 minimize experience of guilt Three levels of consciousness  Conscious  thoughts, feelings and experiences, current awareness.  constantly changing because it is current  Preconscious  Information can be recalled to the conscious level without much effort.  Mainly of memories that are not painful or anxiety provoking, and experiences and observations on which the individual is not concentrating.  Unconscious  ‘Forbidden’ drives and memories of events and wishes that caused the individual pain, anxiety and guilt.  Cannot be recalled to consciousness. The id  Innate (inborn, instinctive) primitive component of the psyche.  In direct contact with the body from which it obtains energy for all behaviour.  Energy linked to drives contained in the id, namely the life and death drives.  Functions according to o primary processes o pleasure principle  seeks immediate drive satisfaction  only consideration is immediate satisfaction.  Not capable of any thought, planning or self-reflection.  Selfish and unrealistic.  No contact with external reality  Not geared to drive satisfaction due to not being capable of finding objects for drive satisfaction (only imaginary, not real – need to eat real food to survive)  Can only fulfil the wish fulfilment drive, by creating images and fantasizing that the drive has been satisfied (no real satisfaction of drives)  Drive satisfaction in order for individual survival is dependent on the ego. The ego  Develops from id to ensure individual’s survival  formed through individual’s contact with the external environment.  Ego serves id’s needs by finding suitable objects for drive satisfaction.  Functions according to the secondary process and the reality principle. o Secondary process  Ego evaluates and weighs up process before action is undertaken.  Ego can reflect upon and plan satisfaction of drives, and postpone satisfaction to appropriate time and place. o Reality principle  Considers physical and social reality  uses conscious and preconscious cognitive processes (sensory perception, rational thinking, memory and learning)
 Small babies have sexual drives and seek erotic pleasure: o Source of sexual drive is mouth area (lip and inside of mouth) o Object of ‘oral-sexual drive’ is mother’s breast o Satisfaction comes from sucking mother’s breast  Throughout the development other sexual drives occur as other parts of the body become sources of sexual drive energy.  Satisfaction of sexual drives is controlled or prohibited by society, therefore creating ongoing psychological problems for people and play a significant role in mental disturbance. c. Death drives  Death drive is Freud’s explanation for phenomena such as war, murder, suicide and death.  Basic function – break down living cells and change them into dead matter.  The object of the death drive is the individual’s body.  The death rive is in constant conflict with the life drives and the conflict is projected outward in the form aggression and destructive behaviour.  All aggressive behaviour is regulated by strict moral codes, just like sexual behaviour.  Aggressive impulses lead to conflict between aggressive drives and moral social codes in the superego.  Due to death drive energy not disappearing, a person has to find ways to utilise the unused energy.  The death drive operates in many ways  Individual projects energy outwards in the form of aggression towards people and destroying things.  Drive energy is used in workings of the superego and is regarded as a form of aggression towards the individual. Superego uses drive energy by making people feel guilty about undesirable wishes and actions and causes pain through reproach.  Performance errors, accident proneness and suicide are the outcomes of unconscious operation of the death drive through the superego. o These attempts by Freud to explain behaviour demonstrate his position of psychic determinism – all behaviour is the outcome of forces within the individual.  Through defence mechanisms of sublimation, the energy can be exercised in socially acceptable ways, in professions where objects are destroyed.  Ultimately, an individual causes their own death and achieves a totally tensionless state, nirvana, which Freud views as the unconscious ideal of all life... ”The goal of all life is death”. 5.2 Anxiety  Freud describes anxiety as the ego’s reaction to danger.  The anxiety stems from the conflict between the id’s forbidden drives and the superego’s moral codes.  Anxiety is an uncomfortable feeling which motivates the ego to avoid danger by trying to reduce the anxiety.  Freud distinguishes three types of anxiety, namely Reality anxiety, Neurotic anxiety and Moral anxiety.
DEFINITION REPRESSIONis the basic defence mechanism which transfers (represses)unacceptabledrives, wishes or memories to the unconscious.  Repression is an unconscious mechanism which is not the same as the suppression or avoidance that an individual uses to purposefully forget about something.  Freud believes that repressed drives and wishes retain energy and constantly try to break through to the conscious level. Due to this, a single act or repression is not enough and has to be maintained through resistance.  Resistance begins operating when repressed desires threaten to surface at the conscious level, which increase the individual’s anxiety.  Anxiety is unpleasant, causing the person to resort to repression and resistance and other defence mechanisms to ensure that repressed content remains unconscious. (Other defence mechanisms reinforce the resistance against unacceptable psychic content trying to enter consciousness).  All other defence mechanisms are geared at keeping repressed and anxiety provoking material at an unconscious level. o (Primary function = support ego’s resistance against repressed material). b. Projection An attempt to keep unacceptable drives and wishes unconscious by accusing others of having those same unacceptable drives and wishes. (Projecting their own wishes onto another individual). DEFINITION PROJECTIONis an attempt to keep unconscious psychic material unconscious bysubjectively ‘changing’ the focus to the drives and wishes of otherpeople  An individual who has unacceptable drives and wishes which are their own, will see them as the wishes of others.  Projection is the individual’s attempt to change neurotic or moral anxiety into reality anxiety. Once the individual has created a ‘real’ external danger (other people whom they experience as threatening their moral values) the individual can attack the danger.  In attempts to do something about the external danger, the individual may use the defence mechanism of reaction formation. c. Reaction formation An individual will use fanatical or excessive behaviour to give the impression that they have the opposite desire to the desire that they really have.
(Baby bites mother during feeding and is then weaned which is interpreted as punishment).  During the first year of life, aggressive drive energy also creates problems.  The ego and the superego begin to develop in contrast to the id, which is inborn.  Baby begins to acquire knowledge of the external reality and learns when feeding times are and what objects are edible or not.  This knowledge and experience lays the foundation for ego development.  Through punishment and reward, children learn that certain kinds of behaviour are acceptable and others are not – and the first moral rules are absorbed into the superego.  Fixation or partial fixation results in the oral personality type. Characteristics of the oral personality type are:  Inordinate dependence on others  Narcissism  Excessive optimism  Jealousy and envy.  If reaction formation is used as a defence mechanism, opposite characteristics can appear:  Selfishness  Self-loathing  Pessimism  Exaggerated generosity 6.2 The anal stage (Second year)  Anus and excretory canal are the sources of sexual drive energy.  Child enjoys sexual pleasure in excretion and in retaining excretion.  Toilet-training is of high importance and parents’ handling of this issue has an influence on the personality characteristics that the child will take into adult life.  Aggressive urges change during oral stage and excretory function can be used for aggressive urges by excreting at the wrong time (punishment of parents) or by retaining excretion (punishment of themselves). However, retaining excretion can also be a form of sexual pleasure called masochism – deriving sexual pleasure from harming oneself.  Toilet-training is important for incorporation of society’s rules.  Superego undergoes further development as a result of parents’ punishment and rewards during toilet-training.  Fixation or partial fixation results in an anal personality and is characterised by the following traits:  Excessive neatness  Thriftiness (frugality)  Obstinacy (stubbornness)  And if reaction formation occurs, the opposite of these traits.  As a result of toilet-training, faeces come to be viewed by children as valuable objects that can be given to parents as a reward or withheld as punishment. Due to this, faeces has a symbolic connection with money.  The development of sadism and masochism and the development of obsessive compulsive neuroses are associated with fixation in the anal stage.