Personality Theorist - Assignment Example

In 1885, Freud studied in Paris and returned to Vienna in 1886. After returning to Vienna, Freud established his private practice and specialized in brain disorders. It was the same year when he got married to Martha Bernays and became the father of six children. In 1923, Freud was diagnosed with jaw cancer to treat which, he underwent over 30 operations. On 23 September 1939, he died of cancer (BBC, 2013). According to the psychoanalytic theory of Freud, libido generates the entire psychic energy.

There are two competing forces that influence our mental states, namely cathexis and anticathexis. Cathexis can be explained as mental energy’s investment in an individual, an object, or an idea. For example, when an individual feels hungry, they imagine a delicious meal that spurs their craving for food. In other cases, some of the energy of the id might be harnessed by ego to identify activities related to the activity so that the excess energy can be dispersed from the id. This can be achieved by browsing through a favorite blog of recipes instead if an individual cannot really get the good to appease the hunger.

On the other hand, anticathexis can be described in terms of blockage of the id’s needs that are socially unacceptable by the ego. A common type of anticathexis is repressing the desires and urges, but it requires a lot of investment of energy. Freud’s theory suggests that only that much energy of libido is available. If this energy is consumed in using anticathexis to suppress urges, not much energy is left behind for other processes. According to Freud, there are two driving instincts that motivate human behavior for the most part; the instincts of life and the instincts of death.

Life instincts are about the fundamental needs of survival, pleasure, and reproduction. These include things like food, love, and shelter. An unconscious wish of death is common to all human beings that is known as death instinct. Death drive is expressed as self-destructive behavior. Life instincts temper the death instincts. In Freudian theory, there is a conscious and an unconscious part of human mind. The former includes things that human beings are aware of whereas the latter includes things that human beings are not aware of.

Freud compares human mind to an iceberg whose tip emerging from the water represents a very small part of human mind, and the hidden portion represents the larger unconscious. Freudian theory identifies three major components of human personality, namely ego, id, and superego. Id is the source of fundamental urges and is personality’s most primitive part. This unconscious part of personality is the source of the entire libidinal energy. Ego is that part of personality that deals with reality and ensures fulfillment of the demands of id in safe, realistic, and acceptable ways to the society.

Superego is personality’s that part which contains the internalized morals obtained from the family and the society. Sigmund Freud is very important because he is among the most controversial and influential thinkers of the 20th century whose theories and work have helped construct views of the society on personality, childhood, therapy, and sexuality. Freud’s importance can be estimated from the fact that Time Magazine called Freud “one of the most important thinkers of the last century” (Cherry, 2013) in the year 2001.

Likewise, Freud was identified as “history’s most debunked doctor” (Adler, 2006) in an article of Newsweek in the year 2006. Freud made no