Understanding Freud’s Drives and Levels of Consciousness
5. Two Types of Drives:
When we start to conduct a need arises. These instincts or impulses arise. The life instincts, called Eros, relate to organizational needs such as hunger, thirst, and sexual satisfaction (search for pleasure). The death instincts, called Thanatos, refer to the return of the body to the inorganic state. Self-destructive behaviors or actions that are cruel and destructive are capable of being exhibited by people during wars or crises.
7. Define the Three Levels of Consciousness:
Aware:
This coincides with what is commonly known as consciousness.
Preconscious:
This consists of mental processes that form part of the unconscious but can become conscious and then cease to be recovered memories.
Only a small part of the psychological processes of the ego and superego are conscious. By contrast, much of these psychic processes are preconscious.
The unconscious represses everything that does not enter consciousness. These processes run in the id, ego, and also some superego. There are also defense mechanisms and emotional content that are repressed.
Censorship: It is a permanent role. It constitutes a selective barrier between the unconscious systems, on one hand, and the preconscious-conscious systems, on the other, and is therefore the source of repression.
9. What Are Defense Mechanisms?
Defense mechanisms are largely unconscious techniques we use to reduce distress or anxiety produced by the frustrations and conflicts that arise between the ego, id, and superego. The self avoids allowing internal drives to affect daily life. When we use these mechanisms, we may face some psychological issues.
Repression: This involves rejecting or keeping out of awareness all mental contents that the subject considers unacceptable or painful. This is carried out thanks to censorship.
Fixation: The person remains anchored in a phase of psychological development and growth for fear, behaving as if they had been at that stage of development. This is considered immature.
Rationalization: This involves giving reasons and explanations to convince oneself and others so that the desires and repressed ideas cease to cause anxiety.
Compensation: This is when a person compensates for failure in one facet of life by achieving success in another. This can be a facade when the person, to avoid frustrations and anxiety, tries to appear more than they really are.
Sublimation: This involves diverting sexual drives toward other activities that are highly acceptable in society, such as sports, art, etc.
10. What Does Freud Understand by Sexuality?
Freud understood that sexuality is at the behest of the id, ego, and superego. This should not be equated with the genital, but refers to activities that seek bodily pleasure, and sexuality is already present in children from a few months old.
Oral Stage (up to 18 months):
The first organ that comes as an erogenous zone is the mouth. At first, it obeys the instinct of self-preservation through food. They develop personality traits of the future individual. These traits, sorted by pairs of opposites, are: selfishness/altruism, optimism/pessimism, introversion/extraversion.
Anal Stage (18 months to 3 years or 6 years):
In this stage, children experience bowel movements, and the control of the sphincter is pleasurable. They learn to postpone gratification and to control anal instinctual needs.
In this phase, personality traits originate:
- Retention: order, parsimony, meticulousness.
- Expulsion: aggressiveness, confusion, prodigality.
Phallic Stage (3 to 5-6 years):
The genitals become the primary erogenous zone. The child externalizes pride in the possession of the penis (in boys) and experiences penis envy (in girls). In this phase, the Oedipus complex develops, which is different for boys and girls.
• The boy takes the mother as the object of libido and the father as the symbol of authority, which prohibits the possession of the libido.
• The girl experiences the Oedipal situation differently; her libidinal object is the father.
During this phase, the tone for relationships with others is set, and the assertion of identity and self-love originates.
Latency Stage (6-12 years):
In this stage, sexual and aggressive drives are sublimated, and the released energy is directed towards the acquisition of knowledge and relationships with others. Its manifestations are dimmed.
At this stage, social learning takes place, and consciousness begins to appear.
Genital Stage (from puberty):
Individuals stop being autoerotic and begin to seek relationships with others. From this point, the sexual changes in men and women diverge considerably.
Ultimately, personality traits develop positively. To move forward in shaping character, the child must obtain a certain optimal quota of oral satisfaction. If the child does not receive enough oral satisfaction, they tend to remain in that stage (fixation). This can manifest as an obsession with order or the opposite tendency to disorder (fixation on the anal stage). An adult may exhibit certain behaviors typical of the stage where they were pampered (regression).