Sigmund Freud’s Theory of Personality

Previously published in Examiner

Continuing with Sigmund Freud’s three tier personality development theory: We reviewed the Id, and the Ego, which is the rationale mind, and now we come to the super ego.

Super ego

The third and most advanced level of personality is called the super ego and this does not really develop before late adolescence or early adulthood in certain people. The superego is our ability to be conscious of our actions, to know right from wrong, and it is the stage where we develop our morality.

A young child may not know he or she is doing something wrong, and may only stop that action of doing something wrong because of threat of punishment. When humans reache the superego level of development, they don’t need the threat of punishment to know that something is wrong, their instincts and social conditioning will remind them.

Basically Freud maintained that humans grow according to different stages of development, we will ignore the sexual aspect for the purpose of this discussion and look at it more closely in another article.

Freud’s psychosexual stages of development

Oral stage

The first stage of development is the oral stage because a newborn is incapable of doing much of anything besides eating, crying, and smiling. They experience life by putting things in their mouth. They learn about life by tasting things. If you ever noticed your baby at six months old, he or she is putting everything in his or her mouth because that is the way he or she learns about the environment and his or her world.

To be continued

Montreal psychologist and mental health center (provided as resources for the reader, and were not contacted for this article):

Lisa Santa-Maria Barbagallo
Web: www.lisasmb.com
Email: lisa@lisasmb.com

Queen Elizabeth Health Complex
2100 Marlowe
Montr©al, QC H4A 3L6

Sources:

http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/ss/psychosexualdev.htm