Discuss This Statement with Reference to Freud’s Ideas About the Three Levels of Consciousness, the Id, Ego and Superego, Psychosexual Stages of Development and Defence Mechanisms

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Student name: Cheuk Hin To, Kay
Student number: 110078946
Course name: Psychology 1B
Course code: BEHL1004 study period 5-2012
Topic: Discuss this statement with reference to Freud’s ideas about the three levels of consciousness, the id, ego and superego, psychosexual stages of development and defence mechanisms.
Sigmund Freud is a psychologist that he creates the first psychodynamic theory. This theory described how human’s personality was established and how they were operating, how the internal forces us to do or not do everything. Fred created the theory of the 3 levels of consciousness, psychosexual stage of development and defence mechanisms that described the idea and perspective about human personality. In this synopsis, discussion will be made about the impact of Freud’s theory, how they affect the development of psychology and the concepts of themselves and exploring the reason why the influence of Freud’s theory has declined.

Firstly, the three levels of consciousness include id, ego and superego (Diane & Sally, 2009) .Fred’s view of how people‘s consciousness levels operate. Ego relates to the idea, thoughts or rational perceptions of human; Superego relates to conscience, morals of human that learn from the society or traditional culture; Id relates to selfish, childish though or immediate gratification of human (Robert, 2001). Those levels of consciousness mutually balance and control each other. There would be negative feeling happened if the id produce some desires, at the same time superego would produce repugnant feeling. People follow the thought of id (desire) and practice it, after that the result is guilty feelings. For example, if id‘s power lost control, people would like to do something wrong to himself or damage the society. But those levels of consciousness are hard to apply to the people. Especially the id (unconscious) level is hard to find out and prevent it to affect others and the society. Because the unconscious of human usually discover by a Clinical Psychologist, that they hypnotize the patient to get the result. A personality development also relate to parenting style, environment and social culture. In different parenting pattern, several types of personality could be train to the children. In different conditions people can grow their children to be what they want, they would use their own style. For example, a liberal family which allow their children to do whatever they want compare to a tradition family which are authority to control their children to do everything. The children in these two groups would be developed totally different. The levels of consciousness theory cannot fit in several conditions of different culture. It only generally describe a people’s consciousness may work like that. Freud discovered this theory by his work as he worked with the mental illness people. These patients were different that they were accepting to the treatment. Freud had not found any ‘normal’ person to text. This is difficult to imagine the terms in this theory. Secondly, defence mechanisms theory described about the protection of human being to avoid neglect feeling-anxiety (James, p504). It is a reaction pattern that coping with the problems. And there are lots coping forms of defence mechanism such as repression, rationalization, displacement, reaction formation, sublimation, projection and regression (James, 2010). When human beings face different problem and issues in daily life, they will use different method protect them to avoid anxiety. For example, when a student asks a professor to give him extension for doing assignment, the professor refuses. So the student kicks down the rubbish bin and speak some aggressive words. In this case, the student uses displacement to respond to his situation. He tries to put his anger from study to hit a rubbish bin. Defence mechanisms describe that displacement is diverting behaviour or thought away from its natural target toward a...
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