The id, ego and super ego develop as we progress through what Freud called The Psychosexual stages. Freud believed that childhood provided the key to all people and this is where these psychosexual stages occur, in childhood from when we are born up until we finish puberty. There are five stages within our development:
The Oral Stage- This occurs in the first year of our lives. Much focus is placed on the mouth. The Id demands food and other oral gratification such as a dummy/ thumb. Problems arise when these demands are not met or are oversubscribed. This in later life could lead to the person becoming excessively passive, highly independent or dependent.
The Anal Stage- This occurs between the ages of one and three and the focus moves from the mouth to the anus. The journey out of nappies is the main event between these years and the conflict between the Id and newly developing Ego begins. The Id demands that the child must release urine and faeces and the ego demands that it is held in until the child is at a suitable place. Problems occur if the child is made to feel overly guilty about accidents or if the child is not praised enough or too much for the correct behaviour. In adult life this could lead the person to become obsessed with cleanliness and order or become hoarders or collectors and reluctant to share. The reluctance to share and the need to hold on to things is said to be symbolic of the retention of faeces.
The Phallic Stage- This occurs between the ages of three and fives. It is believed by Freud to be the most important stage. In this stage boys go through what is called the Oedipus complex and girls the Electra complex. The Oedipus complex was based on the Greek tale of a boy who unknowingly killed his Father and married his mother. Freud said that young boys are unconsciously in love with and desire their mothers, this leads to jealousy and dislike of the Father. Boys often fear that their father may castrate them should he find out about these desires. This is resolved by the boy trying to be more like his father and in the process identifying with their father. The Electra complex is slightly different in that the girl desires the father and Freud suggested that the girl believed she has already been castrated and has what is called ‘penis envy’ this is part of what causes the resentment towards the mother. It is resolved in a similar way by the girl identifying with her mother. This stage is important as it helps develop a healthy personality. If the complexes are left unresolved then it could lead to a fixation with the same sex parent or indeed to gender identity problems and weak moral service.
The Latent Stage- This occurs from the age of five up until puberty. This is where there is said to be a dormant period where the child is more focused on developing intellectually and socially. Learning basic skills such as reading and writing and playing and become friends with other children.
The Genital Stage- this occurs through puberty and stops when we are sexually mature this is said to be the end of our development according to Freud. The focus comes back to the genitals but this time needed other people to satisfy the desires concerning the genitals The selfishness of previous stages is lost and at the end of this stage people are able to form loving heterosexual relationships and the Id, Ego and Super Ego stay balanced for the vast majority of our lives provided we have received the optimum amount of satisfaction in previous stages.
The psychosexual stages we go through help develop our super-ego to challenge the Id and the Ego to make sure that both are kept in balance. If we do not resolve all the conflicts met in the psychosexual stages then our ego does not strengthen from the weakness it was when we were in these stages. This causes us to become fixated in that particular stage and puts a high amount of pressure on the ego causing anxiety. Anxiety is present in a situation of danger and also when danger is threatened. Freud distinguished three types of anxiety
- Realistic – this is derived from dangers of the external world
- Moral – This is derived from a burden of conflict posed by the super ego
- Neurotic- This is derived from a conflict posed by the Id’s demands and instinctual nature
Everyone has anxiety and they all use what Freud named Defence mechanisms in order to cope with anxiety. Defence mechanisms push the problems into the unconscious and help transform them into a more socially acceptable form. There are many different defence mechanisms which can be used a few of these are:
Repression: This is when either material in the preconscious that is causing anxiety is pushed back into the unconscious so that it will not make its way to the conscious, or material in the unconscious is censored and therefore the true nature of it forbidden in the preconscious. For example people who are robbed often cannot remember the attack.
Sublimation: This is when instinctual impulses that may be seen as socially unacceptable are hidden by finding another, more acceptable outlet to express these impulses. For example someone with aggressive instincts may take up karate or kick boxing
Reaction Formation: This is when people form a reaction opposing what they’re impulses are demanding. For example a lot of homosexual people, are too disgusted with themselves to admit they are homosexual.
Denial: This is when the reality of a situation is not acknowledged. For example when there is a death a person may carry on as if nothing has happened.
Projection: This is when instinctual impulses are not acknowledged within us by attributing them to others often incorrectly. For example an insecure person may see other people as weak and insecure.
Other defence mechanisms include; projection, regression, rationalisation, introjection, isolation and displacement.
If the psychosexual stages have not been successfully undergone the ego does not develop properly and overuses defence mechanisms in order to protect the individual. When used frequently they are said to restrict the ego’s functioning, as a result of this it becomes less capable in balancing out the conflicts of the Id and Super Ego and the anxiety becomes too great a burden. This is when problems occur. Freud believed that the only way that person could get rid of their problem was to delve into their unconscious and find out which psychosexual stage of development it derived from and relive that stage to resolve the conflict. Within Psychoanalysis Freud used many techniques to discover what was in clients unconscious.
Hypnosis
During hypnosis people are semi-conscious and this makes it easier to access the unconscious. When in a hypnotic state clients were encouraged to talk about their life
Without filtering thoughts and thinking about how to word things. This enabled them to release impulses and emotions form the unconscious and revealing things that could be interpreted by the client in order to get to the underlying cause of their problem. Freud claimed this cured many patients however he found it difficult to get some clients to reach a state of hypnosis and decided to look for alternative ways of accessing the unconscious.
In free association the client is left to tell the therapist about all their life experiences no matter how significant or insignificant they seem, the client is allowed to express any memory feeling or thought not matter how unacceptable these may be. The fact that there were no constraints on the clients was to encourage them to admit things into their conscious that they may have never been able to admit before. Another condition of free association is that the client therapist relationship must be strong enough for the client to reveal and the therapist to respect the client and not pass judgement. ‘The patient’s sick ego promises us the most complete candour….we, on the other hand, assure him of the strictest discretion and put at his service our experience in interpreting material that has been influenced by the unconscious’ (Freud ,1949, p.63)
During psychoanalysis the therapist is kept out of sight and aside from the introduction of the session and the feedback interpretation, says nothing, and just listens to the client. Freud said that the reason for this is so that the therapist is a drawing board onto which a client can project anything they want. In this way they can use the therapist to relive the childhood conflict causing their problems. For example, in the case study of Little Han’s; a young boy with a phobia of horses which Freud revealed represented the boy’s fear of his father whom he had not identified with during the phallic stage of development. The young boy may have moulded Freud into his father, and in doing this was able to identify his father as the real problem and relive and resolve the Oedipus complex and cure his phobia.
The final technique used to uncover the unconscious is dream analysis. Freud believed that dreams were the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind. It is believed that during sleep the ego reduces repression and that dreams are a way of living out wishes desires and impulses from the Id in a socially acceptable form. Dreaming allows a person to bring things out of the unconscious into the conscious throughout the dream. It is said to be a compromise between defence mechanisms that protect the ego and the Id’s demands. It is censored unconscious material. The censored material of the dream or the story of the dream is called the manifest content. Once the manifest content is established it can be interpreted by the therapist in order to uncover the latent content of the dream, which is the hidden meaning the actual material of the unconscious.
Within all of these techniques Freud believed that certain things revealed were symbolic, as the most important stage in his theory was the phallic stage he said that most of these symbols where of a phallic nature. For example long things such as pencils and bananas would be symbolic of the penis and peeling a banana maybe symbolic of the fear of castration or symbolic of an erection. From symbols used and from other information about the client’s life, the therapist is able to get to the source of the problem and interpret what they have found by looking at the different levels of consciousness and the defence mechanisms used.
Once these interpretations have been mad the therapist would challenge the client by first making them aware of their defence mechanisms and the symbolism they have used. Once the client’s awareness of these had been raised the therapist would either invite the client to suggest what they felt was the underlying cause or they would offer their own interpretation of what underlying feelings were causing the problem and then invite the client to reject or accept the interpretation. This would then raise the clients awareness of their own unconscious and force them to drag things out to relive the unsolved problem.