Freud - Internal processes and Stages of Development Flashcards
What according to Freud are the 3 internal processes in your brain that are in conflict?
The three processes in your brain are id, ego and super ego.
id: Works on the pleasure principle. “I want satisfaction and I want it now”. As we can’t get every satsifaction we aspire for, to handle this, the brain develops another system called “ego”
ego: Works on reality principle. Has some understanding of reality and logic. It pragmatically reconciles whether satify your desires or supress the same. It is the conscious self.
Super Ego: It has internalized conceptions and rules of parents and society. Moral values and so on. Your ego might supress something out because of reasons like consequences, but super ego will tell if something is right or wrong.
The ego serves two masters - id and super ego. It reconciles between both. And not all the times is the values developed by super ego right. A lot of prejudices picked up by super ego early in childhood could be wrong.
What is Electra Complex?
A girl at some point in her childhood learns that she doesn’t have a penis; because she believes she was castrated. And accoding to her, thats a problem.
Due to this, she turns to her father as a “penis substitute”, and rejects her mother as unworthy, as she doesn’t have a penis too.
This is Electra Complex.
What are unconscious dynamics and unconscious motivation?
Unconscious reasons - There are unconscious reasons for your current actions and feelings.
Unconscious Dynamics - The idea that you are more than one entity. There is a conflict between various systems of your brain that leads to dreams, speech errors, unintended jokes and so on.
Both of these imply that you are in control of your actions. That there’s always an unconscious part of you that is driving all this. This is true for some ideas like language comprehension, visual perception, but not a blanket idea that works for everything.
Freud systhemized this, even though these ideas existed before.
What are the different stages of development according to Freud and when do they happen?
There are 5 stages of development according to Freud. Each development stage is associated to a body part.
- Oral (1st year of birth)
- Anal (1 - 3 years)
- Phallic (3- 5 years)
- Latency (5 years to Puberty)
- Genital (Puberty onwards)
Explain the oral stage of development
- First stage of development.
- Happens in the 1st year of birth
- Here the mouth is associated with pleasure.
- Here, if weaning is not handled properly it can lead to fixation.
- And fixation here can lead to a focus on the mouth, and as an adult might chew too much gum or smoke. Can grow to be needy.
What is fixation?
If we get into problems at a certain stage of development, if those problems aren’t adequately addressed, then one will get fixated there. So, as a consequence, as an adult, the person will try to achieve pleasure in ways that are equivalent to how it was achieved in whichever stage that person had a problem in.
Explain the Anal Stage
- Second stage of development
- Happens within 1-3 years
- Anus is associated with pleasure
- If toilet training is not handled properly, it can lead to fixation
- Fixation in this stage can lead to the person might be compulsive, clean, stingy.
Explain the Phallic Stage
- Third stage of development
- Happens in 3 to 5 years of age
- Genitals are associated with pleasure
- Fixation can lead to excessive masculinity in males and need to attention or domination in females.
Explain the Latency Stage
- Fourth stage of development
- Between 5 years and puberty
- Sexual feelings are repressed
- Child focuses on hobbies, school, friendships
Explain Genital Stage
- Sexual feelings reemerge
- Healthy adults fine pleasure in love and work
- Fixated adults, adults with problems in earlier stage, have their energies tied in earlier stages, and fixate on problems on those stages.
