Compare and critically evaluate
Freud’s topographical and structural models of personality.
Freud’s
theories, though often discounted today, changed the way in which psychologists
viewed behaviour, this being why his work is seen as so influential. Before
Freud, psychologists primarily observed and described human behaviour,
believing only in a mechanistic viewpoint in which scientific study should only
concentrate on what is objective or quantifiable. Freud however wanted to
explore behaviour in more depth, concentrating on theories behind human
behaviour to explain why people behave in the ways in which they do. Gradually,
based on the ideas and findings from his own studies he created the system of
psychoanalysis, a new way of understanding and explaining human behaviour.
Psychoanalysis is still used in an evolved form and forms the basis of various
therapies used in the treatment of many psychiatric disorders today. This essay
aims to evaluate the work of Freud, focusing particularly on his topographical
and structural model of the mind, discussing the ways in which they impact on
behaviour and personality.
Freud’s
early work concerns the unconscious mind, with the idea that the unconscious
mind contains all that we are not directly aware of, such as memories, dreams,
suppressed feelings and urges, as well as biological drives and instincts. To
begin with Freud described two stages of consciousness, the conscious mind
containing present information, thoughts and feeling that are at the focus of one’s
attention. The unconscious mind was considered to contain all that was not
present in one’s consciousness. The conscious mind was said to be responsible
for logical thinking, reality and civilised behaviour, while the unconscious
mind was full of repressed feelings and memories that are not easily
accessible. Freud later adapted his theory to include a third, middle layer
which he termed the preconscious as he found that not all information absent in
the conscious mind was repressed. The preconscious therefore was deemed the
area of the mind, where all memories and information was stored, easily
retrievable at a time when needed. This
model of the mind was known as Freud’s topographical model.
The
unconscious mind was the main focus of Freud’s ideas. Freud viewed the
unconscious as a repository for socially unacceptable ideas, wishes or desires,
traumatic memories and painful emotions, hidden from the consciousness by the
mechanism of psychological repression. Sometimes thoughts and feelings from the
unconscious can infiltrate the conscious witnessed in such things as “Freudian
slips”, through symbols in dreams and can be accessed through psychoanalysis.
Freud addressed the idea of the unconsciousness to propose a theory for
neurosis and hysteria, arguing that psychological disturbances are largely
caused by personal conflicts existing at an unconscious level. The case study
of Anna O illustrates this point. Anna O was a woman who suffered varied
physical and mental disturbances, such as being unable to drink from fear of
contamination. Freud came to find this was due to an early childhood memory of
watching a woman drink from a glass that a dog had just drunk from, this lead
Freud to believe that many psychological problems experienced by his patients
were due to past childhood trauma. Freud went on to expand his psychoanalytic
model to explain the personality, forming his structural model of the mind or psyche.
Freud
determined that personality consists of three different elements; the id, the
ego and the superego, he called these the psychic apparatus. These are not
physical areas within the brain but hypothetical conceptualisations of
important mental functions. The id is the aspect of personality driven by
internal primal instinctual drives, such as hunger, thirst, and the drive for
sex or “libido”. The id acts in accordance with the pleasure principle, seeking
gratification and avoiding pain. Freud argues that the id acts at an unconscious
level, driven by two kinds of drives, Eros, the life instinct, ensuring an
individual survives, seeking out life-sustaining activities such as
respiration, eating, and sex. The other drive is known as Thanatos, the death
instinct. Freud described Thanatos as a destructive force present in all
individuals, it drives aggression and violence when directed onto others, but
is used for survival. The ego is driven by reality principle and works to
balance both the id and the superego. To balance these it works to achieve the
id’s drives in the most realistic ways, rationalizing the id’s instinct and
pleases the drives that benefit the individual long-term. The superego is
driven by the morality principle, acting on only what is morally right or
wrong, and it works using guilt and defence mechanisms to enforce the
individual to act in socially acceptable ways.
Using
this structural model of the mind or psyche, Freud developed his theory of
psychosexual development to attempt to explain personality. He suggests that
there are several stages of psychosexual development; oral, anal, phallic,
latent and genital, all of which must be passed through successfully or an
individual may become fixated at an individual stage resulting in mental
abnormality. This theory attempts to explain how adult personality is formed
from early childhood experience. The oral stage starts from birth and continues
until a child is around 18 months of age. Pleasure for the child is usually
gained from the mouth in the form of suckling, and eating and drinking.
Symptoms of fixation in adulthood are seen as preoccupation of oral activities
such as smoking, drinking or nail biting. The anal stage (18-35months),
suggests pleasure is gained primarily from bowel or bladder elimination.
Symptoms of fixation in adulthood present with a need for control, seen as anal
retentive, rigid personality with often obsessive traits. Fixated individuals
may also be seen as anal expulsive, being messy and disorganised. The phallic stage (3-6years), is
characterised by pleasure obtained through the genital area. Freud argues
children develop a complex at this age, the Oedipus complex for boys, and the
Electra complex for boys. These complexes are characterised by unconscious sexual
desires for their parent of the opposite sex, with boys fearing their father’s
in the form of castration anxiety, and girls suffering penis envy. These
complexes are overcome with the child identifying with their parent of the same
sex. The next stage is the the latency stage (6 years to puberty), here sexual
interest is repressed, until the Genital stage (puberty and beyond) where
sexual desires form for people of the opposite sex.
Freud’s
theories have received much criticism, one reason is that while they are good
at explaining behaviour, little evidence has been found to say predictions
about behaviour can be made. As theories are based on the unconscious mind,
they are not falsifiable, as there is no way of testing the unconscious mind
objectively. There has been evidence to suggest unconscious processes in
procedural memory (Tulving, 1972), automatic processing (Stroop, 1935) and
social psychology has shown the importance of implicit processing. These
theories demonstrate the role of unconscious processing. Much of Freud’s work
was based on case studies of his own patients, and self-analysis, therefore
they are unrepresentative of the population. He has also been criticised for
being bias in his findings only finding evidence to support his theories, other
researchers have however found support for some aspects of his theories. Fisher
& Greenberg for example found support his theory of oral and anal
personality types. Freud’s work does also highlight the importance of early
childhood in the shaping of personality with lots of evidence suggesting that
early trauma has detrimental effects on both psychological and physical
development. His work though failing to include evidence of the impact of
environment on individuals does explain defence mechanisms to explain why each
individual may react differently to similar situations. While Freud’s work is
often criticised, psychoanalysis is still used today and his ideas spurred
research into the realm of personality research.
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