Freudianism

Freudianism is a Psychoanalytic approach derived from the influence of Sigmund Freud, who is considered to be the founder of the psychodynamic approach to psychology, which looks to unconscious drives to explain human behavior.

Beliefs
Freudianism believes that the mind is responsible for both conscious and unconscious decisions that it makes on the basis of psychological drives. The id, ego, and super-ego are three aspects of the mind believed to comprise a person's personality.

Religion
Freud's psychoanalytic perspective viewed religion as the unconscious mind's need for wish fulfillment. Because people need to feel secure and absolve themselves of their own guilt, Freud believed that they choose to believe in God, who represents a powerful father-figure.

Psychoanalytic Theory
The basic principle of psychoanalysis is that people could be cured by making their unconscious a conscious thought and motivations. The id, ego, and super-ego are a set of three concepts in psychoanalytic theory describing distinct, interacting agents in the psychic apparatus (defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche).

[[file:Id.png]] Id
The id according to Freud is the part of the unconscious that seeks pleasure. His idea of the id explains why people act out in certain ways when it is not in line with the ego or superego. The id is the part of the mind, which holds all of humankind's most basic and primal instincts. It is the impulsive, unconscious part in the mind that is based on the desire to seek immediate satisfaction. The id does not have a grasp on any form of reality or consequence. Freud understood that some people are controlled by the id because it makes people engage in need-satisfying behavior without any accordance with what is right or wrong. Freud compared the id and the ego to a horse and a rider. The id is compared to the horse, which is directed and controlled, by the ego or the rider. This example goes to show that although the id is supposed to be controlled by the ego, they often interact with one another according to the drives of the ego.Id is made up of two biological instincts. Eros which is life instinct and thanatos which is death instinct.

[[file:FreudEgo.png]] Ego
In order for people to maintain a realistic sense here on earth, the ego is responsible for creating a balance between pleasure and pain. It is impossible for all desires of the id to be met and the ego realizes this but continues to seek pleasure and satisfaction. Although the ego does not know the difference between right and wrong, it is aware that not all drives can be met at a given time. The reality principle is what the ego operates in order to help satisfy the id's demands as well as compromising according to reality. The ego is a person's "self" composed of unconscious desires. The ego takes into account ethical and cultural ideals in order to balance out the desires originating in the id. Although both the id and the ego are unconscious, the ego has close contact with the perceptual system. The ego has the function of self-preservation, which is why it has the ability to control the instinctual demands from the id.

[[File:SuperEgo.png]] Superego
The superego, which develops around age four or five, incorporates the morals of society. Freud believed that the superego is what allows the mind to control its impulses that are looked down upon morally. The superego can be considered to be the conscience of the mind because it has the ability to distinguish between reality as well as what is right or wrong. Without the superego, Freud believed people would act out with aggression and other immoral behaviors because the mind would have no way of understanding the difference between right and wrong. The superego is considered to be the "consciousness" of a person's personality and can override the drives from the id. Freud separates the superego into two separate categories; the ideal self and the conscience. The conscience contains ideals and morals that exist within a society that prevent people from acting out based on their internal desires. The ideal self contains images of how people ought to behave according to society's ideals.

Psychosexual Development
Freud believed that our personalities develop through a series of stages during childhood, where we focus on certain areas of our bodies that are sensitive to stimulation, also known as erogenous zones. There are five of these stages: oral, anal, phallic, latent, and genital, and each one is associated with a particular erogenous zone that gives us pleasure. If we're not satisfied during any one of these stages, it can lead to fixation, while satisfaction can help us develop a healthy personality.

However, if a child experiences frustration during any of the psychosexual developmental stages, it can cause anxiety that may persist into adulthood as a functional mental disorder, known as a neurosis. Freud believed that this could happen because the child's pleasure-seeking energies became focused on that particular stage, and they were unable to move on to the next one.

Oedipus Complex and Electra Complex
According to Freud, the Oedipus complex is a normal and universal aspect of human development that arises during the phallic stage of psychosexual development, which occurs between the ages of 3 and 6 years old. During this stage, the child becomes aware of their own genitals and begins to experience sexual feelings and desires.

In the case of a male child, the Oedipus complex involves a desire for the mother and feelings of hostility and jealousy toward the father, whom the child sees as a rival for the mother's affection. The child may also experience castration anxiety, which refers to a fear of losing his penis as punishment for his forbidden sexual desires. In response to these feelings, the child may repress his sexual desires and identify with the father as a way of resolving the conflict.

In the case of a female child, the Oedipus complex is somewhat different. Freud proposed that girls experience a parallel process known as the Electra complex, in which they desire their father and feel jealousy and hostility toward their mother. However, Freud later revised his theory to suggest that the female Oedipus complex is less intense and less universal than the male version, and that girls may resolve the conflict by identifying with the mother instead of the father.