examples of
successful subliminations of the instinctual drives. These
will help you remember sublimation. Both Freud and his
daughter Anna saw healthy levels of sublimation as
enriching society.
Clinical applications of
Freudian theory
By now you will have gathered that Freud was interested in
exploring the patient’s unconscious, as this was where the
root of the patient’s problems lay. The traditional analytic
approach developed by Freud (1940/1969) involved the
patient lying on a couch while the psychoanalyst sat in a
chair behind the patient. The treatment was not about a
social relationship between patient and analyst. The analyst
sat behind the patient so he was not visible to the patient;
the patient thus received no non-verbal cues from the analyst,
and any possible social interactions were minimised.
The consulting room should be relatively impersonal for
the same reason.
The analyst aims to locate where fixations have occurred
in the individual’s development and to help the individual
understand these issues and resolve the emotional conflicts
associated with them within the therapy session. The physical
expression of emotion is termed catharsis and is a crucial,
if not the crucial, element of the psychoanalytic
method of treatment. The term ‘catharsis’ literally means
purging. Patients were encouraged to discharge the emotions
associated with their conflicts within the therapy session,
and this was called an abreaction. Initially, abreaction
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was thought to be sufficient for a cure; but Freud was later
convinced that patients also needed to understand the
nature of their conflicts.
We have seen that to access the unconscious, Freud used
free association and recounts of patients’ dreams. There are
three assumptions underlying free association (see Figure 2.4):
All the patient’s thoughts lead to material in the unconscious
that is significant in some way.
The patient’s therapeutic needs and the knowledge that
they are in therapy will lead their associations towards
what is psychologically significant except so far as resistance
operates. Resistance is the reluctance of the patient
to allow unconscious material to become conscious. It
may also be demonstrated when the patient refuses to
accept the analyst’s interpretation of their conflicts.
Resistance is minimised by relaxation, hence the
patients had to lie down on a couch; and it is maximised
by concentration, so they had only the ceiling to distract
them.
The analyst would listen uncritically to the patient and
then offer interpretations of the patient’s problems to help
the patient gain insight to their problems. The essential
characteristic of the relationship between the patient and
the analyst is its emotionality, although the relationship is
considered one-sided as the analyst is expected to remain
detached from the patient. The key concept in this relationship
is transference. This is the process where a patient
displaces onto his analyst feelings that derive from previous
figures in his life. Freud (1913/1950) saw it as an essential
part of therapy. The relationship that the patient has with
the analyst becomes a central phenomenon that has to be
analysed. To put it simply, within the analysis the patient
projects their needs and desires onto the analyst. At times,
the analyst may be receiving projections as if they were the
patient’s mother, father, hated sibling, and so on. Within
the therapy session, the patient then resolves these conflicts
by discharging the emotion associated with them (abreaction).
This is thought to be possible as the therapist provides
a more articulate, insightful yet emotionally detached
encounter than was possible in the original relationship.
A related phenomenon termed counter-transference
may also occur. This is where the analyst transfers some of
their own emotional reactions onto the patient. It may be
that the analyst gets annoyed with the patient at a particular
point. The patient may have ‘touched a raw nerve’ in the
analyst and reawakened some of the analyst’s conflicts. All
analysts will have undergone their own psychoanalysis as
part of their training, to make them aware of and help
them to resolve their own unfinished conflicts. This training
will help them to recognise when counter-transference
is occurring, and they will have been trained to use it to
further their understanding of the patient. Analysts also
have to be supervised regularly to ensure that they are
operating effectively and that they will bring any countertransference
issues to discuss with their supervisor. Analytic
sessions typically last for 50 minutes, the ‘therapy
hour’, to allow a break between patients. Treatment tends to
be open ended, and it is not unusual for analysis to continue
for several years.
Evaluation of Freudian theory
We will now evaluate Freud’s theory using the eight criteria
we identified in Chapter 1: description, explanation,
empirical validity, testable concepts, comprehensiveness,
parsimony, heuristic value and applied value (though in
this section we combine empirical validity and testable
concepts).
Description
Freud’s theory is based on evidence gathered from his
patients. However, to protect the anonymity of his patients,
he published very few actual case studies. Rather, he presented
arguments for his theorising accompanied by clinical
illustrations from his patients. He did not annotate
most of his case studies in very much detail, rather focusing
on what he felt were interesting aspects of the case and
often writing up his case notes retrospectively from memory
(Storr, 1989). This does not constitute good qualitative
data as currently understood within psychology, and it
raises questions about the validity of some of the data
underpinning his descriptions.
Freud addressed a wide range of phenomena, as evidenced
in his collected works. However, he often revised
his ideas, which can make his work difficult to follow. He
provides good descriptions of his conceptualisation of personality
developing, how it is structured and the complexity
of its functioning in terms of unconscious motivation,
defence mechanisms and basic anxiety. However, we can
query whether it is appropriate to produce descriptions of
normal behaviour and normal development based on
observations of mainly neurotic individuals.
He did address the complexity of human behaviour,
demonstrating that similar motives may lead to different
behaviour and that similar motives may underpin quite
different behaviour. His theorising led psychologists to
debate what are the important issues for the development
of personality. His work on defence mechanisms, continued
by his daughter Anna, provides us with some excellent
descriptions of how we function psychologically. There is
some debate about the originality of Freud’s ideas; many
of his concepts came from his teachers or had been around
previously but were popularised by Freud (Sulloway,
1992).
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CHAPTER 2 THE BASIS OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH TO PERSONALITY 35
Explanation
Although Freud produced theories of normal development,
there is some vagueness in his theory of psychosexual
development about exactly what is required for normal
development. He talks about sufficient oral stimulation, for
example, without detailing what that might be. He is
stronger on the explanation of the development of pathology.
This is perhaps understandable given that most of his
data came from patients with psychological disturbance.
For many, including some of his fellow psychoanalysts, his
theory of psychosexual development seems to overly stress
sexual drives as being at the heart of human development.
We will return to this issue when considering the empirical
validity of Freud’s theorising.
Regarding Freud’s model of the structure of personality,
it has face validity in that we are all aware of the conflicts
that making choices creates in our lives and the anxiety that
this can cause. Even with things we want to do, by enjoying
doing a, we may feel guilty about not doing b. However, the
notion of these conflicts providing the psychic energy to
help motivate our behaviour is questioned by current cognitive
theorists (Dalgleish and Power, 1999). The concept
of defence mechanisms is one of Freud’s most valuable
contributions. They appear to offer good explanations of
commonly observed behaviour, as evidenced by their common
use as descriptors of behaviour (Brewin and Andrews,
2000).
Empirical validity and testable concepts
For over 80 years, researchers have attempted to evaluate
some of the various concepts described by Freud. Some of
the areas that have been addressed are outlined in the following
subsections. However, as we have already discussed,
for traditional Freudian analysts, the only evidence they
require comes from their treatment of patients (Power,
2000). We will now examine some of the psychological
research that has been undertaken to assess the theory.
Research on the unconscious
Research has examined subliminal perception, suggesting
that it provides evidence for the existence of a dynamic
unconscious. Subliminal perception occurs when participants
register stimuli without being consciously aware of
them. The subliminal stimuli are shown to affect subsequent
behaviour, thus demonstrating the existence of
unconscious motivational effects on the behaviour produced.
Erdelyi (1984) showed participants emotionally
threatening words and neutral words and measured their
anxiety levels. Participants showed physiological anxiety
responses to the emotionally toned words before they
could identify what the stimulus word was. This demonstrated
that individuals defend themselves against the anxiety
associated with emotional stimuli without being aware
of it. Silverman (1976) presented participants with upsetting
messages relating to emotional wishes or conflicts subliminally,
and this stimulus was shown to affect their
subsequent behaviour. For example, women with eating
disorders were presented with neutral and emotionally
upsetting subliminal messages and were shown to eat more
after the upsetting subliminal messages (Patton, 1992).
There is also a body of research on parapraxes, that is,
slips of the tongue, forgetting names and misreading
words. Freud felt that these were all unconsciously motivated.
However, cognitive psychologists such as Norman
(1981) and Reason (1990, 1979; Reason and Lucas, 1984),
while acknowledging that so-called Freudian slips occur,
suggest that they are due to cognitive and attentional
errors. It may be due to a lack of attention, or emotional
arousal resulting in a word that the individual more commonly
uses or has recently used being produced rather
than the correct word (see the Stop and think box on Parapraxes).
However, Reason (2000) concludes that Freud was
correct in conceptualising Freudian slips as representing
unconscious processing that interrupts our conscious processing.
For Reason (2000), the unconscious refers to our
automatic mental processing rather than Freud’s dynamic
unconscious, although he acknowledges that they can
reveal suppressed emotions. As part of the current debate
about the precise nature of the unconscious, Kihlstrom
(1999) suggests that a cognitive unconscious exists that
links more closely with our thought processes and is not
qualitatively different from conscious thought in terms of
how it functions. Reason (2000) concludes that Freud was
almost correct when he makes these links between cognitions
and emotions and the unconscious.
Research on the component structures of
personality
The one aspect of Freud’s personality structures that has
been systematically investigated is the ego. There are many
studies focused on the functioning of the ego, and several
measures of ego functioning have been created. The argument
here appears to be that if you can consistently measure
something called ego functioning, then it must exist.
Loevinger developed a Sentence Completion Test
(Loevinger and Wessler, 1970), which measures the development
of the ego in individuals and individual differences
in development in adults. Barron (1953) developed a
scale to measure individual differences in ego strength.
Block and his colleagues developed measures of ego control
and ego resiliency (Block, 1993; Block and Block, 1980;
Funder and Block, 1989). They have identified common
characteristics typical of individuals with high ego
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strength. Qualities such as high stress tolerance, the ability
to delay gratification of needs, to tolerate frustration, the
skill to have good personal relationships and a solid sense
of self are common to all the measures.
Fisher and Greenberg (1996) conducted a detailed
review of existing research on Freudian concepts, concluding
that there is empirical evidence to support the concepts
of oral and anal personalities. However, they found only
weak evidence to support Oedipal conflicts and no evidence
to support any differential impact on the development
of women from the Electra complex. Hunt (1979)
reviews research on the psychosexual stages and concludes
that while anal characteristics could be observed in adults,
their development did not seem to be related to toilettraining
practices.
Research on defence mechanisms
There are over seventy years of research on aspects of the
defence mechanisms (Madison, 1961). Significant research
evidence has accrued for projection (Newman, Duff, and
Baumeister, 1997), denial (Steiner, 1966; Taylor and Armor,
1996) and many others (Madison, 1961). Of particular
interest and relevance is the research on repression as it is
assumed that traumatic memories that have been repressed
can be recovered in therapy or under hypnosis. Cognitive
36 PART 1 PERSONALITY
psychologists agree that there are mechanisms for excluding
unwanted material from consciousness (Conway,
1997). Myers (2000) has identified a group of individuals
who have a repressive coping style. Such individuals consistently
underreport feelings of anxiety even when physiological
measures indicate that they are very anxious. The
contention that traumatic memories can be repressed has
led to court cases with adult children accusing parents and
others of sexual abuse, based on memories recovered in
therapy. Brewin and Andrews (1998) reviewed the research
in this area and concluded that between 20 and 60 per cent
of therapy clients who had suffered sexual abuse in childhood
reported not being able to recall the abuse for considerable
periods of their lives. Brewin and Andrews (2000)
point out that current cognitive therapies (Borkovec and
Lyonfields, 1993; Salkovskis, 1985) have identified a concept
that they label cognitive avoidance, which appears to
be very similar to Freud’s concept of defence mechanism
and to operate in a similar way to protect individuals from
anxiety.
Evidence for dream content
Solms (1997) outlines current research on the neuropsychology
of dreaming, showing that activation of instinctual
and emotional mechanisms in the centre of the brain initiates
Stop and think
Parapraxes (Freudian slips)
Freud (1901/1965) believed that we do not make unintentional
mistakes in our lives; rather, errors are the
result of mainly unconscious motivators. One example
of this is parapraxes, in everyday language we call them
Freudian slips. An American psychologist, Motley (1985,
1987), designed studies to investigate the effects that
unconscious forces have on our behaviour and produced
empirical examples of parapraxes (Freudian
slips). Pairs of words were flashed on a screen, and
male participants had to say them aloud. Three conditions
were compared. In the first, participants were told
that they might receive electric shocks during the experiment.
In the second condition, the researcher was a
provocatively dressed woman. The third condition, the
control condition, had no threat of electric shocks, and
the researcher was dressed sedately. In the electric
shock threat group, participants made specific types of
errors saying, ‘cursed wattage’ instead of ‘worst cottage’
and ‘damn shock’ instead of ‘sham dock’. The
group with the provocatively dressed researcher
reported mistakes like ‘nude breasts’ instead of ‘brood
nests’ and ‘fast passion’ instead of ‘past fashion’. The
control group did not make errors related to electricity
or that were sexual in nature. Motley (1985, 1987) suggested
that these systematic errors demonstrated the
effects of unconscious motivation. Individuals threatened
with electric shocks displayed their anxiety in
the errors that they made (e.g., making references to
the electric shock threat). Participants with the sexually
provocative researcher demonstrated unconscious
expression of sexual thoughts (e.g. by making sexual
references).
To what extent do you think the findings from this
study present support for Freudian theory of the unconscious?
Or do you think that a possible explanation of
the findings is that these parapraxes are the result of
lack of attention, or emotional arousal resulting in a
word that the individual more commonly uses or has
recently used being produced rather than the correct
word?
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CHAPTER 2 THE BASIS OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH TO PERSONALITY 37
dreaming. The manifest content of the dream is then projected
backwards onto the perceptual areas of the brain.
Solms (2000) claims that this evidence is compatible with
many aspects of Freudian dream theory. Dreaming becomes
impossible only if the cognitive and visuospatial areas of the
brain are destroyed. Panksepp (1999) has identified a system
in the brain that initiates goal-seeking behaviour and is
involved in behavioural cravings and in dreaming. Solms
(2000) points out that this involvement of instinctual mechanisms
in dreaming was originally described by Freud
although the detail of the structures was unknown. Solms
(2000) concludes his review by suggesting that Freud’s
dream theory is on the right track according to current
findings in neuropsychology; even the idea of censorship
in dreaming may be compatible with current research
(Hobson, 1999).
Concluding comments on the
research evidence
There are undoubtedly methodological difficulties with
some studies, but the conclusion is that there is support for
some of the main concepts that it has been possible to
operationalise and that others need to be modified in the
light of this research (Brewin and Andrews, 2000). However,
large areas of Freud’s work remain untested.
Comprehensiveness
Freud’s theory is fairly comprehensive. The theory addresses
both normal and abnormal behaviour, and demonstrates
that the psychological processes underlying both are fundamentally
the same. In addition to the material covered here,
Freud addressed a wealth of other topics. He has groundbreaking
work on the importance of slips of the tongue,
humour, marriage, death, friendship, suicide, creativity,
competition, importance of culture, society, war and many
others.
Parsimony
Given the range of behaviour – both normal and abnormal –
that Freud attempts to cover, his theory is relatively parsimonious.
There are not huge numbers of concepts within
the various theories, and all seem to have relevance in
terms of explaining commonly observed normal and
abnormal behaviour. Where the theory does not meet the
parsimony criteria is in terms of its explanation of
the motivational basis of behaviour. Sexual and aggressive
instincts are identified as the sole motivators underlying all
behaviour, and this view is too restricted to account for the
complexity of human behaviour.
Heuristic value
Undoubtedly Freud’s work has had an enormous impact,
and it still provokes debate and research nearly 70 years
after his death. Freud introduced exciting, novel ideas about
the psychology of human beings. Studying Freud’s theory
has led theorists to develop their own theories or modifications
of Freud’s theory, and this work continues. In terms of
approaches to treatment, Freud’s work has provoked enormous
interest and debate. It has led to breakaway schools of
psychoanalysis and has motivated other therapists to
develop alternative approaches to psychoanalysis, as you
will see in this book. His work has also influenced many
other disciplines, such as literature and art.
Applied value
As regards applied value, Freud’s work has again resulted in
huge advances in treatment of mental patients. It was at the
forefront of developments to treat mental patients more
humanely. It stressed the importance of allowing patients to
talk and then really listening to what they had to say; it is the
forerunner of all the current approaches to counselling and
therapy. Debates about the effectiveness of psychoanalysis
as a treatment still rage. The most famous of these was led
by Hans Eysenck, the British psychologist, who carried out a
sustained attack on psychoanalysis (Eysenck, 1952, 1963,
1965b, 1986). Eysenck savagely attacked the effectiveness of
all therapies, claiming that the only effective therapy was
behaviour therapy. However, Eysenck’s statistics were
queried, and it was claimed that he was overstating the case
to provoke debate. More recently, the International Psychoanalytic
Society undertook a review of research on the efficacy
of psychoanalysis (Fonagy et al., 1999). This review
concluded that while there were methodological problems
with some of the studies, there was some support for the
effectiveness of psychoanalysis, but it was not unequivocal.
Psychoanalysis is shown to be beneficial to patients with
mild neurotic disorders but to be less so for patients with
more serious conditions. It is agreed that traditional psychoanalysis
as practised by Freud is time consuming and
consequently very expensive. However, key concepts from
his theory are still at the core of many of the newer, briefer
versions of psychoanalytic therapy.
Final comments
Freud is rightly criticised for having a narrow motivational
basis to explain behaviour. Does it seem feasible that sexual
and aggressive drives are the major motivators of human
behaviour? Freud totally ignores the social world in which
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38 PART 1 PERSONALITY
Stop and think
Objectivity
When reviewing this research, pay careful attention to
the measures employed and the samples used, as these
are not always directly comparable across studies. The
objectivity of some of the psychoanalytic studies is
sometimes questioned, as studies sometimes seem
designed to collect evidence that confirms Freud’s theory,
rather than seeking to assess a process.
individuals operate. He was not particularly interested in
the current life problems of his patients, except in relation
to the way they reflected their earlier fixations. He also
presents a very pessimistic, one-sided view of human
nature, with his concept of Thanatos (Freud, 1901/1965).
Although he acknowledged that human beings could act
rationally, he then appeared to focus almost exclusively on
the irrational side of human nature in his writing (Blum,
1953). The status accorded to women in Freudian theory is
also problematic (Fisher and Greenberg, 1996). In the next
chapter, we will examine some of the theorists who challenged
aspects of Freud’s theorising.
Stop and think
Experimental research and Freudian theory: ‘It can do no harm’?
There is some controversy about how psychoanalytic
theory is conceptualised and therefore how it should be
evaluated. Psychoanalysts suggest that the only valid
evidence is the clinical experience of practitioners (Grünbaum,
1993). Freud himself devalued the experimental
examination of his theory and methods with some disdain.
One well known example is that when Saul Rosenzweig,
an experimenter, presented studies testing Freud’s assertions,
Freud wrote back, saying ‘I have examined your
experimental studies for the verification of the psychoanalytic
assertions with interest. I cannot put much value on
the confirmations because the wealth of reliable observations
on which these assertions rest makes them independent
of experimental verification. Still, it can do no
harm’ (quoted in Grünbaum, 1993, p. 101).
Psychoanalysts who suggest that the only valid evidence
is the clinical experience of practitioners present
a somewhat circular argument. To truly understand psychoanalysis
you need to be an analyst, according to this
argument. These analysts see the traditional empirical
and experimental evidence of psychology as being irrelevant.
To put it bluntly, they demonstrate a total commitment
to the psychoanalytic approach and see no real
need for empirical evidence other than the experiences
of their patients while they are undergoing therapy. Criticisms
from the wider psychology and psychotherapy
community are put down to a lack of understanding of
psychoanalysis due to the critics not having been
trained as analysts. Despite these attitudes, empirical
evidence in support of psychoanalytic theory does exist
in many areas.
What do you think? Is the experimental testing of
Freud’s ideas important? Why?
Summary
The psychoanalytic approach to personality was
developed by Sigmund Freud. It is a clinically derived
theory based on case studies of patients and Freud’s
introspection about his own behaviour. The theory
postulates that most of our behaviour is driven by
unconscious motives.
Mind is conceptualised as being composed of three
levels: conscious thought, preconscious thought and
the unconscious. The unconscious is the largest part
of the mind and exerts the strongest influence on our
behaviour. Material is kept in our unconscious (repressed)
as it causes us anxiety.
Dreams are seen as a direct route into the unconscious
mind. A distinction is made between the manifest
content, what the dreamer recalls, and the latent
content, which is the true meaning that becomes
apparent only after it has been interpreted by the
psychoanalyst.
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CHAPTER 2 THE BASIS OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH TO PERSONALITY 39
Freud claimed that different styles of thinking were
associated with the different levels of consciousness.
Primary process thinking is driven by the pleasure
principle. This contrasts with secondary process
thinking, defined as rational thought governed by the
demands of the external world and termed the reality
principle.
Freud held that biological drives were the primary
motivators of human behaviour, namely the sexual
drive for reproduction and life-preserving drives,
including hunger and pain. Later he added a selfdestructive
instinct, the death instinct (Thanatos).
The personality is composed of three structures
that we use to gratify our instincts: the id, ego and
superego.
Behaviour is energised by the conflicts created by
the interaction of the id, ego and superego. These
conflicts create anxiety, and we all use defence
mechanisms to help deal with this anxiety.
A number of defence mechanisms were identified by
Freud and by his daughter, Anna Freud. These are
repression, denial, projection, reaction formation, rationalisation,
conversion reaction, phobic avoidance,
displacement, regression, isolation, undoing and
sublimation.
Personality develops through five distinct stages,
sometimes called psychosexual stages. The stages
are the oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latency
stage and genital stage.
Children require sufficient appropriate satisfaction of
their instinctual needs at each stage of their psychosexual
development, or fixation occurs. Fixation can
lead to distortions in personality development and
may also lead to problems in later life.
Freud outlined a clear method of treatment, termed
psychoanalysis. It involved using free association,
dream analysis and psychoanalytic interpretation by
the analyst to uncover the problems located in the
patient’s unconscious.
An evaluation of the theory is provided, demonstrating
that there is significant support for many
aspects of Freud’s theory and that a considerable
amount of work is still being undertaken in this
area. There are methodological weaknesses in
some studies, particularly in the older evaluations of
psychoanalysis.
Connecting up
Chapter 3 outlines the work of a number of psychoanalytic
theorists who follow chronologically on from Freud. These
theorists are Adler, Jung and Horney.
Critical thinking
Discussion questions
How well do you think Freud’s theory explains your
own behaviour or that of your friends?
How valid was the evidence that Freud used when developing
his theory?
Does Freud’s theory go any way towards addressing gender
differences?
Would you like to be psychoanalysed?
Had Freud’s mother not been young and beautiful,
would he have described the Oedipal complex or Electra
complex?
How important do you think unconscious motivation is
in explaining our behaviour?
How does Freud account for mental illness? Does his
conceptualisation seem adequate?
Critically discuss Freud’s conception of women.
How adequately does Freud explain human motivation?
Essay questions
Critically discuss Freud’s theory of personality.
Critically discuss the contribution made by Sigmund
Freud to our understanding of personality.
Discuss the major influences on Freud’s theory of
development.
Discuss whether there is any evidence for Freud’s theory
of development.
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40 PART 1 PERSONALITY
Critically examine Freud’s theory of defence mecha-
nisms.
‘We all carry elements of neurosis from our developmental
experiences.’ Critically discuss with reference to
our use of defence mechanisms.
Outline the crucial elements of psychoanalysis and
comment on its effectiveness as a therapy.
Going further
Books
Freud, S. (1986). The essentials of psychoanalysis. Harmondsworth:
Pelican Books or Freud, S. (2005) (edited
by Anna Freud). The essentials of psychoanalysis. New
York: Vintage. This book provides an excellent, relatively
short introduction to a selection of Freud’s major
works. It includes an introduction by his daughter
Anna, setting the work in context. I would always advise
you to read some of the Freud’s actual writing to get a
flavour of his style.
Rycroft, C. (1972). A critical dictionary of psychoanalysis.
Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. This short dictionary
is invaluable as it provides definitions for the complex
terminology employed in psychoanalytic theory.
Storr, A. (1989). Freud. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
This is an easily accessible, concise overview of Freud by
a prominent psychoanalyst.
Chessick, R. D. (1980). Freud teaches psychotherapy. Cambridge:
Hackett Publishing Company. Read this book if
you are keen to explore the art of psychoanalysis further.
It is written by a clinician and teacher and provides an
excellent introduction to the theory as it is applied.
Hall, C. S. (1954). A primer of Freudian psychology. This
is a classic text written by a psychologist who studied
Freud for 30 years. It is short and presents an accurate
but concise summary of Freud’s work.
Eysenck, H. J. (1986). Decline and fall of the Freudian
empire. London: Penguin. Eysenck’s critique of psycho-
analysis.
Journals
A good place to start may be with two special issues of
The Psychologist on Freudian theory in the light of
modern research and reading. You can find The
Psychologist on the British Psychological Society Website
(http://www.bps.org.uk/). The Psychologist (2000), Vol. 13,
No. 12 (Guest Editors Bernice Andrews and Chris R.
Brewin). This is an issue dedicated to evaluating the status
of Freudian theory in the light of current knowledge in
psychology. It makes interesting reading. Moreover, it is
freely available online. Most recently a series of articles in
September 2006, The Psychologist (2006), Vol. 19, No. 9
discuss Freud’s influence in terms of personal and
professional perspectives, particularly in the domains of
neuropsychology, social psychology and memory.
Also worth looking at is Silverman, L. H. (1976).
Psychoanalytic theory: The reports of my death are greatly
exaggerated. American Psychologist, 31, 621–637. This article
gives a balanced view of the influence of psychoanalytic
thought.
Relevant research studies can be found in a range of
journals, including the normal personality and individual
differences journals, psychotherapy and counselling journals.
Good terms to use in any online library database (e.g.,Web of
Science; PsyclNFO) are ‘ego’ and ‘defence mechanisms’ (or
defense mechanisms).
One journal that your university is likely to hold and
that deals with Freudian and psychoanalytic themes is
Psychology and Psychotherapy – Theory Research and
Practice, which is published by the British Psychological
Society, Leicester. It is available online via IngentaConnect
and SwetsWise.
In you really want to delve into the world of psychoanalysis,
there are some dedicated journals to psychoanalytic
theory. It is less likely you can gain access to these
articles unless your university subscribes to the print or
online edition because they fall outside of mainstream
psychology. However, if your university does have subscriptions,
it is worth looking at these journals:
The International Journal of Psychoanalysis. Publishes
contributions on methodology, psychoanalytic theory
and technique, the history of psychoanalysis, clinical
contributions, research and life-cycle development,
education and professional issues, psychoanalytic
psychotherapy, and interdisciplinary studies (http://
www.ijpa.org/).
The Psychoanalytic Quarterly. Represents all contemporary
psychoanalytic perspectives on the theories,
practices, research endeavors and applications of adult
and child psychoanalysis (http://www.psaq.org/
journal.html).
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CHAPTER 2 THE BASIS OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH TO PERSONALITY 41
Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association.
Publishes original articles, plenary presentations, panel
reports, abstracts, commentaries, editorials and correspondence
in psychoanalysis. There is a special issue on
Freudian theory in the 2005 Vol. 53, No. 2 edition
(http:/www.apsa.org/japa/index.htm).
Web links
The Freud museum in Vienna can be accessed online
(http://www.freud-museum.at/e/). This site includes
pictures of Freud’s consulting room as well as material
relating to his practice in Vienna.
The London house where Freud lived and his daughter
Anna continued to practise after his death is now a
museum and can be accessed online (http://www.
freud.org).
Information on the International Psychoanalytic Society
is located online (http://www.ipa.org).
The British Psychoanalytic Society is online (http://
www.psychoanalysis.org.uk).
Film and literature
Freud’s ideas have also influenced many areas of Western
life, including drama, theatre, literature, political campaigning,
advertising and even religion (Fisher, 1995).
Some examples of Freudian influences on films and literature
are included here.
Pinocchio is a character that first appeared in the book
The Adventures of Pinocchio published in 1833 by
Carlo Collodi. However Pinocchio is best known for the
portrayal in Walt Disney’s second animated feature
Pinocchio (1940, Directed by Hamilton Luske and Ben
Sharpsteen). Pinocchio, a living puppet, must prove
himself worthy to become a real boy. There are many
Freudian themes presented in the film. The most obvious
Freudian theme is that of the super-ego, which is
represented as a cricket who acts as his conscience in
guiding Pinocchio through his life.
Director Alfred Hitchcock’s films are full of Freudian
themes; notabilty the Oedipus complex in Psycho
(1960), repressed memory in Marni (1964) and psychoanalysis
in Spellbound (1945).
Bram Stoker’s Dracula. If you are looking for a story of
the time which mirrors many aspects of Freudian theory,
Bram Stoker’s Dracula is that novel. Written in
1897, the story of Dracula deals with the intertwining
themes of sex, sexual taboos and repression, life and
death. Dracula has been the basis for countless films.
The two films that most closely follow the plot of the
original novel are Nosferatu (1922, directed by F. W.
Murnau) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992, produced
and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Gary
Oldman, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves and Anthony
Hopkins).
Pollock (2002, directed by Ed Harris). We mentioned, in
the section on defence mechanisms, the defence mechanism
termed sublimation. Anna Freud (1966) described
this as the most advanced and mature defence mechanism;
it allows partial expression of unconscious drives
in a modified, socially acceptable and even desirable
way. Art and music are often cited as examples of subliminations
of the instinctual drives. One film that
shows how inner conflicts might make their way into art
is Pollock, the biopic about Jackson Pollock.
Neurotic Behaviour (Educational Resource Film). Illustrates
several varieties of neurotic behaviour and classical
defence mechanisms. McGraw-Hill, USA. Concord
Video and Film Council, United Kingdom.
Explore the website accompanying this text at www.pearsoned.co.uk/maltby for further resources to help
you with your studies. These include multiple-choice questions, essay questions, weblinks and ideas for
advanced reading.
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