psychodynamic perspective essay

11.2 Freud and the Psychodynamic Perspective

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Describe the assumptions of the psychodynamic perspective on personality development
• Define and describe the nature and function of the id, ego, and superego
• Define and describe the defense mechanisms
• Define and describe the psychosexual stages of personality development

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) is probably the most controversial and misunderstood psychological theorist. When reading Freud’s theories, it is important to remember that he was a medical doctor, not a psychologist. There was no such thing as a degree in psychology at the time that he received his education, which can help us understand some of the controversy over his theories today. However, Freud was the first to systematically study and theorize the workings of the unconscious mind in the manner that we associate with modern psychology.

In the early years of his career, Freud worked with Josef Breuer, a Viennese physician. During this time, Freud became intrigued by the story of one of Breuer’s patients, Bertha Pappenheim, who was referred to by the pseudonym Anna O. (Launer, 2005). Anna O. had been caring for her dying father when she began to experience symptoms such as partial paralysis, headaches, blurred vision, amnesia, and hallucinations (Launer, 2005). In Freud’s day, these symptoms were commonly referred to as hysteria. Anna O. turned to Breuer for help. He spent 2 years (1880–1882) treating Anna O. and discovered that allowing her to talk about her experiences seemed to bring some relief of her symptoms. Anna O. called his treatment the “talking cure” (Launer, 2005). Despite the fact that Freud never met Anna O., her story served as the basis for the 1895 book, Studies on Hysteria , which he co-authored with Breuer. Based on Breuer’s description of Anna O.’s treatment, Freud concluded that hysteria was the result of sexual abuse in childhood and that these traumatic experiences had been hidden from consciousness. Breuer disagreed with Freud, which soon ended their work together. However, Freud continued to work to refine talk therapy and build his theory on personality.

Levels of Consciousness

To explain the concept of conscious versus unconscious experience, Freud compared the mind to an iceberg ( Figure 11.5 ). He said that only about one-tenth of our mind is conscious , and the rest of our mind is unconscious . Our unconscious refers to that mental activity of which we are unaware and are unable to access (Freud, 1923). According to Freud, unacceptable urges and desires are kept in our unconscious through a process called repression. For example, we sometimes say things that we don’t intend to say by unintentionally substituting another word for the one we meant. You’ve probably heard of a Freudian slip, the term used to describe this. Freud suggested that slips of the tongue are actually sexual or aggressive urges, accidentally slipping out of our unconscious. Speech errors such as this are quite common. Seeing them as a reflection of unconscious desires, linguists today have found that slips of the tongue tend to occur when we are tired, nervous, or not at our optimal level of cognitive functioning (Motley, 2002).

According to Freud, our personality develops from a conflict between two forces: our biological aggressive and pleasure-seeking drives versus our internal (socialized) control over these drives. Our personality is the result of our efforts to balance these two competing forces. Freud suggested that we can understand this by imagining three interacting systems within our minds. He called them the id, ego, and superego ( Figure 11.6 ).

The unconscious id contains our most primitive drives or urges, and is present from birth. It directs impulses for hunger, thirst, and sex. Freud believed that the id operates on what he called the “pleasure principle,” in which the id seeks immediate gratification. Through social interactions with parents and others in a child’s environment, the ego and superego develop to help control the id. The superego develops as a child interacts with others, learning the social rules for right and wrong. The superego acts as our conscience; it is our moral compass that tells us how we should behave. It strives for perfection and judges our behavior, leading to feelings of pride or—when we fall short of the ideal—feelings of guilt. In contrast to the instinctual id and the rule-based superego, the ego is the rational part of our personality. It’s what Freud considered to be the self, and it is the part of our personality that is seen by others. Its job is to balance the demands of the id and superego in the context of reality; thus, it operates on what Freud called the “reality principle.” The ego helps the id satisfy its desires in a realistic way.

The id and superego are in constant conflict, because the id wants instant gratification regardless of the consequences, but the superego tells us that we must behave in socially acceptable ways. Thus, the ego’s job is to find the middle ground. It helps satisfy the id’s desires in a rational way that will not lead us to feelings of guilt. According to Freud, a person who has a strong ego, which can balance the demands of the id and the superego, has a healthy personality. Freud maintained that imbalances in the system can lead to neurosis (a tendency to experience negative emotions), anxiety disorders, or unhealthy behaviors. For example, a person who is dominated by their id might be narcissistic and impulsive. A person with a dominant superego might be controlled by feelings of guilt and deny themselves even socially acceptable pleasures; conversely, if the superego is weak or absent, a person might become a psychopath. An overly dominant superego might be seen in an over-controlled individual whose rational grasp on reality is so strong that they are unaware of their emotional needs, or, in a neurotic who is overly defensive (overusing ego defense mechanisms).

Defense Mechanisms

Freud believed that feelings of anxiety result from the ego’s inability to mediate the conflict between the id and superego. When this happens, Freud believed that the ego seeks to restore balance through various protective measures known as defense mechanisms ( Figure 11.7 ). When certain events, feelings, or yearnings cause an individual anxiety, the individual wishes to reduce that anxiety. To do that, the individual’s unconscious mind uses ego defense mechanisms , unconscious protective behaviors that aim to reduce anxiety. The ego, usually conscious, resorts to unconscious strivings to protect the ego from being overwhelmed by anxiety. When we use defense mechanisms, we are unaware that we are using them. Further, they operate in various ways that distort reality. According to Freud, we all use ego defense mechanisms.

While everyone uses defense mechanisms, Freud believed that overuse of them may be problematic. For example, let’s say Joe is a high school football player. Deep down, Joe feels sexually attracted to males. His conscious belief is that being gay is immoral and that if he were gay, his family would disown him and he would be ostracized by his peers. Therefore, there is a conflict between his conscious beliefs (being gay is wrong and will result in being ostracized) and his unconscious urges (attraction to males). The idea that he might be gay causes Joe to have feelings of anxiety. How can he decrease his anxiety? Joe may find himself acting very “macho,” making gay jokes, and picking on a school peer who is gay. This way, Joe’s unconscious impulses are further submerged.

There are several different types of defense mechanisms. For instance, in repression, anxiety-causing memories from consciousness are blocked. As an analogy, let’s say your car is making a strange noise, but because you do not have the money to get it fixed, you just turn up the radio so that you no longer hear the strange noise. Eventually you forget about it. Similarly, in the human psyche, if a memory is too overwhelming to deal with, it might be repressed and thus removed from conscious awareness (Freud, 1920). This repressed memory might cause symptoms in other areas.

Another defense mechanism is reaction formation , in which someone expresses feelings, thoughts, and behaviors opposite to their inclinations. In the above example, Joe made fun of a gay peer while himself being attracted to males. In regression , an individual acts much younger than their age. For example, a four-year-old child who resents the arrival of a newborn sibling may act like a baby and revert to drinking out of a bottle. In projection , a person refuses to acknowledge her own unconscious feelings and instead sees those feelings in someone else. Other defense mechanisms include rationalization , displacement , and sublimation .

Link to Learning

Watch this video of Freud's defense mechanisms to review.

Stages of Psychosexual Development

Freud believed that personality develops during early childhood: Childhood experiences shape our personalities as well as our behavior as adults. He asserted that we develop via a series of stages during childhood. Each of us must pass through these childhood stages, and if we do not have the proper nurturing and parenting during a stage, we will be stuck, or fixated, in that stage, even as adults.

In each psychosexual stage of development , the child’s pleasure-seeking urges, coming from the id, are focused on a different area of the body, called an erogenous zone. The stages are oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital ( Table 11.1 ).

Freud’s psychosexual development theory is quite controversial. To understand the origins of the theory, it is helpful to be familiar with the political, social, and cultural influences of Freud’s day in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century. During this era, a climate of sexual repression, combined with limited understanding and education surrounding human sexuality, heavily influenced Freud’s perspective. Given that sex was a taboo topic, Freud assumed that negative emotional states (neuroses) stemmed from suppression of unconscious sexual and aggressive urges. For Freud, his own recollections and interpretations of patients’ experiences and dreams were sufficient proof that psychosexual stages were universal events in early childhood.

In the oral stage (birth to 1 year), pleasure is focused on the mouth. Eating and the pleasure derived from sucking (nipples, pacifiers, and thumbs) play a large part in a baby’s first year of life. At around 1 year of age, babies are weaned from the bottle or breast, and this process can create conflict if not handled properly by caregivers. According to Freud, an adult who smokes, drinks, overeats, or bites her nails is fixated in the oral stage of her psychosexual development; she may have been weaned too early or too late, resulting in these fixation tendencies, all of which seek to ease anxiety.

After passing through the oral stage, children enter what Freud termed the anal stage (1–3 years). In this stage, children experience pleasure in their bowel and bladder movements, so it makes sense that the conflict in this stage is over toilet training. During this stage of development, children work to master control of themselves. Freud suggested that success at the anal stage depended on how parents handled toilet training. Parents who offer praise and rewards encourage positive results and can help children feel competent. Parents who are harsh in toilet training can cause a child to become so fearful of soiling that they over-control and become fixated at the anal stage, leading to the development of an anal-retentive personality. The anal-retentive personality is stingy and stubborn, has a compulsive need for order and neatness, and might be considered a perfectionist. If parents are too lenient in toilet training, the child may fail to develop sufficient self-control, become fixated at this stage, and develop an anal-expulsive personality. The anal-expulsive personality is messy, careless, disorganized, and prone to emotional outbursts.

Phallic Stage

Freud’s third stage of psychosexual development is the phallic stage (3–6 years), corresponding to the age when children become aware of their bodies and recognize the differences between boys and girls. The erogenous zone in this stage is the genitals. Conflict arises when the child feels a desire for the opposite-sex parent, and jealousy and hatred toward the same-sex parent. For boys, this is called the Oedipus complex, involving a boy's desire for his mother and his urge to replace his father who is seen as a rival for the mother’s attention. The Oedipus complex is named for the Greek myth of Oedipus, who unwittingly kills his biological father and marries his biological mother. According to Freud, the boy is afraid his father will punish him for his feelings, so he experiences castration anxiety . The Oedipus complex is successfully resolved when the boy begins to identify with his father as an indirect way to have the mother. Failure to resolve the Oedipus complex may result in fixation and development of a personality that might be described as vain and overly ambitious.

Freud described penis envy , which he alleged girls experience because they do not have a penis. Girls also experience the Electra complex. The Electra complex, while often attributed to Freud, was actually proposed by Freud’s protégé, Carl Jung (Jung & Kerenyi, 1963). A girl desires the attention of her father and wishes to take her mother’s place. While Freud initially embraced the Electra complex as a parallel to the Oedipus complex, he later rejected it, yet it remains as a cornerstone of Freudian theory, thanks in part to academics in the field (Freud, 1931/1968; Scott, 2005).

Latency Period

Following the phallic stage of psychosexual development is a period known as the latency period (6 years to puberty). This period is not considered a stage, because sexual feelings are dormant as children focus on other pursuits, such as school, friendships, hobbies, and sports. Children generally engage in activities with peers of the same sex, which serves to consolidate a child’s gender-role identity.

Genital Stage

The final stage is the genital stage (from puberty on). In this stage, there is a sexual reawakening as the incestuous urges resurface. The young person redirects these urges to other, more socially acceptable partners (who often resemble the other-sex parent). People in this stage have mature sexual interests, which for Freud meant a strong desire for the opposite sex. Individuals who successfully completed the previous stages, reaching the genital stage with no fixations, are said to be well-balanced, healthy adults.

While most of Freud’s ideas have not found support in modern research, and several contemporary researchers rejected his premises, we cannot discount the contributions that Freud has made to the field of psychology. It was Freud who pointed out that a large part of our mental life is influenced by the experiences of early childhood and takes place outside of our conscious awareness; his theories paved the way for others.

While Freud's focus on biological drives led him to emphasize the impact of sociocultural factors on personality development, his followers quickly realized that biology alone could not account for the diversity they encountered as the practice of psychoanalysis spread during the time of the Nazi Holocaust. The antisemitism which was prevalent during this period of time may have led mainstream psychoanalysts to focus primarily on the universality of the psychological structures of the mind.

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Psychodynamic Approach In Psychology

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

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Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

On This Page:

The psychodynamic approach in psychology emphasizes unconscious processes and unresolved past conflicts as influences on behavior. Rooted in Freud’s theories, it explores the interplay of drives, desires, and defense mechanisms in shaping personality and behavior.

Key Takeaways

• The psychodynamic theory is a psychological theory Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and his followers applied to explain the origins of human behavior.
• The psychodynamic approach includes all the theories in psychology that see human functioning based upon the interaction of drives and forces within the person, particularly the unconscious, and between the different structures of the personality.
• The words psychodynamic and psychoanalytic are often confused. Remember that Freud’s theories were psychoanalytic, whereas the term ‘psychodynamic’ refers to his theories and those of his followers.
• Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis was the original psychodynamic theory. Psychoanalysis is also the name given to the therapy derived from the theory of Sigmund Freud.
• The psychodynamic approach includes all theories that were based on Freud and his followers, including Carl Jung (1912), Melanie Klein (1921), Alfred Adler (1927), Anna Freud (1936), and Erik Erikson (1950).

Sigmund Freud (writing between the 1890s and the 1930s) developed a collection of theories which have formed the basis of the psychodynamic approach to psychology.

His theories are clinically derived – i.e., based on what his patients told him during therapy. The psychodynamic therapist would usually be treating the patient for depression or anxiety-related disorders.

Summary Table

Theoretical Assumptions

Theoretical assumptions in psychology are basic statements or beliefs that provide a framework for understanding human behavior. They also help researchers to develop new theories and to test existing theories.

Importance of the unconscious mind

The unconscious mind comprises mental processes inaccessible to consciousness that influence judgment, feelings, or behavior (Wilson, 2002).

According to the psychodynamic approach, the unconscious is the part of the mind that contains things we are unaware of, such as feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories.

According to Freud (1915), the unconscious mind is the primary source of human behavior. Like an iceberg, the most important part of the mind is the part you cannot see. Our feelings, motives, and decisions are powerfully influenced by past experiences and stored in the unconscious.

Most of the content of the unconscious is unacceptable or unpleasant and could cause feelings of pain, anxiety, or conflict if it becomes conscious.

For example, hysteria is an example of a physical symptom that has no physical cause though the ailment is just as real as if it had, but rather is caused by some underlying unconscious problem.

The unconscious is seen as a vital part of the individual. It is irrational, emotional, and has no concept of reality which is why its attempts to leak out must be inhibited.

The role of the unconscious mind is to protect the ego from this content. However, according to Freud, the content of the unconscious motivates our feelings, motives, and decisions.

Importance of early experience

Our behavior and feelings as adults (including psychological problems) are rooted in our childhood experiences.

The psychodynamic theory states that events in our childhood have a significant influence on our adult lives, shaping our personality. 

Personality is shaped as the drives are modified by different conflicts at different times in childhood (during psychosexual development).

Freud’s theory of psychosexual stages of development predicated that childhood experiences create the adult personality. Events that occur in childhood can remain in the unconscious and cause problems as adults, such as mental illness.

Psychic determinism

Psychodynamic theory is strongly determinist as it views our behavior as entirely caused by unconscious emotional drives over which we have no control.

Unconscious thoughts and feelings can transfer to the conscious mind through parapraxes, popularly known as Freudian slips or slips of the tongue. We reveal what is really on our minds by saying something we didn’t mean to.

Freud believed that slips of the tongue provided an insight into the unconscious mind and that there were no accidents, every behavior (including slips of the tongue) was significant (i.e., all behavior is determined).

Behavior can be explained in terms of the inner conflicts of the mind

Personality comprises three parts (i.e., tripartite): the id, ego, and super-ego . Parts of the unconscious mind (the id and superego) are in constant conflict with the conscious part of the mind (the ego). 

• The id is the primitive and instinctive component of personality. It consists of all the inherited (i.e., biological) components of personality present at birth, including the sex (life) instinct – Eros (which contains the libido), and the aggressive (death) instinct – Thanatos.
• The ego develops to mediate between the unrealistic id and the external real world. It is the decision-making component of personality.
• The superego incorporates society’s values and morals, which are learned from one’s parents and others. It has two components: the ego ideal, which sets the standards, and the conscience, which produces guilt. 

When unconscious conflicts between the id and the superego cannot be resolved by the ego, they create anxiety. To reduce this anxiety, we use defense mechanisms such as repression.

To be mentally healthy, the ego has to be able to balance the demands of the ego and the superego. If the superego is dominant, the individual might develop a neurosis e.g., depression. If the id is dominant, the individual might develop a psychosis e.g., schizophrenia.

According to the psychodynamic approach, the therapist would resolve the problem by assisting the client to delve back into their childhood and identify when the problem arose.

Having identified the problem, this can be brought into the conscious, where the imbalance can be resolved, returning equanimity between the id, ego, and superego.

Consequently, the defense mechanisms will only operate at the maintenance level, and the mental illness will be cured.

Key Figures

• Sigmund Freud : Freud is the founder of psychoanalysis and the psychodynamic approach. He developed many key concepts of psychodynamic theory, such as the unconscious mind, psychosexual development, and defense mechanisms.

Freudians and neo-Freudians both subscribe to the psychodynamic approach to psychology, which emphasizes the role of unconscious mental processes in human behavior and emotions.

Neo-Freudians expanded on or challenged Freud’s original theories. They were all influenced by Freud’s work, but they also developed their own unique theories about human behavior and personality. 

• Carl Jung :  Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and one of Freud’s closest collaborators. However, he later broke away from Freud to develop his theory of personality, known as Jungian analysis. Jung’s theory emphasized the importance of the collective unconscious, a shared reservoir of knowledge and experience inherited from our ancestors.
• Alfred Adler : Adler was another Austrian psychiatrist who was a student of Freud’s. However, he later broke away from Freud to develop his theory of personality, known as individual psychology. Adler’s theory emphasized the importance of striving for superiority and belonging.
• Melanie Klein : Klein was a British psychoanalyst who contributed significantly to understanding early childhood development and child psychopathology.
• Karen Horney : Horney was a German-American psychoanalyst who was one of the first female psychoanalysts to be taken seriously. Her work focused on the impact of social and cultural factors on personality development. Horney believed that anxiety was the root cause of all psychopathology.
• Erik Erikson : Erikson was a German-American psychoanalyst who developed the theory of psychosocial development. Erikson’s theory describes the eight stages of development that people go through from birth to death.

Psychodynamic vs Psychoanalytic

Both psychodynamic and psychoanalytic theories originate from the ideas of Sigmund Freud, but they have different applications and emphases.

Psychoanalytic theory is the original theory of the unconscious mind, developed by Sigmund Freud. Freud believed the unconscious mind is a powerful force influencing our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. He also believed that childhood experiences are critical in shaping personality and behavior.

Psychodynamic theory is a broader term that encompasses a variety of theories that are based on Freudian principles.

Psychodynamic theorists generally agree that the unconscious mind is important, but they may have different views on its role in human behavior and how it develops.

Some psychodynamic theorists also emphasize social and cultural factors more than Freud did. Some of the most notable Neo-Freudians include Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Karen Horney, and Erich Fromm.

Historical Timeline

• Anna O, a patient of Dr. Joseph Breuer (Freud’s mentor and friend) from 1800 to 1882 suffered from hysteria.
• In 1895 Breuer and his assistant, Sigmund Freud, wrote a book, Studies on Hysteria . In it, they explained their theory: Every hysteria is the result of a traumatic experience, one that cannot be integrated into the person’s understanding of the world. The publication establishes Freud as “the father of psychoanalysis.
• By 1896, Freud had found the key to his own system, naming it psychoanalysis . In it, he had replaced hypnosis with “free association.”
• In 1900, Freud published his first major work, The Interpretation of Dreams , which established the importance of psychoanalytical movement.
• In 1902, Freud founded the Psychological Wednesday Society , later transformed into the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society .
• As the organization grew, Freud established an inner circle of devoted followers, the so-called “Committee” (including Sàndor Ferenczi, and Hanns Sachs (standing) Otto Rank, Karl Abraham, Max Eitingon, and Ernest Jones).

• Freud and his colleagues came to Massachusetts in 1909 to lecture on their new methods of understanding mental illness. Those in attendance included some of the country’s most important intellectual figures, such as William James , Franz Boas, and Adolf Meyer.
• In the years following the visit to the United States, the International Psychoanalytic Association was founded. Freud designated Carl Jung as his successor to lead the Association, and chapters were created in major cities in Europe and elsewhere. .
• Regular meetings or congresses were held to discuss the theory, therapy, and cultural applications of the new discipline.
• Carl Jung’s study on schizophrenia, The Psychology of Dementia Praecox, led him to collaborate with Sigmund Freud.
• Jung’s close collaboration with Freud lasted until 1913. Jung had become increasingly critical of Freud’s exclusively sexual definition of libido and incest. The publication of Jung’s Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido (known in English as The Psychology of the Unconscious) led to a final break.
• Following his emergence from this period of crisis, Jung developed his own theories systematically under the name of Analytical Psychology. Jung’s concepts of the collective unconscious and the archetypes led him to explore religion in the East and West, myths, alchemy, and later flying saucers.
• Melanie Klein took psychoanalytic thinking in a new direction by recognizing the importance of our earliest childhood experiences in the formation of our adult emotional world. .After becoming a full member of the Berlin Psychoanalytic Society in 1923, Klein embarks upon her first analysis of a child. 
• Extending and developing Sigmund Freud’s ideas, Klein drew on her analysis of children’s play to formulate new concepts such as the paranoid-schizoid position and the depressive position.
• Alfred Adler (1927) thought that the basic psychological element of neurosis was a sense of inferiority and that individuals suffering with the symptoms of this phenomenon spent their lives trying to overcome the feelings without ever being in touch with reality
• Wilhelm Reich (1933) was a psychoanalyst who developed a number of radical psychoanalytical and physical theories. An apprentice of Freud, he believed that neuroses, as well as physical illnesses such as cancer, derived from a lack of “orgone energy” in the body.
• Anna Freud (Freud’s daughter) became a major force in British psychology, specializing in the application of psychoanalysis to children.  Among her best known works are The Ego and the Mechanism of defense (1936).
• Erich Fromm , born in Frankfurt, was educated in Heidelberg and Munich before establishing a private psychotherapy practice in 1925. Fromm began as a disciple of Sigmund Freud, combining his psychological theories with Karl Marx’s social principle.

Issues and Debates

Free will vs determinism.

It is strongly determinist as it views our behavior as caused entirely by unconscious factors over which we have no control.

Nature vs. Nurture

Sigmund Freud believed both nature (innate drives) and nurture (early life experiences) played crucial roles in human development. For Freud, the interplay of nature and nurture was central to understanding human psychology.

He posited that individuals have inborn instincts and drives, like the id’s desires. Simultaneously, he emphasized the profound impact of early childhood experiences, especially within the family dynamic, on personality and behavior.

The psychodynamic approach argues that we are driven by innate biological instincts, represented by the Id (nature), but the ways these instincts are expressed are shaped by our social and cultural environment, such as early childhood experiences (nurture).

Holism vs. Reductionism

The psychodynamic approach is determinist as it rejects the idea of free will. A person’s behavior is determined by their unconscious motives which are shaped by their biological drives and their early experiences.

Idiographic vs. Nomothetic

Freud argued that human behavior is governed by universal processes that apply to everyone e.g. the tripartite structure of the mind (nomothetic).

However, he also proposed that the ways in which these processes manifest themselves in the individual is unique (idiographic).

Are the research methods used scientific?

The concepts proposed by Freud cannot be tested empirically . The theory is not falsifiable. If people behave in the way predicted by the theory, it is viewed as a support; if they don’t, it is argued that they are using defense mechanisms.

Critical Evaluation

The psychodynamic approach has given rise to one of the first “talking cure”, psychoanalysis, on which many psychological therapies are now based. Psychoanalysis is rarely used now in its original form, but it is still used in a shorter version in some cases.

Psychoanalytic therapy has been seen as appropriate mainly for the neurotic disorders (e.g. anxiety and eating disorders) rather than for the psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia. It is also used for depression although its effectiveness in this area is more questionable because of the apathetic nature of the depressive patients.

Bachrach et al., (1991) suggests that psychoanalysis may not be appropriate for patients suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder in that it may inadvertently increase their tendency to over-interpret events in their life.

One of the very influential concept put forward by Freud is the lasting importance of childhood on later life and development. This has influenced Bowlby’s theory of attachment . John Bowlby (1952) was a psychoanalyst (like Freud) and believed that mental health and behavioral problems could be attributed to early childhood.

The greatest criticism of the psychodynamic approach is that it is unscientific in its analysis of human behavior.  Many of the concepts central to Freud’s theories are subjective and as such, difficult to test scientifically.

For example, how can scientifically study concepts like the unconscious mind or the tripartite personality?  In this respect, it could be argued that the psychodynamic perspective is unfalsifiable as its theories cannot be empirically investigated.

However, cognitive psychology has identified unconscious processes, such as procedural memory (Tulving, 1972), automatic processing (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Stroop, 1935), and social psychology have shown the importance of implicit processing (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). Such empirical findings have demonstrated the role of unconscious processes in human behavior.

The concepts of id, ego and superego are very abstract and difficult to test experimentally, so evidence is obtained from case studies ( Little Hans , and Anna O ). However, the sample used in these case studies is mainly Austrian, so lacks population validity.

Kline (1989) argues that psychodynamic theory comprises a series of hypotheses, some more easily tested than others and some with more supporting evidence than others. Also, while the theories of the psychodynamic approach may not be easily tested, this does not mean that it does not have strong explanatory power.

The main problem here is that the case studies are based on studying one person in detail, and concerning Freud, the individuals in question are most often middle-aged women from Vienna (i.e., his patients). This makes generalizations to the wider population (e.g., the whole world) difficult.

Another problem with the case study method is that it is susceptible to researcher bias. Reexamination of Freud’s own clinical work suggests that he sometimes distorted his patients” case histories to “fit” with his theory (Sulloway, 1991).

The humanistic approach criticizes that the psychodynamic perspective is too deterministic. Freud suggests that all thoughts, behaviors, and emotions are determined by our childhood experiences and unconscious mental processes. This is a weakness because it suggests we have no conscious free will over our behavior, leaving little room for the idea of personal agency (i.e., free will).

The individual is not seen as responsible for their disorders however as the conflicts which lead to the disorder are unconscious there is nothing they can do about it without an analyst, they are disempowered.

The psychodynamic approach can be criticized for being sexist against women. For example, Freud believed that females” penis envy made them inferior to males. He also thought that females tended to develop weaker superegos and were more prone to anxiety than males.

Finally, it cannot explain the biological symptoms observed in some disorders, such as enlarged ventricles in schizophrenics.

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Freud, S. (1909). Analysis of a phobia of a five year old boy. In The Pelican Freud Library (1977), Vol 8, Case Histories 1, pages 169-306.

Freud, S. (1915). The unconscious . SE, 14: 159-204.

Freud, A. (1936). The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense . International Universities Press, Inc.

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Jung, C. G., et al. (1964). Man and his Symbols , New York, N.Y.: Anchor Books, Doubleday.

Kline, P. (1989). Objective tests of Freud’s theories. Psychology Survey , 7, 127-45.

Stroop, J. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of experimental psychology , 18(6), 643.

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Reich, W. (1933). On character analysis. The Psychoanalytic Review (1913-1957), 20, 89.

Wilson, T. D. (2004). Strangers to ourselves . Harvard University Press.

Is there a difference between psychodynamic and psychoanalytic?

The words psychodynamic and psychoanalytic are often confused. Remember that Freud’s theories were psychoanalytic, whereas the term ‘psychodynamic’ refers to both his theories and those of his followers.

What is psychodynamic in simple terms?

Sigmund Freud highlights the role of the unconscious mind, the structure of personality, and the influence that childhood experiences have on later life.

Freud believed that the unconscious mind determines most of our behavior and that we are motivated by unconscious emotional drives.

The Evolution of the Psychodynamic Approach and System

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61 Freud and the Psychodynamic Perspective

[latexpage]

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Describe the assumptions of the psychodynamic perspective on personality development
• Define and describe the nature and function of the id, ego, and superego
• Define and describe the defense mechanisms
• Define and describe the psychosexual stages of personality development

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) is probably the most controversial and misunderstood psychological theorist. When reading Freud’s theories, it is important to remember that he was a medical doctor, not a psychologist. There was no such thing as a degree in psychology at the time that he received his education, which can help us understand some of the controversy over his theories today. However, Freud was the first to systematically study and theorize the workings of the unconscious mind in the manner that we associate with modern psychology.

In the early years of his career, Freud worked with Josef Breuer, a Viennese physician. During this time, Freud became intrigued by the story of one of Breuer’s patients, Bertha Pappenheim, who was referred to by the pseudonym Anna O. (Launer, 2005). Anna O. had been caring for her dying father when she began to experience symptoms such as partial paralysis, headaches, blurred vision, amnesia, and hallucinations (Launer, 2005). In Freud’s day, these symptoms were commonly referred to as hysteria. Anna O. turned to Breuer for help. He spent 2 years (1880–1882) treating Anna O. and discovered that allowing her to talk about her experiences seemed to bring some relief of her symptoms. Anna O. called his treatment the “talking cure” (Launer, 2005). Despite the fact the Freud never met Anna O., her story served as the basis for the 1895 book, Studies on Hysteria , which he co-authored with Breuer. Based on Breuer’s description of Anna O.’s treatment, Freud concluded that hysteria was the result of sexual abuse in childhood and that these traumatic experiences had been hidden from consciousness. Breuer disagreed with Freud, which soon ended their work together. However, Freud continued to work to refine talk therapy and build his theory on personality.

LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

To explain the concept of conscious versus unconscious experience, Freud compared the mind to an iceberg ( [link] ). He said that only about one-tenth of our mind is conscious , and the rest of our mind is unconscious . Our unconscious refers to that mental activity of which we are unaware and are unable to access (Freud, 1923). According to Freud, unacceptable urges and desires are kept in our unconscious through a process called repression. For example, we sometimes say things that we don’t intend to say by unintentionally substituting another word for the one we meant. You’ve probably heard of a Freudian slip, the term used to describe this. Freud suggested that slips of the tongue are actually sexual or aggressive urges, accidentally slipping out of our unconscious. Speech errors such as this are quite common. Seeing them as a reflection of unconscious desires, linguists today have found that slips of the tongue tend to occur when we are tired, nervous, or not at our optimal level of cognitive functioning (Motley, 2002).

According to Freud, our personality develops from a conflict between two forces: our biological aggressive and pleasure-seeking drives versus our internal (socialized) control over these drives. Our personality is the result of our efforts to balance these two competing forces. Freud suggested that we can understand this by imagining three interacting systems within our minds. He called them the id, ego, and superego ( [link] ).

The unconscious id contains our most primitive drives or urges, and is present from birth. It directs impulses for hunger, thirst, and sex. Freud believed that the id operates on what he called the “pleasure principle,” in which the id seeks immediate gratification. Through social interactions with parents and others in a child’s environment, the ego and superego develop to help control the id. The superego develops as a child interacts with others, learning the social rules for right and wrong. The superego acts as our conscience; it is our moral compass that tells us how we should behave. It strives for perfection and judges our behavior, leading to feelings of pride or—when we fall short of the ideal—feelings of guilt. In contrast to the instinctual id and the rule-based superego, the ego is the rational part of our personality. It’s what Freud considered to be the self, and it is the part of our personality that is seen by others. Its job is to balance the demands of the id and superego in the context of reality; thus, it operates on what Freud called the “reality principle.” The ego helps the id satisfy its desires in a realistic way.

The id and superego are in constant conflict, because the id wants instant gratification regardless of the consequences, but the superego tells us that we must behave in socially acceptable ways. Thus, the ego’s job is to find the middle ground. It helps satisfy the id’s desires in a rational way that will not lead us to feelings of guilt. According to Freud, a person who has a strong ego, which can balance the demands of the id and the superego, has a healthy personality. Freud maintained that imbalances in the system can lead to neurosis (a tendency to experience negative emotions), anxiety disorders, or unhealthy behaviors. For example, a person who is dominated by their id might be narcissistic and impulsive. A person with a dominant superego might be controlled by feelings of guilt and deny themselves even socially acceptable pleasures; conversely, if the superego is weak or absent, a person might become a psychopath. An overly dominant superego might be seen in an over-controlled individual whose rational grasp on reality is so strong that they are unaware of their emotional needs, or, in a neurotic who is overly defensive (overusing ego defense mechanisms).

DEFENSE MECHANISMS

Freud believed that feelings of anxiety result from the ego’s inability to mediate the conflict between the id and superego. When this happens, Freud believed that the ego seeks to restore balance through various protective measures known as defense mechanisms ( [link] ). When certain events, feelings, or yearnings cause an individual anxiety, the individual wishes to reduce that anxiety. To do that, the individual’s unconscious mind uses ego defense mechanisms , unconscious protective behaviors that aim to reduce anxiety. The ego, usually conscious, resorts to unconscious strivings to protect the ego from being overwhelmed by anxiety. When we use defense mechanisms, we are unaware that we are using them. Further, they operate in various ways that distort reality. According to Freud, we all use ego defense mechanisms.

While everyone uses defense mechanisms, Freud believed that overuse of them may be problematic. For example, let’s say Joe Smith is a high school football player. Deep down, Joe feels sexually attracted to males. His conscious belief is that being gay is immoral and that if he were gay, his family would disown him and he would be ostracized by his peers. Therefore, there is a conflict between his conscious beliefs (being gay is wrong and will result in being ostracized) and his unconscious urges (attraction to males). The idea that he might be gay causes Joe to have feelings of anxiety. How can he decrease his anxiety? Joe may find himself acting very “macho,” making gay jokes, and picking on a school peer who is gay. This way, Joe’s unconscious impulses are further submerged.

There are several different types of defense mechanisms. For instance, in repression, anxiety-causing memories from consciousness are blocked. As an analogy, let’s say your car is making a strange noise, but because you do not have the money to get it fixed, you just turn up the radio so that you no longer hear the strange noise. Eventually you forget about it. Similarly, in the human psyche, if a memory is too overwhelming to deal with, it might be repressed and thus removed from conscious awareness (Freud, 1920). This repressed memory might cause symptoms in other areas.

Another defense mechanism is reaction formation , in which someone expresses feelings, thoughts, and behaviors opposite to their inclinations. In the above example, Joe made fun of a homosexual peer while himself being attracted to males. In regression , an individual acts much younger than their age. For example, a four-year-old child who resents the arrival of a newborn sibling may act like a baby and revert to drinking out of a bottle. In projection , a person refuses to acknowledge her own unconscious feelings and instead sees those feelings in someone else. Other defense mechanisms include rationalization , displacement , and sublimation .

Watch this video for a review of Freud’s defense mechanisms.

STAGES OF PSYCHOSEXUAL DEVELOPMENT

Freud believed that personality develops during early childhood: Childhood experiences shape our personalities as well as our behavior as adults. He asserted that we develop via a series of stages during childhood. Each of us must pass through these childhood stages, and if we do not have the proper nurturing and parenting during a stage, we will be stuck, or fixated, in that stage, even as adults.

In each psychosexual stage of development , the child’s pleasure-seeking urges, coming from the id, are focused on a different area of the body, called an erogenous zone. The stages are oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital ( [link] ).

Freud’s psychosexual development theory is quite controversial. To understand the origins of the theory, it is helpful to be familiar with the political, social, and cultural influences of Freud’s day in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century. During this era, a climate of sexual repression, combined with limited understanding and education surrounding human sexuality, heavily influenced Freud’s perspective. Given that sex was a taboo topic, Freud assumed that negative emotional states (neuroses) stemmed from suppression of unconscious sexual and aggressive urges. For Freud, his own recollections and interpretations of patients’ experiences and dreams were sufficient proof that psychosexual stages were universal events in early childhood.

In the oral stage (birth to 1 year), pleasure is focused on the mouth. Eating and the pleasure derived from sucking (nipples, pacifiers, and thumbs) play a large part in a baby’s first year of life. At around 1 year of age, babies are weaned from the bottle or breast, and this process can create conflict if not handled properly by caregivers. According to Freud, an adult who smokes, drinks, overeats, or bites her nails is fixated in the oral stage of her psychosexual development; she may have been weaned too early or too late, resulting in these fixation tendencies, all of which seek to ease anxiety.

After passing through the oral stage, children enter what Freud termed the anal stage (1–3 years). In this stage, children experience pleasure in their bowel and bladder movements, so it makes sense that the conflict in this stage is over toilet training. Freud suggested that success at the anal stage depended on how parents handled toilet training. Parents who offer praise and rewards encourage positive results and can help children feel competent. Parents who are harsh in toilet training can cause a child to become fixated at the anal stage, leading to the development of an anal-retentive personality. The anal-retentive personality is stingy and stubborn, has a compulsive need for order and neatness, and might be considered a perfectionist. If parents are too lenient in toilet training, the child might also become fixated and display an anal-expulsive personality. The anal-expulsive personality is messy, careless, disorganized, and prone to emotional outbursts.

Phallic Stage

Freud’s third stage of psychosexual development is the phallic stage (3–6 years), corresponding to the age when children become aware of their bodies and recognize the differences between boys and girls. The erogenous zone in this stage is the genitals. Conflict arises when the child feels a desire for the opposite-sex parent, and jealousy and hatred toward the same-sex parent. For boys, this is called the Oedipus complex, involving a boy’s desire for his mother and his urge to replace his father who is seen as a rival for the mother’s attention. At the same time, the boy is afraid his father will punish him for his feelings, so he experiences castration anxiety . The Oedipus complex is successfully resolved when the boy begins to identify with his father as an indirect way to have the mother. Failure to resolve the Oedipus complex may result in fixation and development of a personality that might be described as vain and overly ambitious.

Girls experience a comparable conflict in the phallic stage—the Electra complex. The Electra complex, while often attributed to Freud, was actually proposed by Freud’s protégé, Carl Jung (Jung & Kerenyi, 1963). A girl desires the attention of her father and wishes to take her mother’s place. Jung also said that girls are angry with the mother for not providing them with a penis—hence the term penis envy . While Freud initially embraced the Electra complex as a parallel to the Oedipus complex, he later rejected it, yet it remains as a cornerstone of Freudian theory, thanks in part to academics in the field (Freud, 1931/1968; Scott, 2005).

Latency Period

Following the phallic stage of psychosexual development is a period known as the latency period (6 years to puberty). This period is not considered a stage, because sexual feelings are dormant as children focus on other pursuits, such as school, friendships, hobbies, and sports. Children generally engage in activities with peers of the same sex, which serves to consolidate a child’s gender-role identity.

Genital Stage

The final stage is the genital stage (from puberty on). In this stage, there is a sexual reawakening as the incestuous urges resurface. The young person redirects these urges to other, more socially acceptable partners (who often resemble the other-sex parent). People in this stage have mature sexual interests, which for Freud meant a strong desire for the opposite sex. Individuals who successfully completed the previous stages, reaching the genital stage with no fixations, are said to be well-balanced, healthy adults.

While most of Freud’s ideas have not found support in modern research, we cannot discount the contributions that Freud has made to the field of psychology. It was Freud who pointed out that a large part of our mental life is influenced by the experiences of early childhood and takes place outside of our conscious awareness; his theories paved the way for others.

Sigmund Freud presented the first comprehensive theory of personality. He was also the first to recognize that much of our mental life takes place outside of our conscious awareness. Freud also proposed three components to our personality: the id, ego, and superego. The job of the ego is to balance the sexual and aggressive drives of the id with the moral ideal of the superego. Freud also said that personality develops through a series of psychosexual stages. In each stage, pleasure focuses on a specific erogenous zone. Failure to resolve a stage can lead one to become fixated in that stage, leading to unhealthy personality traits. Successful resolution of the stages leads to a healthy adult.

Review Questions

The id operates on the ________ principle.

• instant gratification

The ego defense mechanism in which a person who is confronted with anxiety returns to a more immature behavioral stage is called ________.

• reaction formation
• rationalization

The Oedipus complex occurs in the ________ stage of psychosexual development.

Critical Thinking Questions

How might the common expression “daddy’s girl” be rooted in the idea of the Electra complex?

Since the idea behind the Electra complex is that the daughter competes with her same-sex parent for the attention of her opposite-sex parent, the term “daddy’s girl” might suggest that the daughter has an overly close relationship with her father and a more distant—or even antagonistic—relationship with her mother.

Describe the personality of someone who is fixated at the anal stage.

If parents are too harsh during potty training, a person could become fixated at this stage and would be called anal retentive. The anal-retentive personality is stingy, stubborn, has a compulsive need for order and neatness, and might be considered a perfectionist. On the other hand, some parents may be too soft when it comes to potty training. In this case, Freud said that children could also become fixated and display an anal-expulsive personality. As an adult, an anal-expulsive personality is messy, careless, disorganized, and prone to emotional outbursts.

Personal Application Questions

What are some examples of defense mechanisms that you have used yourself or have witnessed others using?

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Psychodynamic Perspective and Its Theorists Essay

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Understanding Human Mind and Behaviors

Famous researchers and theorists, why it is a good way to study psychology, personal opinion.

This paper focuses on the exploration of psychodynamic perspective on the psychology of a human being and the way it approaches human mind and behavior. Psychodynamic perspective originates from psychoanalysis. This perspective is the most frequently associated with the field of psychology as it has been very popular over the course of the 20 th century. This perspective relies on such concepts as the subconscious, inner psychological forces, unconscious mind.

The theorists of psychodynamic perspective in psychology maintain that the behavioral patterns, habits and choices every person makes day by day are influenced and facilitated by the individuals’ experiences from the past. In other words, the root causes of every psychological problem an individual may experience lie in their past and can be associated with particular events of this person’s life.

Since psychodynamic approach is focused on the identification of the causes of the behavioral patterns, it targets the patients’ background. In many cases, the psychological issues of adults are sought in the experiences of their childhood, relationships with parents and siblings and various crises or changes each particular individual has undergone during different periods of their early life. According to psychodynamic perspective, not only the behaviors, habits and attitudes of an individual are directly influenced by their past experiences, but also the personalities overall are built based on the effects of the past.

Psychodynamic perspective maintains that the outer actions of the individuals are motivated by the inner forces. This way, all of the main impacts on people’s behaviors come from within the individuals but not from the external environments.

Since psychodynamic perspective derives from psychoanalysis, the most well-known theorist of this approach is Sigmund Freud. This researcher is responsible for such crucial notions of psychoanalysis as the impact of sexual development at each stage of a person’s life, libido, the theory of archetypes and the unconscious. Besides, the numerous followers of Freud who focused of the development of psychoanalysis as a theory and practice can also be recognized as the researchers of psychodynamic perspective. Among them there are Karl Jung, who introduced the concepts of personal and collective unconscious, Alfred Adler, who was dedicated to the exploration of the meaning of inferiority complex, and Erik Erikson, who first started to use the expression “identity crisis”.

Psychodynamic approach views an individual as a center of their own psychological development. In my opinion, looking for the causes of human behaviors within human minds assumes that the responsibility for all the psychological issues lies on the patients themselves. This way, the patients automatically are enabled to analyze and address their own problems and provide self-help based on the instructions and guidance of a professional psychologist. As a result, the main positive characteristics of psychodynamic perspective are its productiveness, its ability to empower the individuals to organize self-help and their cost-effectiveness (as self-help strategies can be practiced without the direct intervention of a counselor).

Psychodynamic perspective has been a dominant approach in psychology over the last century. Its contribution to the modern idea of human psychology and the mechanisms of human mind is massive. This perspective has penetrated a variety of other fields such as healthcare, education, psychiatry, and sociology. It also has deeply rooted in our everyday life and vocabulary via such notions as dream interpretation, ego, subconscious mind, Oedipus complex, identity crisis, archetypes and libido. I believe that psychodynamic perspective is extremely powerful and deep approach that provides valid explanations to numerous behaviors and mindsets.

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• Psychodynamic and Cognitive-Behavioral Approaches of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
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• Psychological Perspectives and Schools of Thought
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The psychodynamic approach -A-Level Psychology

The psychodynamic approach.

-a perspective that describes how behaviour is affected by unconscious forces that operate on the mind.

The role of the unconscious:

Freud suggested that most of the mind is made up of the unconscious:a vast store of biological drives and instincts that has a large influence on behaviour and personality.The unconscious contains threatening and disturbing memories that have been repressed.The preconscious contains thoughts and memories which are not currently in conscious awareness but we can access if desired.

The structure of personality:

The id -is the primitive part of personality and operates on the pleasure principle.Throughout life the id is selfish and demands instant gratification of its needs.

The ego -works on the reality principle and mediates between the other two parts.Develops around 2 years.Reduces conflict between the demands of the id and the superego through defense mechanisms.

The superego -formed at the end of the phallic stage around 5.It is the sense of right and wrong and is based on the morality principle.It punishes the ego for wrongdoings through guilt.

Psychosexual stages:

Freud claimed that child development occurred in five stages ,each of which is marked with a different conflict that the child must resolve in order to progress successfully to the next stage.Any psychosexual conflict that is unresolved leads to fixation where the child carries out certain behaviours associated with that stages through to adult life.

Defense mechanisms:

Repression -forcing a distressing memory out of the conscious mind

Denial -refusing to acknowledge some aspect of reality

Displacement -transferring feelings from true sources of distressing emotion onto a substitute target.

Evaluation:

Untestable concepts-Karl Popper argued that this approach does not meet the scientific criterion for falsification,as it can’t be tested through empirical methods as they are said to occur at an unconscious level.So it can be seen as a pseudoscience.

The case study method-Freud’s interpretations were highly subjective and critics have said that it is not possible to make universal claims about human nature based on studies of such a small number of people who were psychologically abnormal.

The psychodynamic approach is a psychological perspective that focuses on the unconscious mind and its influence on behavior. It was developed by Sigmund Freud and his followers and emphasizes the role of early childhood experiences and the internal conflicts between different parts of the psyche.

The key concepts of the psychodynamic approach include the unconscious mind, the three-part structure of the psyche (the id, ego, and superego), defense mechanisms, psychosexual stages of development, and the Oedipus and Electra complexes.

The unconscious mind is a reservoir of thoughts, feelings, and memories that are outside of our conscious awareness. According to the psychodynamic approach, many of our behaviors and experiences are influenced by unconscious processes.

The id is the primitive and instinctual part of the psyche that seeks immediate gratification of our basic needs and desires. The ego is the rational part of the psyche that mediates between the id and the external world. The superego is the moral and ethical part of the psyche that represents internalized values and standards.

Defense mechanisms are unconscious strategies that we use to protect ourselves from anxiety and emotional pain. Examples of defense mechanisms include repression, denial, projection, and displacement.

The psychosexual stages of development are a series of stages that we pass through during childhood, each characterized by a focus on a different erogenous zone and a particular developmental task. The stages include the oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages.

The psychodynamic approach views mental illness as the result of unconscious conflicts and unresolved issues from early childhood experiences. The goal of therapy is to bring these issues to conscious awareness and resolve them.

The psychodynamic approach views personality as the result of interactions between the id, ego, and superego, as well as early childhood experiences. Personality is shaped by unconscious conflicts and defenses, and is divided into conscious and unconscious parts.

Some criticisms of the psychodynamic approach include its lack of empirical evidence, its focus on childhood experiences at the expense of current factors, and its limited scope of applicability to different cultures and populations.

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The Psychodynamic Perspective

Adelphi University

Originating in the work of Sigmund Freud, the psychodynamic perspective emphasizes unconscious psychological processes (for example, wishes and fears of which we’re not fully aware), and contends that childhood experiences are crucial in shaping adult personality. The psychodynamic perspective has evolved considerably since Freud’s time, and now includes innovative new approaches such as object relations theory and neuropsychoanalysis. Some psychodynamic concepts have held up well to empirical scrutiny while others have not, and aspects of the theory remain controversial, but the psychodynamic perspective continues to influence many different areas of contemporary psychology.

• Ego Defense
• Neuropsychoanalysis
• Object Relations
• Psychoanalytic
• Psychodynamic
• Unconscious
• Learning Objectives
• Describe the major models of personality within the psychodynamic perspective.
• Define the concept of ego defense, and give examples of commonly used ego defenses.
• Identify psychodynamic concepts that have been supported by empirical research.
• Discuss current trends in psychodynamic theory.

Introduction

Have you ever done something that didn’t make sense? Perhaps you waited until the last minute to begin studying for an exam, even though you knew that delaying so long would ensure that you got a poor grade. Or maybe you spotted a person you liked across the room—someone about whom you had romantic feelings—but instead of approaching that person you headed the other way (and felt ashamed about it afterward). If you’ve ever done something that didn’t seem to make sense—and who among us hasn’t—the psychodynamic perspective on personality might be useful for you. It can help you understand why you chose not to study for that test, or why you ran the other way when the person of your dreams entered the room.

Psychodynamic theory (sometimes called psychoanalytic theory ) explains personality in terms of unconscious psychological processes (for example, wishes and fears of which we’re not fully aware), and contends that childhood experiences are crucial in shaping adult personality. Psychodynamic theory is most closely associated with the work of Sigmund Freud, and with psychoanalysis, a type of psychotherapy that attempts to explore the patient’s unconscious thoughts and emotions so that the person is better able to understand him- or herself.

Freud’s work has been extremely influential, its impact extending far beyond psychology (several years ago Time magazine selected Freud as one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century). Freud’s work has been not only influential, but quite controversial as well. As you might imagine, when Freud suggested in 1900 that much of our behavior is determined by psychological forces of which we’re largely unaware—that we literally don’t know what’s going on in our own minds—people were (to put it mildly) displeased ( Freud, 1900/1953a ). When he suggested in 1905 that we humans have strong sexual feelings from a very early age, and that some of these sexual feelings are directed toward our parents, people were more than displeased—they were outraged ( Freud, 1905/1953b ). Few theories in psychology have evoked such strong reactions from other professionals and members of the public.

Controversy notwithstanding, no competent psychologist, or student of psychology, can ignore psychodynamic theory. It is simply too important for psychological science and practice, and continues to play an important role in a wide variety of disciplines within and outside psychology (for example, developmental psychology, social psychology, sociology, and neuroscience; see Bornstein, 2005 , 2006 ; Solms & Turnbull, 2011 ). This module reviews the psychodynamic perspective on personality. We begin with a brief discussion of the core assumptions of psychodynamic theory, followed by an overview of the evolution of the theory from Freud’s time to today. We then discuss the place of psychodynamic theory within contemporary psychology, and look toward the future as well.

Core Assumptions of the Psychodynamic Perspective

The core assumptions of psychodynamic theory are surprisingly simple. Moreover, these assumptions are unique to the psychodynamic framework: No other theories of personality accept these three ideas in their purest form.

Assumption 1:Primacy of the Unconscious

Psychodynamic theorists contend that the majority of psychological processes take place outside conscious awareness. In psychoanalytic terms, the activities of the mind (or psyche ) are presumed to be largely unconscious. Research confirms this basic premise of psychoanalysis: Many of our mental activities—memories, motives, feelings, and the like—are largely inaccessible to consciousness ( Bargh & Morsella, 2008 ; Bornstein, 2010 ; Wilson, 2009 ).

Assumption 2: Critical Importance of Early Experiences

Psychodynamic theory is not alone in positing that early childhood events play a role in shaping personality, but the theory is unique in the degree to which it emphasizes these events as determinants of personality development and dynamics. According to the psychodynamic model, early experiences—including those occurring during the first weeks or months of life—set in motion personality processes that affect us years, even decades, later ( Blatt & Levy, 2003 ; McWilliams, 2009 ). This is especially true of experiences that are outside the normal range (for example, losing a parent or sibling at a very early age).

Assumption 3: Psychic Causality

The third core assumption of psychodynamic theory is that nothing in mental life happens by chance—that there is no such thing as a random thought, feeling, motive, or behavior. This has come to be known as the principle of psychic causality , and though few psychologists accept the principle of psychic causality precisely as psychoanalysts conceive it, most theorists and researchers agree that thoughts, motives, emotional responses, and expressed behaviors do not arise randomly, but always stem from some combination of identifiable biological and psychological processes ( Elliott, 2002 ; Robinson & Gordon, 2011 ).

The Evolution of Psychodynamic Theory

Given Freud’s background in neurology, it is not surprising that the first incarnation of psychoanalytic theory was primarily biological: Freud set out to explain psychological phenomena in terms that could be linked to neurological functioning as it was understood in his day. Because Freud’s work in this area evolved over more than 50 years (he began in 1885, and continued until he died in 1939), there were numerous revisions along the way. Thus, it is most accurate to think of psychodynamic theory as a set of interrelated models that complement and build upon each other. Three are particularly important: the topographic model, the psychosexual stage model, and the structural model.

The Topographic Model

In his 1900 book, The Interpretation of Dreams , Freud introduced his topographic model of the mind, which contended that the mind could be divided into three regions: conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. The conscious part of the mind holds information that you’re focusing on at this moment—what you’re thinking and feeling right now. The preconscious contains material that is capable of becoming conscious but is not conscious at the moment because your attention is not being directed toward it. You can move material from the preconscious into consciousness simply by focusing your attention on it. Consider, for example, what you had for dinner last night. A moment ago that information was preconscious; now it’s conscious, because you “pulled it up” into consciousness. (Not to worry, in a few moments it will be preconscious again, and you can move on to more important things.)

The unconscious—the most controversial part of the topographic model—contains anxiety-producing material (for example, sexual impulses, aggressive urges) that are deliberately repressed (held outside of conscious awareness as a form of self-protection because they make you uncomfortable). The terms conscious , preconscious , and unconscious continue to be used today in psychology, and research has provided considerable support for Freud’s thinking regarding conscious and preconscious processing ( Erdelyi, 1985 , 2004 ). The existence of the unconscious remains controversial, with some researchers arguing that evidence for it is compelling and others contending that “unconscious” processing can be accounted for without positing the existence of a Freudian repository of repressed wishes and troubling urges and impulses ( Eagle, 2011 ; Luborsky & Barrett, 2006 ).

The Psychosexual Stage Model

Freud remained devoted to the topographic model, but by 1905 he had outlined the key elements of his psychosexual stage model , which argued that early in life we progress through a sequence of developmental stages, each with its own unique challenge and its own mode of sexual gratification. Freud’s psychosexual stages—oral, anal, Oedipal, latency, and genital—are well-known even to non-analytic psychologists. Frustration or overgratification during a particular stage was hypothesized to result in “fixation” at that stage, and to the development of an oral, anal, or Oedipal personality style ( Bornstein, 2005 , 2006 ).

Table 1 illustrates the basic organization of Freud’s ( 1905/1953b ) psychosexual stage model, and the three personality styles that result. Note that—consistent with the developmental challenges that the child confronts during each stage—oral fixation is hypothesized to result in a dependent personality, whereas anal fixation results in a lifelong preoccupation with control. Oedipal fixation leads to an aggressive, competitive personality orientation.

The Structural Model

Ultimately, Freud recognized that the topographic model was helpful in understanding how people process and store information, but not all that useful in explaining other important psychological phenomena (for example, why certain people develop psychological disorders and others do not). To extend his theory, Freud developed a complementary framework to account for normal and abnormal personality development—the structural model —which posits the existence of three interacting mental structures called the id, ego, and superego. The id is the seat of drives and instincts, whereas the ego represents the logical, reality-oriented part of the mind, and the superego is basically your conscience—the moral guidelines, rules, and prohibitions that guide your behavior. (You acquire these through your family and through the culture in which you were raised.)

According to the structural model, our personality reflects the interplay of these three psychic structures, which differ across individuals in relative power and influence. When the id predominates and instincts rule, the result is an impulsive personality style. When the superego is strongest, moral prohibitions reign supreme, and a restrained, overcontrolled personality ensues. When the ego is dominant, a more balanced set of personality traits develop ( Eagle, 2011 ; McWilliams, 2009 ).

The Ego and Its Defenses

In addition to being the logical, rational, reality-oriented part of the mind, the ego serves another important function: It helps us manage anxiety through the use of ego defenses . Ego defenses are basically mental strategies that we use automatically and unconsciously when we feel threatened ( Cramer, 2000 , 2006 ). They help us navigate upsetting events, but there’s a cost as well: All ego defenses involve some distortion of reality. For example, repression (the most basic ego defense, according to Freud) involves removing from consciousness upsetting thoughts and feelings, and moving those thoughts and feelings to the unconscious. When you read about a person who “blocked out” upsetting memories of child abuse, that’s an example of repression.

Another ego defense is denial. In denial (unlike repression), we are aware that a particular event occurred, but we don’t allow ourselves to see the implications of that event. When you hear a person with a substance abuse problem say “I’m fine—even though people complain about my drinking I never miss a day of work,” that person is using denial. Table 2 lists some common ego defenses in psychodynamic theory, along with a definition and example of each.

Psychodynamic Theories: Where Are We Now?

The topographic model, psychosexual stage model, and structural model continue to influence contemporary psychology, but it is important to keep in mind that psychodynamic theory is never static, ever changing and evolving in response to new ideas and findings. In the following sections we discussion four current trends in the psychodynamic perspective: object relations theory, the empirical testing of psychodynamic concepts, psychoanalysis and culture, and the opportunities and challenges of neuroscience.

Object Relations Theory and the Growth of the Psychodynamic Perspective

In recent years a number of new psychodynamic frameworks have emerged to explain personality development and dynamics. The most important of these is object relations theory . (In psychoanalytic language, the term “object” refers to a person, so object relations theory is really something more like “interpersonal relations theory.”)

Object relations theory contends that personality can be understood as reflecting the mental images of significant figures (especially the parents) that we form early in life in response to interactions taking place within the family ( Kernberg, 2004 ; Wachtel, 1997 ). These mental images (sometimes called introjects ) serve as templates for later interpersonal relationships—almost like relationship blueprints or “scripts.” So if you internalized positive introjects early in life (for example, a mental image of mom or dad as warm and accepting), that’s what you expect to occur in later relationships as well. If you internalized a mental image of mom or dad as harsh and judgmental, you might instead become a self-critical person, and feel that you can never live up to other people’s standards . . . or your own ( Luyten & Blatt, 2013 ).

Object relations theory has increased many psychologists’ interest in studying psychodynamic ideas and concepts, in part because it represents a natural bridge between the psychodynamic perspective and research in other areas of psychology. For example, developmental and social psychologists also believe that mental representations of significant people play an important role in shaping our behavior. In developmental psychology you might read about this in the context of attachment theory (which argues that attachments—or bonds—to significant people are key to understanding human behavior; Fraley, 2002 ). In social psychology, mental representations of significant figures play an important role in social cognition (thoughts and feelings regarding other people; Bargh & Morsella, 2008 ; Robinson & Gordon, 2011 ).

Empirical Research on Psychodynamic Theories

Empirical research assessing psychodynamic concepts has produced mixed results, with some concepts receiving good empirical support, and others not faring as well. For example, the notion that we express strong sexual feelings from a very early age, as the psychosexual stage model suggests, has not held up to empirical scrutiny. On the other hand, the idea that there are dependent, control-oriented, and competitive personality types—an idea also derived from the psychosexual stage model—does seem useful.

Many ideas from the psychodynamic perspective have been studied empirically. Luborsky and Barrett ( 2006 ) reviewed much of this research; other useful reviews are provided by Bornstein ( 2005 ), Gerber ( 2007 ), and Huprich ( 2009 ). For now, let’s look at three psychodynamic hypotheses that have received strong empirical support.

• Unconscious processes influence our behavior as the psychodynamic perspective predicts. We perceive and process much more information than we realize, and much of our behavior is shaped by feelings and motives of which we are, at best, only partially aware ( Bornstein, 2009 , 2010 ). Evidence for the importance of unconscious influences is so compelling that it has become a central element of contemporary cognitive and social psychology ( Robinson & Gordon, 2011 ).
• We all use ego defenses and they help determine our psychological adjustment and physical health. People really do differ in the degree that they rely on different ego defenses—so much so that researchers now study each person’s “defense style” (the unique constellation of defenses that we use). It turns out that certain defenses are more adaptive than others: Rationalization and sublimation are healthier (psychologically speaking) than repression and reaction formation ( Cramer, 2006 ). Denial is, quite literally, bad for your health, because people who use denial tend to ignore symptoms of illness until it’s too late ( Bond, 2004 ).
• Mental representations of self and others do indeed serve as blueprints for later relationships. Dozens of studies have shown that mental images of our parents, and other significant figures, really do shape our expectations for later friendships and romantic relationships. The idea that you choose a romantic partner who resembles mom or dad is a myth, but it’s true that you expect to be treated by others as you were treated by your parents early in life ( Silverstein, 2007 ; Wachtel, 1997 ).

Psychoanalysis and Culture

One of Freud’s lifelong goals was to use psychoanalytic principles to understand culture and improve intergroup relations (he actually exchanged several letters with Albert Einstein prior to World War II, in which they discussed this issue). During the past several decades, as society has become increasingly multicultural, this effort has taken on new importance; psychoanalysts have been active in incorporating ideas and findings regarding cultural influences into their research and clinical work. For example, studies have shown that individuals raised in individualistic, independence-focused cultures (for example, the United States, Great Britain) tend to define themselves primarily in terms of personal attributes (like attitudes and interests), whereas individuals raised in more sociocentric, interdependent cultures (for example, Japan, India) are more likely to describe themselves in terms of interpersonal relations and connections with others ( Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002 ). Our self-representations are, quite literally, a product of our cultural milieu ( Markus & Kitayama, 2010 ).

The Opportunities and Challenges of Neuroscience

Fifteen years ago, Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel ( 1998 ) articulated a vision for an empirically oriented psychodynamic perspective firmly embedded within the principles and findings of neuroscience. Kandel’s vision ultimately led to the development of neuropsychoanalysis , an integration of psychodynamic and neuropsychological concepts that has enhanced researchers’ understanding of numerous aspects of human behavior and mental functioning ( Solms & Turnbull, 2011 ). Some of the first efforts to integrate psychodynamic principles with findings from neuroscience involved sleep and dreams, and contemporary models of dream formation now incorporate principles from both domains ( Levin & Nielsen, 2007 ). Neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imagery (fMRI) have begun to play an increasingly central role in this ongoing psychoanalysis–neuroscience integration as well ( Gerber, 2007 ; Slipp, 2000 ).

Looking Ahead: Psychodynamic Theory in the 21st Century (and Beyond)

Despite being surrounded by controversy, the psychodynamic perspective on personality has survived for more than a century, reinventing itself in response to new empirical findings, theoretical shifts, and changing social forces. The psychodynamic perspective evolved considerably during the 20th century and will continue to evolve throughout the 21st century as well. Psychodynamic theory may be the closest thing we have to an overarching, all-encompassing theory in psychology. It deals with a broad range of issues—normal and pathological functioning, motivation and emotion, childhood and adulthood, individual and culture—and the psychodynamic perspective continues to have tremendous potential for integrating ideas and findings across the many domains of contemporary psychology.

• Outside Resources
• Discussion Questions
• What is psychic causality?
• What are the main differences between the preconscious and the unconscious in Freud’s topographic model?
• What are the three key structures in the structural model of the mind—and what does each structure do?
• Which ego defense do you think is more adaptive: reaction formation or sublimation? Why?
• How do people raised in individualistic societies differ from those raised in more sociocentric societies with respect to their self-concept—how do they perceive and describe themselves?
• According to object relations theory, how do early relationships with our parents and other significant figures affect later friendships and romantic relationships?
• Which field has the potential to benefit more from the emerging new discipline of neuropsychoanalysis: neuroscience, or psychoanalysis? Why?
• Bargh, J. A., & Morsella, E. (2008). The unconscious mind. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3 , 73-79.
• Blatt, S. J., & Levy, K. N. (2003). Attachment theory, psychoanalysis, personality development, and psychopathology. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 23 , 104-152.
• Bond, M. (2004). Empirical studies of defense style: Relationships with psychopathology and change. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 12 , 263-278.
• Bornstein, R. F. (2010). Psychoanalytic theory as a unifying framework for 21st century personality assessment. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 27 , 133-152.
• Bornstein, R. F. (2009). Heisenberg, Kandinsky, and the heteromethod convergence problem: Lessons from within and beyond psychology. Journal of Personality Assessment, 91 , 1-8.
• Bornstein, R. F. (2006). A Freudian construct lost and reclaimed: The psychodynamics of personality pathology. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 23 , 339-353.
• Bornstein, R. F. (2005). Reonnecting psychoanalysis to mainstream psychology: Challenges and opportunities. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 22 , 323-340.
• Cramer, P. (2006). Protecting the self: Defense mechanisms in action . New York, NY: Guilford Press.
• Cramer, P. (2000). Defense mechanisms in psychology today: Further processes for adaptation. American Psychologist, 55 , 637–646.
• Eagle, M. N. (2011). From classical to contemporary psychoanalysis: A critique and integration . New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
• Elliott, A. (2002). Psychoanalytic theory: An introduction . Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
• Erdelyi, M. H. (2004). Subliminal perception and its cognates: Theory, indeterminacy, and time. Consciousness and Cognition, 13 , 73-91.
• Erdelyi, M. H. (1985). Psychoanalysis: Freud’s cognitive psychology . New York, NY: W. H. Freeman.
• Fraley, R. C. (2002). Attachment stability from infancy to adulthood: Meta-analysis and dynamic modeling of developmental mechanisms. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 6 , 123-151.
• Freud, S. (1953a). The interpretation of dreams. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vols. 4-5). London, England: Hogarth. (Original work published 1900)
• Freud, S. (1953b). Three essays on the theory of sexuality. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 7, pp. 125–245). London, England: Hogarth. (Original work published 1905)
• Gerber, A. (2007). Whose unconscious is it anyway? The American Psychoanalyst, 41 , 11, 28.
• Huprich, S. K. (2009). Psychodynamic therapy: Conceptual and empirical foundations . New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
• Kandel, E. R. (1998). A new intellectual framework for psychiatry. American Journal of Psychiatry, 155 , 457–469.
• Kernberg, O. F. (2004). Contemporary controversies in psychoanalytic theory, techniques, and their applications . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
• Levin, R., & Nielsen, T. A. (2007). Disturbed dreaming, posttraumatic stress disorder, and affect distress: A review and neurocognitive model. Psychological Bulletin, 133 , 482–528.
• Luborsky, L., & Barrett, M. S. (2006). The history and empirical status of key psychoanalytic concepts. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 2 , 1–19.
• Luyten, P., & Blatt, S. J. (2013). Interpersonal relatedness and self-definition in normal and disrupted personality development. American Psychologist, 68 , 172–183.
• Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (2010). Culture and selves: A cycle of mutual constitution. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5 , 420–430.
• McWilliams, N. (2009). Psychoanalytic diagnosis (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
• Oyserman, D., Coon, H. M., & Kemmelmeier, M. (2002). Rethinking individualism and collectivism: Evaluation of theoretical assumptions and meta-analyses. Psychological Bulletin, 128 , 3–72.
• Robinson, M. D., & Gordon, K. H. (2011). Personality dynamics: Insights from the personality social cognitive literature. Journal of Personality Assessment, 93 , 161–176.
• Silverstein, M. L. (2007). Disorders of the self: A personality-guided approach . Washington, DC: APA Books.
• Slipp, S. (Ed.) (2000). Neuroscience and psychoanalysis [Special Issue]. Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, 28 , 191–395.
• Solms, M., & Turnbull, O. H. (2011). What is neuropsychoanalysis? Neuropsychoanalysis, 13 , 133–145.
• Wachtel, P. L. (1997). Psychoanalysis, behavior therapy, and the relational world . Washington, DC: APA Books.
• Wilson, T. D. (2009). Know thyself. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 4 , 384–389.

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Psychodynamic Perspective

The psychodynamic perspective is a psychological approach that focuses on understanding how unconscious thoughts, emotions, and previous experiences influence an individual’s current behavior and mental processes.

Key Concepts

• Unconscious Mind: The psychodynamic perspective emphasizes the significance of the unconscious mind, which contains repressed memories, desires, and unresolved conflicts that can exert influence on behavior.
• Id, Ego, and Superego: According to psychodynamic theory, the human psyche consists of three interconnected parts: the id (primitive and instinctual), the ego (mediator between the id and superego), and the superego (internalized moral standards).
• Defense Mechanisms: Psychodynamic perspective proposes that individuals employ various defense mechanisms (e.g., repression, denial, projection) to cope with anxiety or protect themselves from distressing thoughts or feelings.
• Childhood Experiences: Psychodynamic theorists highlight the impact of early childhood experiences, especially the parent-child relationship, on personality development and the formation of unconscious patterns of behavior.
• Free Association: Psychodynamic therapy often involves free association, where patients spontaneously express thoughts, feelings, and memories without censorship to provide insights into their unconscious processes.

Key Figures

• Sigmund Freud: Considered the father of psychodynamic theory, Freud developed concepts like the unconscious mind, psychosexual stages, and the interpretation of dreams.
• Carl Jung: Known for his work on the collective unconscious, archetypes, and the introverted-extraverted personality dimension.
• Alfred Adler: Focused on the importance of the individual’s drive for superiority and coined the term “inferiority complex.”
• Wilhelm Reich: Explored the role of sexual energy (orgone) and its influence on emotions and behavior.

Applications

The psychodynamic perspective finds application in various fields, including:

• Psychotherapy: Psychodynamic therapists use techniques like dream analysis, free association, and interpretation to help patients gain insight into unconscious conflicts and facilitate psychological healing.
• Personality Research: Psychodynamic theories have influenced the study of personality and provided insights into the development of traits, defense mechanisms, and the impact of early experiences.
• Clinical Psychology: Understanding psychodynamic principles can assist in assessing and treating psychological disorders, such as anxiety disorders, depression, and personality disorders.

Psychodynamic Theory: Freud

Jessica Traylor; Laura Overstreet; and Diana Lang

• Describe Freud’s theory of psychosexual development

Freud and Psychoanalysis

We begin with Sigmund Freud, one of the most well-known pioneers and early founders of psychology who has been a very influential figure in the area of development. His psychodynamic perspective of development and psychopathology dominated the field of psychiatry until the growth of behaviorism in the 1930s and beyond. His assumptions that personality forms during the first few years of life and that the ways in which parents or other caregivers interact with children have a long-lasting impact on children’s emotional states have guided parents, educators, clinicians, and policy-makers for many years. We have only recently begun to recognize that early childhood experiences do not always result in certain personality traits or emotional states. There is a growing body of literature addressing resiliency in children who come from harsh backgrounds and yet develop without damaging emotional scars. [1] Freud stimulated an enormous amount of research and generated many ideas. Agreeing with Freud’s theory in its entirety is hardly necessary for appreciating the contribution he has made to the field of development. [2]

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was a Viennese doctor who was trained in neurology and asked to work with patients suffering from hysteria, a condition marked by uncontrollable emotional outbursts, fears, and anxiety that had puzzled physicians for centuries. He was also asked to work with women who suffered from physical symptoms and forms of paralysis which had no organic causes. During that time, many people believed that certain individuals were genetically inferior and thus more susceptible to mental illness. Women were thought to be genetically inferior and thus prone to illnesses such as hysteria, which had previously been attributed to a detached womb traveling around in the body (the word “hyster” means “uterus” in Greek).

However, after World War I, many soldiers came home with problems similar to hysteria. This called into questions the idea of genetic inferiority as a cause of mental illness. Freud began working with hysterical patients and discovered that when they began to talk about some of their life experiences, particularly those that took place in early childhood, their symptoms disappeared. This led him to suggest the first purely psychological explanation for physical problems and mental illness. What he proposed was that unconscious motives, desires, fears, and anxieties drive our actions. When upsetting memories or thoughts begin to find their way into our consciousness, we develop defenses to shield us from these painful realities, called defense mechanisms. Freud believed that many mental illnesses are a result of a person’s inability to accept reality.

Freud emphasized the importance of early childhood experiences in shaping our personality and behavior. In our natural state, we are biological beings. We are driven primarily by instincts. During childhood, however, we begin to become social beings as we learn how to manage our instincts and transform them into socially acceptable behaviors. The type of parenting the child receives has a very powerful impact on the child’s personality development. We will explore this idea further in our discussion of psychosexual development, but first, we must identify the parts of the “self” in Freud’s model, or in other words, what constitutes a person’s personality and makes us who we are.

Theory of Personality/Self

As adults, our personality or self consists of three main parts: the id , the ego,  and the superego (Figure 2). The id, the basic, primal part of the personality, is the part of the self with which we are born. It consists of the biologically-driven self and includes our instincts and drives. It is the part of us that wants immediate gratification. Later in life, it comes to house our deepest, often unacceptable desires, such as sex and aggression. It operates under the pleasure principle which means that the criteria for determining whether something is good or bad is whether it feels good or bad. An infant is all id.

Next, the ego begins to develop during the first three years of a child’s life. The last component of personality to develop, the superego , starts to emerge around the age of five when a child interacts more and more with others, learning the social rules for right and wrong. The superego acts as our conscience; it is our moral compass that tells us how we should behave. It strives for perfection and judges our behavior, leading to feelings of pride or—when we fall short of the ideal—feelings of guilt.

In contrast to the instinctual id and the rule-based superego, the ego is the rational part of our personality. It’s what Freud considered to be the self, and it is the part of our personality that is seen by others. Its job is to balance the demands of the id and superego in the context of reality; thus, it operates on what Freud called the “reality principle.” The ego helps the id satisfy its desires in a realistic way.

The id and superego are in constant conflict because the id wants instant gratification regardless of the consequences, but the superego tells us that we must behave in socially acceptable ways. Thus, the ego’s job is to find the middle ground. It helps satisfy the id’s desires in a rational way that will not lead us to feelings of guilt. According to Freud, a person who has a strong ego, which can balance the demands of the id and the superego, has a healthy personality. Freud maintained that imbalances in the system can lead to  neurosis  (a tendency to experience negative emotions), anxiety disorders, or unhealthy behaviors. For example, a person who is dominated by their id might be narcissistic and impulsive. A person with a dominant superego might be controlled by feelings of guilt and deny themselves even socially acceptable pleasures; conversely, if the superego is weak or absent, a person might become a psychopath. An overly dominant superego might be seen in an over-controlled individual whose rational grasp on reality is so strong that they are unaware of their emotional needs, or, in a neurotic who is overly defensive (overusing ego defense mechanisms).

Theory of Psychosexual Development

Freud believed that personality develops during early childhood and that childhood experiences shape our personalities as well as our behavior as adults. He asserted that we develop via a series of stages during childhood. Each of us must pass through these childhood stages, and if we do not have the proper nurturing and parenting during a stage, we will be stuck, or fixated, in that stage even as adults.

In each  psychosexual stage of development, the child’s pleasure-seeking urges, coming from the id, are focused on a different area of the body, called an erogenous zone. The stages are oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital (Table 1).

For about the first year of life, the infant is in the oral stage of psychosexual development. The infant meets needs primarily through oral gratification. A baby wishes to suck or chew on any object that comes close to the mouth. Babies explore the world through the mouth and find comfort and stimulation as well. Psychologically, the infant is all id. The infant seeks immediate gratification of needs such as comfort, warmth, food, and stimulation. If the caregiver meets oral needs consistently, the child will move away from this stage and progress further. However, if the caregiver is inconsistent or neglectful, the person may stay stuck in the oral stage. As an adult, the person might not feel good unless involved in some oral activity such as eating, drinking, smoking, nail-biting, or compulsive talking. These actions bring comfort and security when the person feels insecure, afraid, or bored.

During the anal stage , which coincides with toddlerhood and potty-training, the child is taught that some urges must be contained and some actions postponed. There are rules about certain functions and when and where they are to be carried out. The child is learning a sense of self-control. The ego is being developed. If the caregiver is extremely controlling about potty training (stands over the child waiting for the smallest indication that the child might need to go to the potty and immediately scoops the child up and places him on the potty chair, for example), the child may grow up fearing losing control. He may become fixated in this stage or “anally retentive”—fearful of letting go. Such a person might be extremely neat and clean, organized, reliable, and controlling of others. If the caregiver neglects to teach the child to control urges, he may grow up to be “anal expulsive” or an adult who is messy, irresponsible, and disorganized.

The phallic stage occurs during the preschool years (ages 3-5) when the child has a new biological challenge to face. The child will experience the Oedipus complex which refers to a child’s unconscious sexual desire for the opposite-sex parent and hatred for the same-sex parent. For example, boys experiencing the Oedipus complex will unconsciously want to replace their father as a companion to their mother but then realize that the father is much more powerful. For a while, the boy fears that if he pursues his mother, his father may castrate him (castration anxiety). So rather than risk losing his penis, he gives up his affections for his mother and instead learns to become more like his father, imitating his actions and mannerisms, thereby learning the role of males in his society. From this experience, the boy learns a sense of masculinity. He also learns what society thinks he should do and experiences guilt if he does not comply. In this way, the superego develops. If he does not resolve this successfully, he may become a “phallic male” or a man who constantly tries to prove his masculinity (about which he is insecure), by seducing women and beating up men.

Girls experience a comparable conflict in the phallic stage—the Electra complex. The Electra complex, while often attributed to Freud, was actually proposed by Freud’s contemporary, Carl Jung (Jung & Kerenyi, 1963). A little girl experiences the Electra complex in which she develops an attraction for her father but realizes that she cannot compete with her mother and so gives up that affection and learns to become more like her mother. This is not without some regret, however. Freud believed that the girl feels inferior because she does not have a penis (experiences “penis envy”). But she must resign herself to the fact that she is female and will just have to learn her inferior role in society as a female.  However, if she does not resolve this conflict successfully, she may have a weak sense of femininity and grow up to be a “castrating female” who tries to compete with men in the workplace or in other areas of life. The formation of the superego takes place during the dissolution of the Oedipus and Electra complex.

During middle childhood (6-11), the child enters the latency stage, focusing their attention outside the family and toward friendships. The biological drives are temporarily quieted (latent) and the child can direct attention to a larger world of friends. If the child is able to make friends, they will gain a sense of confidence. If not, the child may continue to be a loner or shy away from others, even as an adult.

The final stage of psychosexual development is referred to as the genital stage . From adolescence throughout adulthood, a person is preoccupied with sex and reproduction. The adolescent experiences rising hormone levels and the sex drive and hunger drives become very strong. Ideally, the adolescent will rely on the ego to help think logically through these urges without taking actions that might be damaging. An adolescent might learn to redirect their sexual urges into a safer activity such as running, for example. Quieting the id with the superego can lead to feeling overly self-conscious and guilty about these urges. Hopefully, it is the ego that is strengthened during this stage and the adolescent uses reason to manage urges.

Freud’s psychosexual development theory is quite controversial. To understand the origins of the theory, it is helpful to be familiar with the political, social, and cultural influences of Freud’s day in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century. During this era, a climate of sexual repression, combined with limited understanding and education surrounding human sexuality heavily influenced Freud’s perspective. Given that sex was a taboo topic, Freud assumed that negative emotional states (neuroses) stemmed from the suppression of unconscious sexual and aggressive urges. For Freud, his own recollections and interpretations of patients’ experiences and dreams were sufficient proof that psychosexual stages were universal events in early childhood.

Defense mechanisms

Freud believed that feelings of anxiety result from the ego’s inability to mediate the conflict between the id and superego. When this happens, Freud believed that the ego seeks to restore balance through various protective measures known as defense mechanisms . When certain events, feelings, or yearnings cause anxiety, the individual wishes to reduce that anxiety. To do that, the individual’s unconscious mind uses ego defense mechanisms, unconscious protective behaviors that aim to reduce anxiety. The ego, usually conscious, resorts to unconscious strivings to protect the ego from being overwhelmed by anxiety. When we use defense mechanisms, we are unaware that we are using them. Further, they operate in various ways that distort reality. According to Freud, we all use ego defense mechanisms.

Defense mechanisms emerge to help a person distort reality so that the truth is less painful. Defense mechanisms may include:

• Denial: not accepting the truth or lying to oneself. Thoughts such as “it won’t happen to me” or “you’re not leaving” or “I don’t have a problem with alcohol” are examples.
• Displacement: taking out frustrations on a safer target. A person who is angry at a boss may take out their frustration at others when driving home or at a spouse upon arrival.  
• Projection: a defense mechanism in which a person attributes their unacceptable thoughts onto others. If someone is frightened, for example, they accuse someone else of being afraid.
• R ationalization: a defense mechanism proposed by Anna Freud (Freud’s daughter who continued in her father’s path of psychoanalysis). Rationalization involves a cognitive distortion of “the facts” to make an event or an impulse less threatening. We often do it on a fairly conscious level when we provide ourselves with excuses.
• Reaction formation: a defense mechanism in which a person outwardly opposes something they inwardly desire, but that they find unacceptable. An example of this might be someone who dislikes or fears people of another race acting overly nice to people of that race.
• Regression: going back to a time when the world felt like a safer place, perhaps reverting to one’s childhood behaviors.
• Repression: to push the painful thoughts out of consciousness (in other words, think about something else).
• Sublimation: transforming unacceptable urges into more socially acceptable behaviors. For example, a teenager who experiences strong sexual urges uses exercise to redirect those urges into more socially acceptable behavior.

This video explains more about each of the defense mechanisms.

You can view the transcript for “PSYCHOTHERAPY – Anna Freud” here (opens in new window) .

Assessing the Psychodynamic Perspective

Originating in the work of Sigmund Freud, the psychodynamic perspective emphasizes unconscious psychological processes (for example, wishes and fears of which we’re not fully aware), and contends that childhood experiences are crucial in shaping adult personality. When reading Freud’s theories, it is important to remember that he was a medical doctor, not a psychologist. There was no such thing as a degree in psychology at the time that he received his education, which can help us understand some of the controversies over his theories today. However, Freud was the first to systematically study and theorize the workings of the unconscious mind in the manner that we associate with modern psychology. The psychodynamic perspective has evolved considerably since Freud’s time, encompassing all the theories in psychology that see human functioning based upon the interaction of conscious and unconscious drives and forces within the person, and between the different structures of the personality (id, ego, superego).

Freud’s theory has been heavily criticized for several reasons. One is that it is very difficult to test scientifically. How can parenting in infancy be traced to personality in adulthood? Are there other variables that might better explain development? Because  psychodynamic theories are difficult to prove wrong, evaluating those theories, in general, is difficult in that we cannot make definite predictions about a given individual’s behavior using the theories.  The theory is also considered to be sexist in suggesting that women who do not accept an inferior position in society are somehow psychologically flawed. Freud focused on the darker side of human nature and suggested that much of what determines our actions is unknown to us.  Others make the criticism that the psychodynamic approach is too deterministic, relating to the idea that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes regarded as external to the will, thereby leaving little room for the idea of free will. [3]

Freud’s work has been extremely influential, and its impact extends far beyond psychology (several years ago  Time magazine selected Freud as one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century). Freud’s work has been not only influential but quite controversial as well. As you might imagine, when Freud suggested in 1900 that much of our behavior is determined by psychological forces of which we’re largely unaware—that we literally don’t know what’s going on in our own minds—people were (to put it mildly) displeased. [4] When he suggested in 1905 that we humans have strong sexual feelings from a very early age and that some of these sexual feelings are directed toward our parents, people were more than displeased—they were outraged. [5] Few theories in psychology have evoked such strong reactions from other professionals and members of the public.

So why do we study Freud? As mentioned above, despite the criticisms, Freud’s assumptions about the importance of early childhood experiences in shaping our psychological selves have found their way into child development, education, and parenting practices. Freud’s theory has heuristic value in providing a framework from which to elaborate and modify subsequent theories of development. Many later theories, particularly behaviorism and humanism, were challenges to Freud’s views. Controversy notwithstanding, no competent psychologist, or student of psychology, can ignore psychodynamic theory. It is simply too important for psychological science and practice and continues to play an important role in a wide variety of disciplines within and outside psychology (for example, developmental psychology, social psychology, sociology, and neuroscience). [6] [7] [8]

• anal stage : the stage of development when children are learning to control impulses; coincides with toddlerhood and toileting
• defense mechanisms : psychological strategies that are unconsciously used to protect a person from anxiety arising from unacceptable thoughts or feelings
• ego : the part of the self that helps balance the id and superego by satisfying the id’s desires in a rational way
• genital stage : the final stage of psychosexual development when individuals develop sexual interests; begins in adolescence and lasts throughout adulthood
• id : the part of the self that is biologically-driven, includes our instincts and drives, and wants immediate gratification
• latency stage : the fourth stage of psychosexual development, spanning middle childhood, during which sexual development and sexual impulses are dormant
• neurosis : a tendency to experience negative emotions
• oral stage : the first stage of psychosexual development when infants needs are met primarily through oral gratification
• phallic stage : the third stage of psychosexual development, spanning the ages of 3 to 6 years, when the young child’s libido (desire) centers upon their genitalia as the erogenous zone
• psychodynamic perspective : the perspective that behavior is motivated by inner forces, memories, and conflicts that are generally beyond people’s awareness and control
• psychosexual stages : Freud’s oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages
• superego : the part of the self that acts as our conscience, telling us how we should behave
• O'Grady, D., & Metz, J. R. (1987). Resilience in children at high risk for psychological disorder. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 12 (1), 3–23. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/12.1.3 ↵
• This chapter was adapted from Lumen Learning's Lifespan Development, created in part by Jessica Traylor for Lumen Learning, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license . Portions of the Lumen text were adapted from Laura Overstreet's Lifespan Psychology , Wikipedia, New World Encyclopedia, and Lumen Learning. ↵
• McAdams, D. P., Kim, T.-C., & Aubin, D. (Eds.). (2003).  The generative society: Caring for future generations . American Psychological Association ↵
• Freud, S. (1953a). The interpretation of dreams. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.),  The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vols. 4-5). London, England: Hogarth. (Original work published 1900) ↵
• Freud, S. (1953b). Three essays on the theory of sexuality. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.),  The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 7, pp. 125–245). London, England: Hogarth. (Original work published 1905) ↵
• Bornstein, R. F. (2005). Reonnecting psychoanalysis to mainstream psychology: Challenges and opportunities. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 22 , 323-340. ↵
• Bornstein, R. F. (2006). A Freudian construct lost and reclaimed: The psychodynamics of personality pathology.  Psychoanalytic Psychology, 23 , 339-353. ↵
• Solms, M., & Turnbull, O. H. (2011). What is neuropsychoanalysis?  Neuropsychoanalysis, 13 , 133–145. ↵

Psychodynamic Theory: Freud Copyright © 2022 by Jessica Traylor; Laura Overstreet; and Diana Lang is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Psychodynamic Theory: Approaches and Proponents

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Psychodynamic theory is actually a collection of psychological theories which emphasize the importance of drives and other forces in human functioning, especially unconscious drives. The approach holds that childhood experience is the basis for adult personality and relationships. Psychodynamic theory originated in Freud’s psychoanalytic theories and includes any theories based on his ideas, including those by Anna Freud , Erik Erikson , and Carl Jung .

Key Takeaways: Psychodynamic Theory

• Psychodynamic theory is comprised of a set of psychological theories that arise from the ideas that humans are often driven by unconscious motivations and that adult personality and relationships are often the result of childhood experiences.
• Psychodynamic theory originated in the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud, and includes any theory based on his ideas, including work by Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, and Erik Erikson. It also includes newer theories like object relations.

Between the late 1890s and the 1930s, Sigmund Freud developed a variety of psychological theories based on his experiences with patients during therapy. He called his approach to therapy psychoanalysis and his ideas became popularized through his books, such as The Interpretation of Dreams . In 1909, he and his colleagues traveled to America and gave lectures on psychoanalysis, spreading Freud’s ideas further. In the years that followed, regular meetings were held to discuss psychoanalytic theories and applications. Freud influenced a number of major psychological thinkers, including Carl Jung and Alfred Adler , and his influence continues today.

It was Freud who first introduced the term psychodynamics . He observed that his patients exhibited psychological symptoms with no biological basis. Nevertheless, these patients were unable to stop their symptoms despite their conscious efforts. Freud reasoned that if the symptoms couldn’t be prevented by conscious will, they must arise from the unconscious. Therefore, the symptoms were the result of the unconscious will opposing the conscious will, an interplay he dubbed "psychodynamics."

Psychodynamic theory formed to encompass any theory deriving from Freud’s basic tenets. As a result, the terms psychoanalytic and psychodynamic are often used interchangeably . However, there is an important distinction: the term psychoanalytic only refers to theories developed by Freud, while the term psychodynamic references both Freud’s theories and those that are based on his ideas, including Erik Erikson's psychosocial theory of human development and Jung's concept of archetypes. In fact, so many theories are encompassed by psychodynamic theory, that it is often referred to as an approach or a perspective instead of a theory.

Assumptions

Despite the psychodynamic perspective’s association with Freud and psychoanalysis, psychodynamic theorists no longer put much stock in some of Freud’s ideas, such as the id, ego, and superego . Today, the approach is centered around a core set of tenets that both arise from and expand upon Freud’s theories.

Psychologist Drew Weston outlined five propositions that generally encompass 21 st century psychodynamic thinking:

• First and most importantly, a great deal of mental life is unconscious, meaning people’s thoughts, feelings, and motivations are often unknown to them.
• Individuals may experience conflicting thoughts and feelings towards a person or situation because mental responses occur independently but in parallel. Such internal conflict can lead to contradictory motivations, necessitating mental compromise.
• Personality begins to form in early childhood and it continues to be influenced by childhood experiences into adulthood, especially in the formation of social relationships.
• People’s social interactions are impacted by their mental understanding of themselves, other people, and relationships.
• Personality development includes learning to regulate sexual and aggressive drives, as well as growing from a socially dependent to an interdependent state in which one can form and maintain functional intimate relationships.

While many of these propositions continue to focus on the unconscious, they also are concerned with the formation and understanding of relationships. This arises from one of the major developments in modern psychodynamic theory: object relations . Object relations holds that one’s early relationships set expectations for later ones. Whether they are good or bad, people develop a comfort level with the dynamics of their earliest relationships and are often drawn to relationships that can in some way recreate them. This works well if one’s earliest relationships were healthy but leads to problems if those early relationships were problematic in some way.

In addition, no matter what a new relationship is like, an individual will look at a new relationship through the lens of their old relationships. This is called "transference" and offers a mental shortcut to people attempting to understand a new relationship dynamic. As a result, people make inferences that may or may not be accurate about a new relationship based on their past experiences.

Psychodynamic theory has several strengths that account for its continued relevance in modern psychological thinking. First, it accounts for the impact of childhood on adult personality and mental health. Second, it explores the innate drives that motivate our behavior. It’s in this way that psychodynamic theory accounts for both sides of the nature/nurture debate. On the one hand, it points to the way the unconscious mental processes people are born with influence their thoughts, feelings, and behavior. On the other, it emphasizes the influence of childhood relationships and experiences on later development.    

Despite its strengths, psychodynamic theory has a number of weaknesses , too. First, critics often accuse it of being too deterministic, and therefore, denying that people can exercise conscious free will. In other words, by emphasizing the unconscious and the roots of personality in childhood experience, psychodynamic theory suggests that behavior is pre-determined and ignores the possibility that people have personal agency.

Psychodynamic theory is also criticized for being unscientific and unfalsifiable—it is impossible to prove the theory to be false. Many of Freud’s theories were based on single cases observed in therapy and remain difficult to test. For example, there’s no way to empirically research the unconscious mind. Yet, there are some psychodynamic theories that can be studied, which has led to scientific evidence for some of its tenets.

• Dombeck, Mark. “Psychodynamic Theories.” MentalHelp.net , 2019. https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/psychodynamic-theories/
• McLeod, Saul. “Psychodynamic Approach.” Simply Psychology , 2017. https://www.simplypsychology.org/psychodynamic.html  
• Weston, Drew. “The Scientific Legacy of Sigmund Freud: Toward a Psychodynamically Informed Psychological Science. Psychological Bulletin , vol. 124, no. 3, 1998, pp. 333-371. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.124.3.333
• Weston, Drew, Glenn O. Gabbard, and Kile M. Ortigo. “Psychoanalytic Approaches to Personality.” Handbook of Personality: Theory and Resea rch. 3 rd ed., edited by Oliver P. John, Richard W. Robins, and Lawrence A. Pervin. The Guilford Press, 2008, pp. 61-113. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2008-11667-003
• The Freudian Theory of Personality.”  Journal Psyche ,  http://journalpsyche.org/the-freudian-theory-of-personality/#more-191
• Freud: Id, Ego, and Superego Explained
• Dream Interpretation According to Psychology
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The Psychodynamic Approach

Last updated 6 Sept 2022

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Sigmund Freud – psychiatrist, neurologist and key pioneer of the psychodynamic approach (including his psychoanalytic theory of personality) – theorised that our mental activity is mostly unconscious, and it is this unconscious activity that causes our behaviour. He explained that traumatic childhood experiences pushed into the unconscious mind can later lead to mental disorders, and developed ‘talking cures’ (psychoanalysis, or more generally termed psychotherapy) to help release problematic repressed memories and relieve symptoms.

Key assumptions of the Psychodynamic Approach

• Unconscious activity is the key determinate of how we behave.
• We possess innate ‘drives’ (or ‘instincts’) that ‘energize’ our minds to motivate behaviour as we develop through our lives.
• Our [three-part] personality – the psyche – is comprised of the ID, ego and superego.
• Childhood experiences have significant importance in determining our personality when we reach adulthood.

The Role of the Unconscious

The psyche, forming the structure of personality, has three parts:

• ID – driving us to satisfy selfish urges (i.e. acts according to the 'pleasure principle') (exists from birth).
• Ego - acts rationally, balancing the ID and the superego (i.e. acts according to the 'reality principle') (develops years 2-4).
• Superego – concerned with keeping to moral norms (i.e. acts according to the ‘morality principle’), and attempts to control a powerful ID with feelings of guilt (develops years 4-5).

Psychosexual Stages

Freud also thought that humans progress through 'psychosexual stages', during the development of the psyche. He named five stages, each with a particular characteristic behaviour:

• Oral – sucking behaviour (0-18 months)
• Anal – holding or discarding faeces (18 months – 3.5 years)
• Phallic – fixation on genitals (3.5 – 6 years)
• Latency – repressed sexual urges (6 years - puberty)
• Genital – awakened sexual urges (puberty onwards)

Freud claimed that, during development, becoming fixated on one of these stages would restrict full development result in displaying specific personality symptoms. An 'anally retentive' personality is one such symptom – he proposed that when conflict occurs over potty training, a person could become fixated on cleanliness and orderliness to an extreme.

Ego Defence Mechanisms

The ego balances potential conflict between the ID and superego, and tries to reduce anxiety. In areas of significant conflict, the ego can redirect psychic energy using 'defense mechanisms'. Three key mechanisms Freud proposed are:

• Repression – burying an unpleasant thought or desire in the unconscious (e.g. traumatic childhood experiences may be repressed and so forgotten).
• Displacement – emotions are directed away from their source or target, towards other things (e.g. wringing a dishcloth in anger, which would have otherwise been directed at the cat scratching the furniture).
• Denial – a threatening thought is ignored or treated as if it were not true (e.g. a wife might find evidence that her husband is cheating on her, but explain it away using other reasons).

Research methods used by the approach

Freud’s psychoanalytical theory was based on case studies, which gather large amounts of detailed information about individuals or small groups. These cases were of patients with which he used psychoanalysis (‘talking cures’), the aim of which to bring unconscious mental activity to the conscious to release anxiety. Techniques to do this include:

• Free association – expressing immediate [unconscious] thoughts, as they happen
• Dream interpretation – analysing the latent content (i.e. underlying meaning) of manifest content (i.e. what was remembered from the dream).

Current psychologists using the psychodynamic approach still utilize case study evidence (e.g. recording psychoanalytic interviews) to provide proof of their explanations.

Evaluation of the psychodynamic approach/methods

• Freud highlighted a widely accepted link between childhood experience and adult characteristics.
• Case study methodology embraces our complex behaviour by gathering rich information, and on an individual basis – an idiographic approach – when conducting research.
• Some evidence supports the existence of ego defence mechanisms such as repression, e.g. adults can forget traumatic child sexual abuse (Williams, 1994).
• Modern day psychiatry still utilizes Freudian psychoanalytic techniques.
• It could be argued that Freud's approach overemphasises childhood experience as the source of abnormality (although modern psychodynamic theories give more recognition to the adult problems of everyday life, such as the effects of negative interpersonal relationships).
• By using case studies to support theories, the approach does not use controlled experiments to collect empirical evidence, so is considered far less scientific than other approaches.
• Case study evidence is difficult to generalise to wider populations.
• Many of Freud's ideas are considered non-falsifiable – theories may appear to reflect evidence, but you cannot observe the relevant constructs directly (namely the unconscious mind) to test them scientifically, such that they could be proved wrong. Philosopher of science Karl Popper famously argued that a theory is not scientific if it is not falsifiable.

You might also like

Explanations for conformity, cultural variations in attachment, introspection & the cognitive approach, scoville and milner (1957), kohlberg (1968), schizophrenia: what is schizophrenia, biopsychology: the pns – somatic and autonomic nervous systems, relationships: duck's phase model of relationship breakdown, our subjects.

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Major Perspectives in Modern Psychology

Verywell / Emily Roberts

• Psychodynamic Perspective
• Behavioral Perspective
• Cognitive Perspective
• Biological Perspective
• Cross-Cultural Perspective
• Evolutionary Perspective
• Humanistic Perspective

Psychological perspectives are different ways of thinking about and explaining human behavior. Psychologists utilize a variety of perspectives when studying how people think, feel, and behave.

Some researchers focus more on one specific school of thought, such as the biological perspective, while others take a more eclectic approach that incorporates multiple points of view.

No single perspective is "better" than another. Instead, each simply emphasizes different aspects of human behavior.

This article explores seven of the major perspectives in psychology, where these perspectives originated, and how they attempt to explain psychological issues. It also provides examples of key ideas from each psychological perspective.

Major Perspectives

The early years of psychology were dominated by a succession of these different schools of thought. If you have taken a psychology course, you might remember learning about structuralism, functionalism , psychoanalysis, behaviorism, and humanism—all of which are different schools of psychological thought.

As psychology has grown, the number and variety of topics psychologists investigate have also expanded. Since the early 1960s, the field of psychology has flourished. It continues to grow rapidly, as has the depth and breadth of subjects studied by psychologists.

Psychological Perspectives Today

Few psychologists identify their outlook according to a particular school of thought. While there are still some pure behaviorists or psychoanalysts, the majority of psychologists today categorize their work according to their specialty area and perspective.

Purpose of Psychological Perspectives

Why are there so many different perspectives in psychology? It is important to remember that every topic in psychology can be looked at in many ways. For example, let's consider the subject of aggression.

• A professional who emphasizes a biological perspective would look at how the brain and nervous system impact aggressive behavior.
• A professional who stresses a behavioral perspective would look at how environmental variables reinforce aggressive actions.
• A professional who utilizes a cross-cultural approach might consider how cultural and social influences contribute to aggressive or violent behavior.

Here are seven of the major perspectives in modern psychology .

1. The Psychodynamic Perspective

The psychodynamic perspective originated with the work of Sigmund Freud . This view of psychology and human behavior emphasizes the role of the unconscious mind , early childhood experiences, and interpersonal relationships to explain human behavior, as well as to treat mental illnesses.

Much thanks to Freud's work and influence, psychoanalysis became one of the earliest major forces within psychology. Freud conceived of the mind as being composed of three key elements: the id, the ego, and the superego .

• The id is the part of the psyche that includes all the primal and unconscious desires.
• The ego is the aspect of the psyche that must deal with the demands of the real world.
• The superego is the last part of the psyche to develop and is tasked with managing all of our internalized morals, standards, and ideals.

While the psychodynamic perspective is not as dominant today, it continues to be a useful psychotherapeutic tool.  

2. The Behavioral Perspective

Behavioral psychology focuses on learned behaviors. It was founded on the work of psychologists such as Edward Thorndike and John B. Watson.   Behaviorism dominated psychology in the early twentieth century but began to lose its hold during the 1950s.

Behaviorism differs from other perspectives because it focuses solely on observable behaviors rather than on emphasizing internal states.

Today, the behavioral perspective is still concerned with how behaviors are learned and reinforced. Behavioral principles are often applied in mental health settings, where therapists and counselors use these techniques to explain and treat a variety of illnesses.

3. The Cognitive Perspective

During the 1960s, a new perspective known as cognitive psychology emerged. This area of psychology focuses on mental processes like memory, thinking, problem-solving, language, and decision-making.  

Influenced by psychologists such as Jean Piaget and Albert Bandura , the cognitive perspective has grown tremendously in recent decades.

Cognitive psychologists often utilize an information-processing model (comparing the human mind to a computer) to conceptualize how information is acquired, processed, stored, and utilized.

4. The Biological Perspective

The study of physiology played a major role in the development of psychology as a separate science. Today, the perspective is known as biological psychology (also called biopsychology or physiological psychology). The point of view emphasizes the physical and biological bases of behavior.

Researchers with a biological perspective on psychology might look at how genetics influence behavior or how damage to specific areas of the brain affect personality.

The nervous system, genetics, the brain, the immune system, and the endocrine system are just a few subjects of interest to biological psychologists. Over the last few decades, the perspective has grown significantly with advances in our ability to explore and understand the human brain and nervous system.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) scans give researchers tools to observe the brain under a variety of conditions. Scientists can now look at the effects of brain damage, drugs, and disease in ways that were not possible in the past.

5. The Cross-Cultural Perspective

Cross-cultural psychology is a fairly new perspective that has grown significantly in the last twenty years. Psychologists and researchers in this school of thought look at human behavior across different cultures.

By looking at these differences, we can learn more about how culture influences our thinking and behavior.   For example, researchers have looked at how social behaviors differ in individualistic and collectivistic cultures .

• In individualistic cultures (such as the United States) people tend to exert less effort when they are part of a group—a phenomenon known as social loafing .
• In collectivistic cultures (such as China), people tend to work harder when they are part of a group.

6. The Evolutionary Perspective

Evolutionary psychology focuses on the study of how the theory of evolution can explain physiological processes.   Psychologists who take this perspective apply the basic principles of evolution (like natural selection) to psychological phenomena.

The evolutionary perspective suggests that these mental processes exist because they serve an evolutionary purpose—meaning that they aid in human survival and reproduction.​​​

7. The Humanistic Perspective

In the 1950s, a school of thought known as humanistic psychology arrived. It was greatly influenced by the work of prominent humanists such as Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow .

The humanistic perspective emphasizes the role of motivation in thought and behavior. Concepts such as self-actualization are essential. Psychologists with a humanist perspective focus on what drives humans to grow, change, and develop their personal potential.

Positive psychology (which focuses on helping people live happier, healthier lives) is a recent movement in psychology with roots in the humanist perspective.  

A Word From Verywell

There are many ways to think about human thought and behavior. The different perspectives in modern psychology give researchers and students tools to approach problems and answer questions. They also guide psychologists in finding new ways to explain and predict human behavior. This exploration and deeper understanding can even lead to the development of new treatment approaches.

Fonagy P. The effectiveness of psychodynamic psychotherapies: An update .  World Psychiatry . 2015;14(2):137–150. doi:10.1002/wps.20235

Malone JC. Did John B. Watson really "found" behaviorism? .  Behav Anal . 2014;37(1):1–12. doi:10.1007/s40614-014-0004-3

Glenberg AM, Witt JK, Metcalfe, J. From the revolution to embodiment: 25 years of cognitive psychology . Perspectives on Psychological Science . 2013;8(5):573-585. doi:10.1177/1745691613498098

American Psychological Association. Biological psychology . 

Lonner WJ. Half a century of cross-cultural psychology: a grateful coda . Am Psychol . 2015;70(8):804-14. doi: 10.1037/a0039454

Cosmides L, Tooby, J. Evolutionary psychology: a new perspective on cognition and motivation . Annu Rev Psychol . 2013;64:201-229. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.121208.131628

Waterman AS. The humanistic psychology-positive psychology divide: contrasts in philosophical foundations . Am Psychol . 2013;68(3):124-33. doi:10.1037/a0032168

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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Psychodynamic perspective and its importance in understanding human behaviour

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11. Personality

Freud and the psychodynamic perspective, learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Describe the assumptions of the psychodynamic perspective on personality development
• Define and describe the nature and function of the id, ego, and superego
• Define and describe the defense mechanisms
• Define and describe the psychosexual stages of personality development

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) is probably the most controversial and misunderstood psychological theorist. When reading Freud’s theories, it is important to remember that he was a medical doctor, not a psychologist. There was no such thing as a degree in psychology at the time that he received his education, which can help us understand some of the controversy over his theories today. However, Freud was the first to systematically study and theorize the workings of the unconscious mind in the manner that we associate with modern psychology.

In the early years of his career, Freud worked with Josef Breuer, a Viennese physician. During this time, Freud became intrigued by the story of one of Breuer’s patients, Bertha Pappenheim, who was referred to by the pseudonym Anna O. (Launer, 2005). Anna O. had been caring for her dying father when she began to experience symptoms such as partial paralysis, headaches, blurred vision, amnesia, and hallucinations (Launer, 2005). In Freud’s day, these symptoms were commonly referred to as hysteria. Anna O. turned to Breuer for help. He spent 2 years (1880–1882) treating Anna O. and discovered that allowing her to talk about her experiences seemed to bring some relief of her symptoms. Anna O. called his treatment the “talking cure” (Launer, 2005). Despite the fact the Freud never met Anna O., her story served as the basis for the 1895 book, Studies on Hysteria , which he co-authored with Breuer. Based on Breuer’s description of Anna O.’s treatment, Freud concluded that hysteria was the result of sexual abuse in childhood and that these traumatic experiences had been hidden from consciousness. Breuer disagreed with Freud, which soon ended their work together. However, Freud continued to work to refine talk therapy and build his theory on personality.

LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

To explain the concept of conscious versus unconscious experience, Freud compared the mind to an iceberg ( [link] ). He said that only about one-tenth of our mind is conscious , and the rest of our mind is unconscious . Our unconscious refers to that mental activity of which we are unaware and are unable to access (Freud, 1923). According to Freud, unacceptable urges and desires are kept in our unconscious through a process called repression. For example, we sometimes say things that we don’t intend to say by unintentionally substituting another word for the one we meant. You’ve probably heard of a Freudian slip, the term used to describe this. Freud suggested that slips of the tongue are actually sexual or aggressive urges, accidentally slipping out of our unconscious. Speech errors such as this are quite common. Seeing them as a reflection of unconscious desires, linguists today have found that slips of the tongue tend to occur when we are tired, nervous, or not at our optimal level of cognitive functioning (Motley, 2002).

Freud believed that we are only aware of a small amount of our mind’s activities and that most of it remains hidden from us in our unconscious. The information in our unconscious affects our behavior, although we are unaware of it.

According to Freud, our personality develops from a conflict between two forces: our biological aggressive and pleasure-seeking drives versus our internal (socialized) control over these drives. Our personality is the result of our efforts to balance these two competing forces. Freud suggested that we can understand this by imagining three interacting systems within our minds. He called them the id, ego, and superego ( [link] ).

The job of the ego, or self, is to balance the aggressive/pleasure-seeking drives of the id with the moral control of the superego.

The unconscious id contains our most primitive drives or urges, and is present from birth. It directs impulses for hunger, thirst, and sex. Freud believed that the id operates on what he called the “pleasure principle,” in which the id seeks immediate gratification. Through social interactions with parents and others in a child’s environment, the ego and superego develop to help control the id. The superego develops as a child interacts with others, learning the social rules for right and wrong. The superego acts as our conscience; it is our moral compass that tells us how we should behave. It strives for perfection and judges our behavior, leading to feelings of pride or—when we fall short of the ideal—feelings of guilt. In contrast to the instinctual id and the rule-based superego, the ego is the rational part of our personality. It’s what Freud considered to be the self, and it is the part of our personality that is seen by others. Its job is to balance the demands of the id and superego in the context of reality; thus, it operates on what Freud called the “reality principle.” The ego helps the id satisfy its desires in a realistic way.

The id and superego are in constant conflict, because the id wants instant gratification regardless of the consequences, but the superego tells us that we must behave in socially acceptable ways. Thus, the ego’s job is to find the middle ground. It helps satisfy the id’s desires in a rational way that will not lead us to feelings of guilt. According to Freud, a person who has a strong ego, which can balance the demands of the id and the superego, has a healthy personality. Freud maintained that imbalances in the system can lead to neurosis (a tendency to experience negative emotions), anxiety disorders, or unhealthy behaviors. For example, a person who is dominated by their id might be narcissistic and impulsive. A person with a dominant superego might be controlled by feelings of guilt and deny themselves even socially acceptable pleasures; conversely, if the superego is weak or absent, a person might become a psychopath. An overly dominant superego might be seen in an over-controlled individual whose rational grasp on reality is so strong that they are unaware of their emotional needs, or, in a neurotic who is overly defensive (overusing ego defense mechanisms).

DEFENSE MECHANISMS

Freud believed that feelings of anxiety result from the ego’s inability to mediate the conflict between the id and superego. When this happens, Freud believed that the ego seeks to restore balance through various protective measures known as defense mechanisms ( [link] ). When certain events, feelings, or yearnings cause an individual anxiety, the individual wishes to reduce that anxiety. To do that, the individual’s unconscious mind uses ego defense mechanisms , unconscious protective behaviors that aim to reduce anxiety. The ego, usually conscious, resorts to unconscious strivings to protect the ego from being overwhelmed by anxiety. When we use defense mechanisms, we are unaware that we are using them. Further, they operate in various ways that distort reality. According to Freud, we all use ego defense mechanisms.

Defense mechanisms are unconscious protective behaviors that work to reduce anxiety.

While everyone uses defense mechanisms, Freud believed that overuse of them may be problematic. For example, let’s say Joe Smith is a high school football player. Deep down, Joe feels sexually attracted to males. His conscious belief is that being gay is immoral and that if he were gay, his family would disown him and he would be ostracized by his peers. Therefore, there is a conflict between his conscious beliefs (being gay is wrong and will result in being ostracized) and his unconscious urges (attraction to males). The idea that he might be gay causes Joe to have feelings of anxiety. How can he decrease his anxiety? Joe may find himself acting very “macho,” making gay jokes, and picking on a school peer who is gay. This way, Joe’s unconscious impulses are further submerged.

There are several different types of defense mechanisms. For instance, in repression, anxiety-causing memories from consciousness are blocked. As an analogy, let’s say your car is making a strange noise, but because you do not have the money to get it fixed, you just turn up the radio so that you no longer hear the strange noise. Eventually you forget about it. Similarly, in the human psyche, if a memory is too overwhelming to deal with, it might be repressed and thus removed from conscious awareness (Freud, 1920). This repressed memory might cause symptoms in other areas.

Another defense mechanism is reaction formation , in which someone expresses feelings, thoughts, and behaviors opposite to their inclinations. In the above example, Joe made fun of a homosexual peer while himself being attracted to males. In regression , an individual acts much younger than their age. For example, a four-year-old child who resents the arrival of a newborn sibling may act like a baby and revert to drinking out of a bottle. In projection , a person refuses to acknowledge her own unconscious feelings and instead sees those feelings in someone else. Other defense mechanisms include rationalization , displacement , and sublimation .

Link to Learning

At this site you can test your knowledge of Freud’s defense mechanisms by playing a matching game.

STAGES OF PSYCHOSEXUAL DEVELOPMENT

Freud believed that personality develops during early childhood: Childhood experiences shape our personalities as well as our behavior as adults. He asserted that we develop via a series of stages during childhood. Each of us must pass through these childhood stages, and if we do not have the proper nurturing and parenting during a stage, we will be stuck, or fixated, in that stage, even as adults.

In each psychosexual stage of development , the child’s pleasure-seeking urges, coming from the id, are focused on a different area of the body, called an erogenous zone. The stages are oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital ( [link] ).

Freud’s psychosexual development theory is quite controversial. To understand the origins of the theory, it is helpful to be familiar with the political, social, and cultural influences of Freud’s day in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century. During this era, a climate of sexual repression, combined with limited understanding and education surrounding human sexuality, heavily influenced Freud’s perspective. Given that sex was a taboo topic, Freud assumed that negative emotional states (neuroses) stemmed from suppression of unconscious sexual and aggressive urges. For Freud, his own recollections and interpretations of patients’ experiences and dreams were sufficient proof that psychosexual stages were universal events in early childhood.

In the oral stage (birth to 1 year), pleasure is focused on the mouth. Eating and the pleasure derived from sucking (nipples, pacifiers, and thumbs) play a large part in a baby’s first year of life. At around 1 year of age, babies are weaned from the bottle or breast, and this process can create conflict if not handled properly by caregivers. According to Freud, an adult who smokes, drinks, overeats, or bites her nails is fixated in the oral stage of her psychosexual development; she may have been weaned too early or too late, resulting in these fixation tendencies, all of which seek to ease anxiety.

After passing through the oral stage, children enter what Freud termed the anal stage (1–3 years). In this stage, children experience pleasure in their bowel and bladder movements, so it makes sense that the conflict in this stage is over toilet training. Freud suggested that success at the anal stage depended on how parents handled toilet training. Parents who offer praise and rewards encourage positive results and can help children feel competent. Parents who are harsh in toilet training can cause a child to become fixated at the anal stage, leading to the development of an anal-retentive personality. The anal-retentive personality is stingy and stubborn, has a compulsive need for order and neatness, and might be considered a perfectionist. If parents are too lenient in toilet training, the child might also become fixated and display an anal-expulsive personality. The anal-expulsive personality is messy, careless, disorganized, and prone to emotional outbursts.

Phallic Stage

Freud’s third stage of psychosexual development is the phallic stage (3–6 years), corresponding to the age when children become aware of their bodies and recognize the differences between boys and girls. The erogenous zone in this stage is the genitals. Conflict arises when the child feels a desire for the opposite-sex parent, and jealousy and hatred toward the same-sex parent. For boys, this is called the Oedipus complex, involving a boy’s desire for his mother and his urge to replace his father who is seen as a rival for the mother’s attention. At the same time, the boy is afraid his father will punish him for his feelings, so he experiences castration anxiety . The Oedipus complex is successfully resolved when the boy begins to identify with his father as an indirect way to have the mother. Failure to resolve the Oedipus complex may result in fixation and development of a personality that might be described as vain and overly ambitious.

Girls experience a comparable conflict in the phallic stage—the Electra complex. The Electra complex, while often attributed to Freud, was actually proposed by Freud’s protégé, Carl Jung (Jung & Kerenyi, 1963). A girl desires the attention of her father and wishes to take her mother’s place. Jung also said that girls are angry with the mother for not providing them with a penis—hence the term penis envy . While Freud initially embraced the Electra complex as a parallel to the Oedipus complex, he later rejected it, yet it remains as a cornerstone of Freudian theory, thanks in part to academics in the field (Freud, 1931/1968; Scott, 2005).

Latency Period

Following the phallic stage of psychosexual development is a period known as the latency period (6 years to puberty). This period is not considered a stage, because sexual feelings are dormant as children focus on other pursuits, such as school, friendships, hobbies, and sports. Children generally engage in activities with peers of the same sex, which serves to consolidate a child’s gender-role identity.

Genital Stage

The final stage is the genital stage (from puberty on). In this stage, there is a sexual reawakening as the incestuous urges resurface. The young person redirects these urges to other, more socially acceptable partners (who often resemble the other-sex parent). People in this stage have mature sexual interests, which for Freud meant a strong desire for the opposite sex. Individuals who successfully completed the previous stages, reaching the genital stage with no fixations, are said to be well-balanced, healthy adults.

While most of Freud’s ideas have not found support in modern research, we cannot discount the contributions that Freud has made to the field of psychology. It was Freud who pointed out that a large part of our mental life is influenced by the experiences of early childhood and takes place outside of our conscious awareness; his theories paved the way for others.

Sigmund Freud presented the first comprehensive theory of personality. He was also the first to recognize that much of our mental life takes place outside of our conscious awareness. Freud also proposed three components to our personality: the id, ego, and superego. The job of the ego is to balance the sexual and aggressive drives of the id with the moral ideal of the superego. Freud also said that personality develops through a series of psychosexual stages. In each stage, pleasure focuses on a specific erogenous zone. Failure to resolve a stage can lead one to become fixated in that stage, leading to unhealthy personality traits. Successful resolution of the stages leads to a healthy adult.

Self Check Questions

Critical thinking questions.

1. How might the common expression “daddy’s girl” be rooted in the idea of the Electra complex?

2. Describe the personality of someone who is fixated at the anal stage.

Personal Application Questions

3. What are some examples of defense mechanisms that you have used yourself or have witnessed others using?

1. Since the idea behind the Electra complex is that the daughter competes with her same-sex parent for the attention of her opposite-sex parent, the term “daddy’s girl” might suggest that the daughter has an overly close relationship with her father and a more distant—or even antagonistic—relationship with her mother.

2. If parents are too harsh during potty training, a person could become fixated at this stage and would be called anal retentive. The anal-retentive personality is stingy, stubborn, has a compulsive need for order and neatness, and might be considered a perfectionist. On the other hand, some parents may be too soft when it comes to potty training. In this case, Freud said that children could also become fixated and display an anal-expulsive personality. As an adult, an anal-expulsive personality is messy, careless, disorganized, and prone to emotional outbursts.

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