Sigmund Freud's Personality Theory

Psychoanalytic theory was created by Sigmund Freud in the twentieth century. The theory of Sigmund Freud remains the most comprehensive and influential theory of personality created till present. He discovered that the method of free association, in which a patient is instructed to say everything that comes to mind, regardless of how embarrassing it may seem. Through recalling dreams and early childhood memories, he detected that there were signs of unconscious wishes and fears.

Later on, Freud compared human mind to an iceberg, which is divided in to three parts: conscious (the small part that shows above the surface of water which represents our current awareness), preconscious (a small part below the surface of water which represents information which is present but not currently used, e.g. the name of a U.S. president) and unconscious (the much larger mass of the iceberg below the water which represents a storage of impulses, wishes and inaccessible memories that affect our thoughts and behavior).

Freud realized that the whole model was too simple to describe human personality, so he went on developing the model, and divided personality into three systems which interact to govern human behavior: the id, the ego and the superego.

Produced for Thinkquest Internet Challenge 2000.

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