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An Overview Of Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory

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I. Overview of Freud 's Psychoanalytic Theory Freud 's psychoanalysis is the best known of all personality theories because it (1) postulated the primacy of sex and aggression—two universally popular themes; (2) attracted a group of followers who were dedicated to spreading psychoanalytic doctrine; and (3) advanced the notion of unconscious motives, which permit varying explanations for the same observations. II. Biography of Sigmund Freud Although he was born in the Czech Republic in 1856 and died in London in 1939, Sigmund Freud spent nearly 80 years of his life in Vienna. A physician who never intended to practice general medicine, Freud was intensely curious about human nature, and in his …show more content…

For example, narcissism, love, sadism, and masochism all possess large components of the sexual drive even though they may appear to be nonsexual. All infants possess primary narcissism, or self-centeredness, but the secondary narcissism of adolescence and adulthood is not universal. Sadism, which is the reception of sexual pleasure from inflicting pain on another, and masochism, which is the reception of sexual pleasure from painful experiences, satisfy both sexual and aggressive drives. 2. The Destructive Instinct The destructive instinct aims to return a person to an inorganic state, but it is ordinarily directed against other people and is called aggression. B. Anxiety Only the ego feels anxiety, but the id, superego, and outside world can each be a source of anxiety. Neurotic anxiety is apprehension about an unknown danger and stems from the ego 's relation with the id; moral anxiety is similar to guilt and results from the ego 's relation with the superego; and realistic anxiety, which is similar to fear, is produced by the ego 's relation with the real world.

VI. Defense Mechanisms Defense mechanisms operate unconsciously to protect the ego against the pain of anxiety. A. Repression Repression involves forcing unwanted, anxiety-loaded experiences into the unconscious. It is the most basic of all defense mechanisms because it is an active process in each of the others. Many repressed experiences remain unconscious for

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