Man always complains. He complains almost anything about everything.

He complains about being late in school. He complains about not having too much money. He complains about the weather being too hot. Yet, complains even more when it rains.
He complains that his house is not a good place to live in. He complains about his neighbors complaining abut everything. Yet, he hasn’t really stopped to understand that the real cause of these complains is himself.

He is the one responsible for being late or not having enough money. He is the reason why he is suffering from both ends of the climate’s spectrum. He is the one responsible for stripping Earth of its resources and leaving it unfit to live in. He complains about his neighbors complaining about everything.

But has he heard himself lately?

Personality Structure

• Three major systems that interact to govern human behavior: the id, the ego, and the superego.

• The Id. According to Freud, the id is the most primitive part of the personality and part from which the ego and the superego later develop. It is present in the newborn infant and consists of the basic biological impulses or drives: the need to eat, drink, to eliminate wastes, to avoid pain, to gain sexual (sensual) pleasure.

• Freud believed that aggression is also a basic biological drive. In fact, he believed that sexual and aggressive drives were the most important instinctual determinants of personality throughout life. Like a child, the id operates on the pleasure principle: It continually strives to obtain pleasure and to avoid pain, regardless of the external consequences.

• The Ego. Children soon learn that their impulses cannot always be gratified immediately. Hunger will not be lessened until someone provides food. Relief of bladder or bowel pressure must be delayed until the bathroom is reached.

• A new part of personality, the ego, develops as the young child learns to consider the demands of reality. The ego obeys the reality principle: The gratification of impulses must be delayed until the situation is appropriate. The ego, thus s essentially the executive of the personality: It decides which id impulses will be satisfied and in what manner.

• The Superego. The third part of the personality is the superego, which judges whether actions are right or wrong. More generally, the superego is the internalized representation of the values and morals of society. It comprises the individual’s conscience as well as his or her image of the morally ideal person (called the ego ideal).

• The superego develops in response to parental rewards and punishments. Initially, parents control children’s behavior directly through reward and punishment.

• By incorporating parental standards into the superego, a child brings behavior under his or her control. Children no longer need anyone to tell them it is wrong to steal; their superego tells them. Violating the superego’s standards, or even the impulse to do so, produces anxiety – beginning with anxiety over loss of parental love.

The Psychoanalytic Approach

• Sigmund Freud – the creator of psychoanalytic theory, one of the towering intellectual figures of the twentieth century.

• The psychoanalytic account of personality remains the most comprehensive and influential theory of personality ever created. Its impact extends well beyond psychology, influencing the social sciences, the humanities, the arts, and society generally.

• Freud began his scientific career as a neurologist, using conventional medical procedures to treat patients suffering from various “nervous” disorders. Because those procedures often failed, he turned to the technique of hypnosis but soon abandoned it.

• Free association – the method which Freud eventually discovered, in which a patient is instructed to say everything that comes to mind, regardless of how trivial or embarrassing it may seem . By listening carefully to these verbal associations, Freud detected consistent themes that he believed were manifestations of unconscious wishes and fears. He found similar themes in the recall of dreams and early childhood memories.

• Conscious – our current awareness

• Preconscious – all information that is not currently “on our mind” but that we could bring into consciousness if called upon to do so (for example, the name of the resident of the Philippines).

• Unconscious – the storehouse of impulses, wishes, and inaccessible memories that affect our thoughts and behavior.