Case Study On Sigmund Freud’S Personality Theory
Personality is the distinguished characters one differs from another person. These characters always are performed by individuals thinking, acting or feeling styles. Someone may be easy going and positive; someone may be cold and organized; and someone may be careless and negative. According Freud’s personality theory, it is due to one’s unconsciousness to show the characters. Id, ego and superego influence individual’s personality in every aspect in the daily life.
Eve decided to quit her job when she was forty. She wanted to emigrate and start everything once more before she was older. Everyone was surprised. She would get a promotion to be the leader of her company. She had a good pay. She preferred to give up everything she had had. According to Freud’s psychoanalytical theory people behave due to the conflict between his/her unconscious sexual and aggression drives. To match the society rules, people try to control these drives which must be leading to a conflict within them. The Id, ego and superego interact together and result in the conflict. The unconscious id works on a pleasure principle to satisfy the wants; at the same time, the conscious super-ego works to meet the society expectations. The ego controls the conflict between the Id and the superego to make the behavior meet the reality principle while satisfy the wants from individual’s unconscious. Freud thinks all adult experiences come from their childhood experiences related with their parents. His psychosexual stage hypothesizes that during the phallic phase when Eve should have been forming attachment to her mother, she was experiencing separating with her parents.
According to Freud this has led to the issues in his adult life. Eve complained that she was too tired to work as a “sandwich” person. There were a lot of trades under the table. She felt hopeless. She wanted to suicide, but she did not do it because she had a little girl to be taken care of. Struggling with the pain in her heart, she decided to leave – far away from everything she was familiar with – with her daughter. From Freud’s perspective, Eve’s behaviors proves in a conflict between the Id and Superego that she’s having within herself, the Ego initiates certain defense mechanisms in order to reduce that anxiety. Firstly she used a defense of sublimation. Freud argues Eve has mentally shut out what seems to trouble her by converting that anxiety onto something else.
Focusing on work could be one way to minimize thinking about issues. She transferred that anxiety to her work more. Eve might see hard working as a something she can consciously control in order to help shut out the issues she is having. Secondly, Eve complained her job. She tried to be the best and she made it. But the higher position was not an ideal place for her. Obviously, there was something different with her imagination of the job. Eve could have employed a defense mechanism known as repression so that she could consciously ignore issues by not facing them. This is exemplified when Eve decided that the best way to deal with work concerns was best dealt by leaving the situation that was eliciting those feelings. Carl Jung has a different statement about Eve’s behaviors.
Carl Jung supported Freud in his early age because of their similar thoughts of the unconscious. But they split because most of Jung's assumptions of his analytical psychology reflect his theoretical differences with Freud. Jung thinks the psyche and personality are a whole – there is a balance between conscious and unconscious. For Eve, she is balancing herself. Her unconscious are coming to the surface because her conscious is dominating too much. An integration of the consciousness and unconsciousness needs to be happened. Or this can lead to problems. Eve chose to leave her favorite job because the breathless and darkness of the circumstance. That was her unconsciousness working. According to Carl Jung, there are two main behavior types – Introverted and Extraverted. And the integration of these two types’ behaviors forms the people’s personality. Each of the type has four functions – thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition. Eve is more Introverted Sensation. Her bad feelings made her make the choice to keep the internal self-balance. Her body and mind told her that she was tired. She thought death was the best way to take a rest. But her daughter needed her. She struggled with her suicidal idea. Eventually, she found that to help her daughter to grow up means a lot for her. After thinking about these issues, she found a solution – to start a new life making life meaningful. She found the Self and she is finishing the integration of her consciousness and unconsciousness. Although Eve is doing well now, she needs the therapy to help her deal with the possible hard time.
Freud’s approach links Eve’s experiences from childhood and connects them to the unresolved conflict that Eve maybe unconsciously having. The cause should due to conflicts between Eve’s unconscious immediate needs and the suppression of those needs by societal norms. Freud’s approach looked at the different aspects of human conditioning and summarized it into a practical framework. In Eve’s case her framework explored childhood memories as well as his unconscious experiences and thoughts. Therefore, in order to analyze Eve’s situation, a psychoanalytical approach is recommended as being the best option given the facts.
