Question

Explain Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality.

Answer 1

According to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, personality develops through a series of stages, each characterized by a certain internal psychological conflict.

According to Freud, our personality develops from the interactions among what he proposed as the three fundamental structures of the human mind: the id, ego, and superego. Conflicts among these three structures, and our efforts to find balance among what each of them “desires,” determines how we behave and approach the world. What balance we strike in any given situation determines how we will resolve the conflict between two overarching behavioral tendencies: our biological aggressive and pleasure-seeking drives vs. our socialized internal control over those drives.