Psychoanalytic Aspects of Personality - Essay Example

Psychoanalysis As explained by Sigmund Freud, in his psychoanalytic theory of human behavior, childhood experiences play a very significant role in determining the behavior of individuals during adulthood. Personality is not inherited, but developed as people grow up. So, the experiences one had during childhood especially in the first three years end up determining the kind of personality they become in adulthood. People develop certain drives and desires during childhood. So, as they grow up, their entire life get affected by these drives and desires because it influences their romantic, social, educational and how they relate to people in the society. When one has pleasant childhood experiences, one might end up becoming an outgoing and social personality during adulthood. However, when one experiences traumatic upbringing such as bullying during childhood, one may lose self esteem or develop fear, anxiety or other psychological disorders when one become adult. This shows how childhood experiences determine people’s behaviors during adulthood.
On the other hand, it is proven by research that a large percentage of human behavior is controlled by the unconscious thought. Most of the times, human beings engage in certain act without to critically thinking about them. In such situations, they are under the control of their unconscious thought. Many times, people tend not to be aware of their actions because they happen spontaneously in the unconscious mind in a fixed and preprogrammed manner. If people had control over their behavior, they would not act in an unconscious manner. Instead, they would have to create time to think and decide on the best thing to do. All these happen because of the influences of the animalistic ID which always drives people to a prompt action without any rationalization of the consequences of such responses. Such unconscious behaviors can be witnessed during dream or slip of the tough when one acts in an unconscious state. Nonetheless, it should be noted that the unconscious mind is developed during childhood when people are still young and can not effectively use their ego and super ego to deal with challenging situations.
Meanwhile, psychoanalytic theory of human behavior argues for the contribution of sexuality in the development of traits. It explains that most of human thought is also controlled by sexuality. This is a justified conclusion because it can be explained using the five stages of psychoanalytic development in which individual growth is purely based on sexual experiences. During each of these stages, children derive their pleasure on sex which essentially comes from an instinctual sexual energy called libido. However, since the libido is not fixed in one spot, it keeps on changing from one part of the body to another during each of stage. Hence, when people grow up, they still have the same sexual desire, though through their genital organs. Since the motive in life is to enjoy pleasure, people resort to spending a large portion of their time thinking about sexuality because it is where the desired pleasure can be derived. This explains why sexuality plays a significant role in determining human behavior. It is not acquired during adulthood, but developed right from infancy. Read More