Psychology and Sigmund Freud

Freud and Psychology In the field of psychology, Freud's work is a popular topic. Much of what he created is very controversial, and some of it has been discredited and changed (Leahey, et al., 2014). However, there is also a lot of it that is still used today, and that provides information for psychologists and psychotherapists who want to help people live better lives. There are two main areas of Freud's work that are still important today. These are his theory of personality development and his theory of psychotherapy.

It is also important to consider why they are valid or not valid in current practice, so one can determine what direction one wants to take with proper techniques. Freud's theory of personality has three components, which are the Id, the Ego, and the Superego (Sulloway, 1991). According to Freud, all of these work together to make up a person's specific personality. The Id is present from birth, and is a part of a person all his or her life.

It is completely unconscious, and makes up primitive and instinctive behaviors (Sulloway, 1991). Because it looks for immediate gratification, the Id does not focus on anything but pleasure or pain. The Ego, by contrast, is very different from the Id. It is the part of personality that focuses on what is actually reality, instead of only what it wants or does not want (Sulloway, 1991).

The Ego comes from the development of the Id, and allows the Id to exist while still making sure that the person acts in a way that is acceptable to society. In short, the Ego is a big part of the control that the person exercises over his or her Id, and both of the aspects are very important. Some of what the Ego does is unconscious, but there are also conscious and preconscious parts that have to be dealt with (Sulloway, 1991).

The Ego takes the desire of the Id and extrapolates it out to ways in which it can be used in the real world, allowing for the person to function properly from a societal standpoint, even though the person's wants and desires may be far different from what would generally be accepted. Another part of personality, according to Freud, is the Superego (Sulloway, 1991). It holds moral standards and ideals. These come from parents, but also from society, and they can change and develop over time.

As a person gets older, his or her personality may change because the Superego is acquiring and processing new information. The guidelines for making judgments, then, have to change in order for the person to feel comfortable with who he or she is. Around five years of age is when the Superego starts to emerge, as a child really does not have a developed sense of self before then, according to Freud (Sulloway, 1991).

That is important to note, because not all psychologists agree with Freud's assessment of the different parts of the personality, or that a child must reach a certain age before he or she begins to develop a personality that is separate from his or her parents and the rest of society.

Instead, there are beliefs that would indicate that children have a sense of self much earlier than expected, and that the three different areas of personality are completely unnecessary when determining how a person functions and how he or she sees himself or herself (Pigman, 1995). Freud's theory of psychotherapy is one of psychoanalysis. He believed that people could delve into their unconscious thoughts and make them conscious.

By doing that, the person would then be able to gain insight, and could, potentially, be "cured" of his or her specific problem (Leahey, et al., 2014). Releasing experiences and emotions can be very valuable for a person who needs to "let go" of something from the past, to which he or she has been holding on for too long. While not everyone has this problem, there are many people who hang onto problems and feelings from their past (Leahey, et al., 2014).

They would be better off by letting go of those difficulties, but they are not always sure how to do that. Freud's idea was that a person who would really look at what he or she was unconsciously struggling with would be more willing to pull emotions and feelings out and examine them, which could help in the long run (Leahey, et al., 2014).

Acting in this way was also considered to be cathartic, because it allowed a person to focus on things that were hurtful to him or her, and then release those feelings to the universe (Pigman, 1995). By talking about them, Freud believed that healing was promoted and that the person who dealt with the feelings was better able to move forward and address new issues in a different way.

That allowed for an adjustment to how information was processed, and also made it easier for the person to consider the feelings of others (Pigman, 1995). This built empathy which, in turn, also helped the person to forgive. That forgiveness could be very healing, and was one for the things that Freud believed would help a person who was in psychoanalysis or psychotherapy of any kind. Of course, the opinions of what works and what does.