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The Mental Zones Of Sigmund Freud

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Sigmund Freud is best known for his development and use of psychoanalysis. The theory of psychoanalysis focuses on the concept of how our unconscious thoughts, feelings, and emotions play an active role in our daily lives. The id, ego, and superego are the three mental zones that encompass our psyche. Each zone has a specific function: The id functions on the pleasure principle; the ego on the protection of the individual; and the superego on protection of society. The degree of which each zone has been developed can be broken down and then analyzed. These three zones can be visualized by imagining a pie cut into three slices. Every individual is composed of different amounts of each mental zone. The goal is to achieve the perfect balance …show more content…

The use of any one or combination of defense mechanisms can be extraordinarily harmful when used indiscriminately. A multitude of studies have been done to discover different results of immature defense mechanisms and have begun to identify ties with various clinical and pathological dysfunctions Repression is one of the most common defense mechanisms found in human behavior, which has resulted in a large magnitude of studies done on how to treat patients in psychotherapy dealing with its harmful effects. Repression takes place in the unconscious superego functioning and can be explained as a sort of motivated amnesia. An example of repression is an individual who suffers from acrophobia who cannot remember when he became afraid of heights is experiencing repression of the memory of the anxiety-provoking occurrence with heights. Although repression is an extremely common defense mechanism, it is also a potentially extremely harmful defense as well. Along with repression, denial is found to be another one of the most commonly used defense mechanisms in human behavior. Denial involves the blocking of external events from entry into awareness by negating possibly anxious experiences. In other words, an individual experiencing denial simply does not acknowledge that the stressful event has occurred. For example, a woman who just went through a break-up continues to refer to her ex-boyfriend as her boyfriend in daily conversations. By continuing to talk about him

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