Psychoanalysis & Psychodynamic Psychology
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| iii. Freud’s later model A. Freud’s problems with his early model of the mind—Toward the end of his career, Freud made major revisions in his theory of the mind. He became dissatisfied with his original model of the mind as divided between the Unconscious (full of unacceptable childhood desires) and the Conscious adult, rational thinking. This model, known as the topographic theory, also included the Preconscious, which contains thoughts that are not the focus of conscious attention at any given moment, but are not unacceptable, and, therefore, are not repressed. But Freud realized that the repressing forces in the mind are also unconscious (people usually aren’t aware that they are repressing something, which created a contradiction in his theory. In addition, he noticed that the repressing forces themselves are often irrational, containing harsh and distorted childish ideas about what is unacceptable and requires repression. B. Freud’s structural theory—To fix these problems, Freud developed anew theory known as the structural theory of the mind. In the structural theory, the mind is divided into three psychic structures the Id (consisting of childhood desires and general pleasure seeking, similar to the topographic Unconscious, the Superego (the realm of moral judgments that determine what is acceptable and unacceptable, and the Ego (the part of the mind that is oriented to reality and the external world and has to reconcile the demands of the id and superego while developing the skills and abilities necessary to function effectively in the world. Freud said the Ego serves three masters the Id, Superego, and Reality.” 11 C. Freud’s structural theory of psychopathology—According to structural theory, psychopathology results when conflicts involving the Id, the Ego, the Superego, and reality are not successfully negotiated by adaptive defense mechanisms and coping strategies. For example, a child’s hostile feelings toward a younger sibling might conflict with his or her strict Superego idea that aggressive wishes are bad and dangerous. If the Ego were unable to find an adaptive solution to this conflict, the child might experience psychological symptoms, either during childhood when conflict first arises or later in adulthood when an event (for example, the hiring of anew, younger coworker) revives this childhood conflict. Download 283.67 Kb. Share with your friends:
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