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Inside Collection (Textbook): A Self Help and Improvement Book: Useful Psychology Information (An Integration of Personality, Social, Interaction, Communication and Well-Being Psychology)
Importance: What is the significance in saying that people have large unconscious sexual needs? The sexual drive is more aggressive, compulsive and powerful than ordinary motivation. Therefore saying that someone is sexually motivated means that there is a strong drive behind that person. The sexual drive could therefore motivate someone to simply be more aggressive in general, not just in terms of their sexual interest. The sexual theories of Freud indicate how selfish and aggressive people can be. The pleasure/pain principle can explain how every action (from the ego and the id) is a striving for pleasure and an avoidance of pain, and that people reach compromises to achieve a balance (for instance, avoiding social scorn (pain) while achieving getting pleasure). However, from the Freudian standpoint, the pleasure principle was only a part of the sexual instincts, and the reality principle was a part of the ego instincts. So with everything people do, not just sexual things, they want pleasure.
Freud wasn’t clear as to exactly what the ego was (what it is and what it does), and this is because the ego is just a way of thinking about how people function, it doesn’t represent accurately how people perform. Everyone is to some extent instinctual (id, so possibly overly sexual) and to some extent rational (ego), and these forces are balancing themselves all of the time. However, when people reach decisions, it isn’t like there is literally a battle going on in their mind between the id, the ego and the superego. People don’t think, “let me consider my instinctual drives, no wait let me stop that drive, no wait let me function by reality and see what is logical (the ego)”. The ego is logical because it included social and moral restrictions. So it is like people have a range of ways to respond to the world, instinctively (the id), rationally (the ego), and hyper-rationally/cautious (the superego). These aspects of the mind may be considered to each be so strong that they can be considered separate things, however – and that is how Freud’s classification helps.
Importance of defense mechanisms of the ego: Defensive reactions (to protect your mind from "threats" such as self-condemnation from the superego and powerful drives from the id) are from the ego because the ego responses to reality and is rational and so are defensive reactions. If someone is acting defensively it is not like they are acting off their own instincts as much if they were to do something selfishly motivated, but instead from rationality, it is rational to be under control and reasonable. The ego represses the id by using defensive mechanisms. For instance - someone who is aggressive randomly probably is being more selfish in nature and more instinctual than someone who acts aggressively for rationally and is just being defensive (the ego). When someone acts for their own benefit it is more instinctual because people are driven by instinct to want various things that may cause them to become aggressive. Being defensive can be viewed as being instinctual, but it isn’t nearly as instinctual as someone doing something from a large selfish motivation – because that is much more natural and innate – and large emotions, especially powerful ones (as used in aggression) are more instinctual than thought and rational action because they are more like automatic reflexes, similar to how instinct is automatic. It is like being aggressive for selfish reasons is so selfish that it is instinctual and automatic, however when someone is defensive they are just being logical, not acting off their natural instinct of desire.
Even just acting aggressive independent of triggers can be a power play that can make people feel better about themselves. That would be considered more a function of the id, whereas defensive mechanisms would be considered a part of the ego because a defensive reaction isn’t instinctual it is logical and based in reality, not based off of immediate gratification. Someone that wants something passionately is driven by instinct to want that thing. The more powerful the emotion and the drive, the more instinctual it probably is. It is hard to have a large drive that you create consciously, however instinct can be a powerful force to aid conscious desires. When people are defensive they are being less selfish (and less driven) than when they act off of instinct and pursue their own objectives for immediate gratification.
Importance: It is important that he labeled the life and death instincts as instincts because that word “instinct” alone suggests more information about them. It implies that people are constantly wanting to die and constantly wanting to live, and that people do all the actions and beliefs to achieve those two things. For instance, aggression is destructive and not productive, so it might suggest someone wants to die. But at the same time people want to live, they want to be productive and love. It suggests that these emotions of love and hate are with people constantly, that there is a complex dynamic going on that includes people having strong opposing emotions.
Importance: What the unconscious wants might seem not logical, but it probably is the truth and very logical because your unconscious mind knows what you want better than your conscious one. Your conscious mind is limited by your logic, but unconsciously feelings motivate your actions without the logic of the conscious but with purpose that is logical. So the person joining the army is actually being logical because it is fulfilling their unconscious desires, even though consciously they don’t understand that. However, you might do also something stupid if you acted just off your unconscious, but it would have been for something you really wanted, so the action would have been logical in one way. An example for that might be shoplifting, you unconsciously want to get the item but you aren’t aware that you might get caught. If the person was more conscious, they would have been more aware that they might get caught and not done the shoplifting (but the shoplifting might have still been considered logical because it would be getting you what you want). Or maybe you unconsciously want to get caught, that would further motivate you to steal the item. The unconscious desire might satisfy current feelings but it wouldn’t be aware of the long term consequences of getting caught. Or maybe the opposite is true, your unconscious might be more aware of the long term result of stealing but not as aware of the short term benefit (it probably depends on what you are feeling at the time)– the unconscious isn’t logical.
Importance: It is very significant if the people around you are trying to be superior all the time. That could be viewed as being extremely bad, and that they have an inner monster. It could also be viewed as a strength, and that competition between people is healthy. There could be innocent competition or intense, hurtful competition. Some people may lightly care about their superiority and others more heavily.
Importance: Hartmann seemed to be labeling lack of bowel control and eating messily as instincts. Those aren’t exactly instincts they are just functions a human does without thought. There is a relation between lack of thought and instincts, if someone does everything without thought it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are doing everything instinctually, however. Instinct is something natural not just something unlearned. So things that are natural might be changed, it can become natural to control bowel movements. What makes a baby eat messily is just him not thinking about how he should eat, that doesn’t make it the natural way of eating necessarily. For something to really be natural it would probably have to be a strong drive. It could be that the baby has a drive to eat tidily, it just doesn’t understand that it has this drive yet. So it could be that the baby is acting un-instinctively first in his development simply because first he doesn’t think about how he should eat. Just because someone does something first and it is unlearned doesn’t mean that it is a natural tendency for someone to do something unlearned. People can have strong drives to do learned activities the drives just won’t manifest themselves until the activity is learned because it can’t manifest unless it is. On the other hand, childish sexual impulses can reflect the true nature of sexual wishes in adulthood because you can see what sexual impulses are like without the other intellectual development of adults, revealing their true nature. In fact, Freud believed that infantile sexuality played a large role in determining adult goals.
Importance: It is interesting to see that as people develop they learn the proper way to function in society, and that this way may be different from how they really wish to respond to the world. People have to conform to society in many ways, if everyone’s inner animal was released society wouldn’t function as properly as it does. It is almost as if for every action, there is a secondary motivation or desire that might not be being fulfilled. But if people just functioned from the id, they would be in a constant state of bliss, receiving large amounts of pleasurable emotions from their instinctual drives. There is a higher order of thought that moderates the unconscious mind and people’s instinctual drives. What would people’s emotions be like if there was no ego or superego? Would people be in a constant state of sexual bliss? Or would it be a constant state of happiness? I would say half of our emotions come from sexual drives, and the other half from happiness. Things leading to happiness can be relatively harmless, like good jokes, conversation, visual stimulus and other activity stimulus. Things that happen, such as sexual encounters, or conversations, can influence a persons emotions for the rest of the day. If the ego and superego were taken away, people would experience emotions in a pure form, because the unconscious is emotional and instinctual.
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Last edited by Mark Pettinelli on Jul 16, 2011 11:18 am -0500.
