Freud's Personality Theory

Personality is defined as “consistent behavior patterns and interpersonal process originating within individual” (Burger 2008). People behave in consistent patterns according to the time and the situation that individuals live in and behaviors are affected by interpersonal process such as cognitive, intellectual and motivational factors born within the individuals. At the ancient period Hippocrates (400B.C), Plato, Theophrastus proposed theories about personality types such as theory of four humours. The modern six perspectives of personality are the psychodynamic perspective, the neo- psychoanalytic perspective, the behaviourist perspective, type theories of personality, the humanistic perspective, the biological approach and trait theories.

Furthermore, Freud proposed the structure model of personality by dividing the personality into three sections: The id, the ego, the super ego. The only personality model individuals are born with is the id. The id is seeking pleasure (pleasure principle) and always tries to fulfil own selfish needs and does not aware about the real world and boosts sexual and aggressive desires, on the other hand, uses “wish fulfilment” to satisfy the needs when the needs are not satisfied. For an example a picture of a food can be used to temporally satisfy a baby who cries for food. Unsatisfied id in the childhood can be led to personality problems in the adult life. According to Freud, the id belongs to the hidden unconscious of the iceberg structure. The ego follows the reality principle and deals with the reality in the outer world to satisfy the id’s needs and reduce the tension. The ego develops between age 1 -2 in an infant. The ego can enter the conscious, the preconscious and the unconscious and when the id seeks for socially unacceptable needs, the ego hides that desires in the unconscious. The super ego develops at the age of 5, and follows the values and norms learnt from the society and the adults through reinforcement and punishments. At this stage the individual is aware about the guilt,

Both approaches had developed centred the individual development, but the Freudian approach has a negative view point which is described using the id and the unconscious mind. In the humanistic approach has a positive point of view about human beings. According to Freudian approach, the ego activates the techniques of defence mechanism to hold the threatening event unconsciously, but in the humanistic approach, Rogers stated subception process to replace the concept of the unconscious, in the Freudian approach which blocks the threatening information entering into the awareness through denial and distortion as defense mechanisms.Moreover, both theories cannot scientifically accept because of lack of empirical and methodological evidence. Both theories introduced the different point of views about personality which were impacted on later development of the personality psychology. Therefore, both approaches are important and useful in defining the