HCJ week5- Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud was a well known as a founder of psychoanalysis, who believed that self-conscious emotions and childhood experiences- mostly those sexual in nature- have an effect on what we become.
Freud thought that our self love as a race was a barrier to science in three ways:
1. It stopped us accepting that the Earth wasn’t the centre of the universe.
2. Darwin’s theory of revolution
3. The conscious brain was not in charge.
The key point in Freud’s theory is unconsciousness.

Freud wasn’t the inventor of the conscious/ unconscious idea but he was the one who made it well known and popular. The conscious mind is when a person is aware of what’s happening in the particular moment, their thoughts, fantasies, etc. There was a theory that Freud called preconscious, which is also known as ‘available memory’. Freud found this theory by working closely with the conscious mind. His patients were aware that anything could be made conscious.

Unconscious is the biggest part. This is when people are not aware of what’s happening in the particular situation. It also includes things such as drives and instincts because they are not available to awareness.

Freud’s theory of human nature presents a division of mind into 3 parts:
Id- it’s got animal instincts, people grow up with the aim to fit in the society.
Ego- it’s responsible for adjusting our internal urges to the demands and limits of the environment.
Superego- tells us what’s right and what’s wrong- The Police In Your Head.
Ego and Superego help us survive adopt to the social environment.


The battle between the Superego, Ego and id can result in Repression. It includes:
Sublimation, which means turning sexual energy into something else, like art or sport.
Displacement, which involves shameful thoughts that turn you into something/ someone else.
Projection, which sends feelings onto someone else.
Rationalisation- more socially acceptable explanation.
Regression- returning to earlier stage of development.