Psychoanalytic theories

Psychoanalysis theories explain human behaviour in terms of interaction between the various components of personality. Sigmund Freud was the founder of this school. Freud drew on the physics of his day (thermodynamics) to coin the term psychodynamics: based on the popular ideas of conversion of heat into mechanical energy and vice versa, he proposed the conversion of psychic energy into behavior.

Freud broke the human personality down to three significant components: the ego, superego, and id. The id is sexual and psychic energies that build up and need to be released or expressed in some way, they act as our pleasure principle. The ego is the structure that helps the id express itself – in other words, it acts as a "reality assessor" to the id. It emerges in order to realistically meet the wishes and demands of the id in accordance with the outside world. The ego works as a mediator and navigates one's environment to fulfill deep-seated needs. Finally, the super-ego exists within the ego. It exercises moral judgement and societal rules in keeping the ego and id in check. In other words, it assesses morals we have. The super-ego is the last function of the personality to develop and may be seen as an outcome of the interactions with one's parents during the long period of childhood dependency. According to Freud, personality is shaped by the interactions of these three components.

Freud assumed that who we are as adults is determined by early childhood experiences.

Freud believed that there were five "Psychosexual" stages of development including:

Oral stage - birth to approximately age one

Anal stage - two years of age

Phallic Stage - between three and six

Latency Period - about seven years old to puberty

Genital Stage - occurs during adolescence

Freud believed that events in the past could influence the present such as when a person develops a fixation during one of these five stages and is apparent in his/her excessive need to overindulge in this earlier stage.

One of Sigmund Freud's earlier associates Alfred Adler did agree with Freud that early childhood experiences are important to development, and believed that birth order may influence personality development. This belief may have been influenced by his feelings of inferiority compared to his older brother. A sibling birth order position can affect the way an individual lives their life. Meaning personalities vary through oldest to youngest child. Alder believed the oldest was the one that set high goals to achieve to get attention back that they lost when the younger siblings were born. He believed the middle children were competitive and ambitious possibly so they are able to surpass the first-born’s achievements, but were not as much concerned about the glory. Also he believed that the last born would be more dependent and sociable but be the baby. He also believed that only children love being the center of attention and mature quickly, but in the end fail to become independent.

Freud came up with some of his theories about unconscious memories, and their influence on the patient's present behavior based on the work that Josef Breuer had done with 'Anna O.' Freud credits Breuer with the discovery of the psychoanalytic method. Breuer worked with a patient named Anna O. She was a 21 year old woman who was suffering from an undiagnosed (physical and mental) illness for several years. Her symptoms included: paralysis of the right arm and leg, difficulty in vision, nausea, as well as the inability to drink any liquids. She had difficulty speaking and was prone to altered states of consciousness which affected her changing personality and eventual amnesia. After examining Anna O, Breuer decided the best way to treat her would be with hypnosis. He was able to observe her mumbling and placed her under hypnosis. While hypnotized, he asked her to verbalize associations that she had with the words she was mumbling. Eventually, she began to describe situations and stories that all circled around her father's illness and death. She had been taking care of her ailing father and Breuer concluded that her symptoms were determined by traumatic or stressful events that happened in the past and happened to have a cathartic effect, also known as catharsis or emotional release associated with talking about the underlying problem. Breur would go to her house at night and talk about her fantasies then act them out. She would be symptom free for the rest of the night. Anna O. appeared to be cured about 2 years after Breuer had begun working with her. Later, Freud referred to the Anna O. case and concluded that at the time of the original traumatic event, the person experiencing the event has to contain their emotions. The patient then develops behaviors from their emotional experience of the event and it is those emotional experiences that lead to the present behavior stemming from the unconscious.

Freud also believed in an idea called transference. This is when emotions one had as a child to your parents' actions are transferred to a therapist. Freud believed that all our reactions to other people are a result of our upbringing. Something someone does could be reminiscent of a desired trait, an undesired trait or an undesired parental trait.

Heinz Kohut thought similarly to Freud’s idea of transference. He used narcissism as a model of how we develop our sense of self. Narcissism is the exaggerated sense of one self in which is believed to exist in order to protect one's low self esteem and sense of worthlessness. Kohut had a significant impact on the field by extending Freud's theory of narcissism and introducing what he called the 'self-object transferences' of mirroring and idealization. In other words, children need to idealize and emotionally "sink into" and identify with the idealized competence of admired figures such as parents or older siblings. They also need to have their self-worth mirrored by these people. These experiences allow them to thereby learn the self-soothing and other skills that are necessary for the development of a healthy sense of self.

Another important figure in the world of personality theory would be Karen Horney. She is credited with the development of the "real self" and the "ideal self". She believes that all people have these two views of their own self. The "real self" is how you really are with regards to personality, values, and morals; but the "ideal self" is a construct you apply to yourself to conform to social and personal norms and goals. Ideal self would be "I can be successful, I am CEO material"; and real self would be "I just work in the mail room, with not much chance of high promotion".

Margaret Mahler agreed with Klein's theory of linking relationships children have with their mothers to mental disorders of disturbed children. Certain disorders directly relate to what kind of relationship they had with their mothers. An example of this would be people diagnosed with schizophrenia. They are often too attached to their mother as children and even become obsessed, and never get over the "Oedipus" or "Electra" complex. Another example would be autistic children. Autistic children show no interest in their mother, relating to her, and so on. Both of these are very opposite reactions, but both have to do with the outcome of the mental disorder.

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