Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality

Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality varied as his theoretical development progressed. For the psychoanalyst, human personality is the product of the struggle between our destructive impulses and the search for pleasure. Of course, without leaving aside social limits as regulatory entities.

The construction of personality becomes a product: the result of the way each person uses to deal with their internal conflicts and external demands. Personality will thus mark the way in which each person develops socially and faces their conflicts: internal and external.
Freud, Austrian neurologist and father of psychoanalysis, explained five models to conceptualize personality: topographic, dynamic, economic, genetic and structural. These five models were intended to give shape to a complete scheme in which the personality of each of us could be articulated. Let’s dig deeper.

Models of Sigmund Freud’s personality theory

Freud’s theory of personality is characterized by being structural. The models that we explain below should not be taken as absolute truth. However, They are very useful tools to understand the dynamics of the human psyche.. Although they will be explained separately, they are all related to each other.

1. Topographic model

Freud used the iceberg metaphor to facilitate understanding of the three regions of the mind. The tip of the iceberg, which is the visible, is equivalent to the conscious region. It would have to do with everything that can be perceived at a particular moment: perceptions, memories, thoughts, fantasies and feelings.

The part of the iceberg that submerges, but may still be visible, is equivalent to the preconscious region of the mind. It has to do with everything that one is able to remember: moments that are no longer available in the present, but that can be brought to consciousness.

The thickness of the iceberg that is hidden under the water is equivalent to the unconscious region. In this area all memories, feelings and thoughts inaccessible to consciousness would be stored. It saves content that may be unacceptable, unpleasant, painful, conflictive and, above all, distressing for the person.

2. Dynamic model

This model is possibly one of the most difficult to understand in Sigmund Freud’s personality theory. It has to do with the psychic dynamics that occur in the subject’s mind; especially, between the impulses that seek unlimited gratification and the defense mechanisms that seek to inhibit them (for example, repression, fixation, regression, projection, introjection, etc.).

Regarding defenses, Susan Cloninger in her book Personality theories points out that «The ego uses several strategies to resolve intrapsychic conflict. These defense mechanisms are adopted if the direct expression of the id impulse is unacceptable to the superego or is dangerous in the real world. These mechanisms are a strategy to ease tension.

Regulatory psychic dynamics have as their primary purpose Ensure that each person can develop and adapt to the social environment.

3. Economic model

It has to do with the way in which what Freud called “drive”, which can be understood, roughlyas the energy that drives us to seek a specific goal. The drive is the engine and the energy that moves us. In this sense, Freud considered that all behavior was motivated by drives, which he divided into life drive (eros) and death drive (thanatos).

The life drive It is related to the individual’s capacity for self-preservation, the impulse to create, protect, and relate. On the other hand, the death drive It is linked to the destructive tendencies of the human being towards himself or towards the other, relating them to the principle of Nirvana which is nothingness, non-existence, emptiness.

4. Genetic model

This model follows the five stages of psychosexual development. Characterized by the search for gratification in the erogenous zones of the body, the importance of which depends on age.

Freud discovered that not only the adult finds satisfaction in the erogenous zones, but the child does too. Excessive gratification in these stages or sudden frustration in some will cause certain personality types to develop.

The stages or stages of psychosexual development, in Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality, are:

Oral stage: from 0-18 months. The focus of pleasure is the mouth; suck, kiss and bite. Fixation in this phase is related to a receptive oral personality to continue seeking pleasure through the mouth (smoking, overeating, etc.). On the contrary, sudden frustration is related to an aggressive oral personality: seeks pleasure by being verbally aggressive and hostile to others.anal stage: 18-4 years old. The focus of pleasure is the anus (retaining and expelling). A very strict control of it is related to retentive, mean personality. Or, on the contrary, a lax, wasteful personality.Phallic stage: 4-7 years old. The focus of pleasure is on the genitals. Masturbation at these ages is quite common. Identification with the father or mother occurs and the Oedipus complex is resolvedwhich structures the personality and serves to accept social norms by the individual.Latency stage: 7-12 years old. During this time Freud assumed that the sexual drive was suppressed in the service of learning and thus facilitate a cultural integration of the subject into their environment.Genital stage: 12 years and older. It represents the appearance of the sexual drive in adolescence, directed towards sexual relations. The sexual identity of man or woman is reaffirmed.

In Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality, human beings go through different stages in their psychosexual development.

5. Structural model

This model in Sigmund Freud’s personality theory stands out for the separation of the mind into three instances. Each one has different functions that act at different levels of the mind, but together. to form a unique personality structure.

This model was developed by Freud in his second topic, published in 1923 in his book The ego and the id. Let’s see a little what each instance is about.

The It: It is the primitive and innate part of the personality, whose sole purpose is to satisfy the person’s impulses. It represents the most basic needs and desires, the drives. Likewise, this aspect of personality is unconscious.The I: It evolves according to age and acts as an intermediary between the Id and the Superego. It represents the way of facing reality and its functions move in a conscious, preconscious and unconscious register.The Superego: It represents the moral and ethical thoughts received from the culture, that is, the law and the norm. Like the Ego, the Superego is present in the conscious, preconscious and unconscious.

Freud stated that These instances of the psyche are always in conflict, striving to prevail one over the other.. That is why he used the notion of ego strength to refer to the ego’s ability to function despite the struggle between these three forces.

In this sense, a person with good ego strength is able to effectively manage the pressures of the Id and Superego; while those with very little ego strength may become too inflexible or antisocial. In this way, Freud stated that The key to a healthy personality is a balance between the Id, the Ego and the Superego.

Personality, a determining entity

To conclude, it is necessary to point out that the models interact with each other. It is through this interaction that they make personality a complex and difficult topic to address. In addition to being a dynamic set of psychic characteristics that They condition the way in which each person acts in the circumstances that arise, It is important to mention that personality is constantly evolving.

Social norms and the development of values ​​are factors that affect a person’s personality. Therefore, it is valid to say that the more “normalized” an individual is, the closer he will be to civilization, since his personality will be more accepted, which is why it is considered appropriate in society. In this way, the following quote is very timely:

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