Please respond to this first activity(2-3 paragraphs:

Please respond to this first activity(2-3 paragraphs:

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Discuss the historical influence of Freud’s theory. How did the time period influence Freud as he developed his personality theory? 

Please complete this second activity by responding to each prompt(1-2 paragraph each):

Compare your observations on how the historical context influenced Freud’s theory with prompts below. 

Think about the historical context of your selected theory and how it may have influenced your chosen theory’s development.

Prompt 1: Sigmund Freud was a trailblazer for modern day psychology. Freud originated Psychoanalysis and distinguished himself as an intellectual giant. He discovered new ways to understand human behavior which resulted in the most comprehensive theory of personality and psychotherapy ever. Freud practiced medicine in Vienna, Austria from the 1890s-1930s when Hitler took power in the 1930s he fled his native country. Freud spent his years of life in London where he died in a pessimistic frame of mind. Due to the impending second World War Freud believed that humans have an agressive, destructive urge that will end up destroying us. Because of Freud’s Jewish heritage his career choices were limited in 1886 he opened his neurologist office in Vienna.

Freud practiced and observed hypnosis as a clinical therapist under Jean-Martin Charcot, this is when he began to formulate his theory on the mind. His work presented a new way of thinking about human nature making him the father of Psychoanalysis. He continued to modify his theory over nearly a half century. Psychoanalysis focuses on the unconscious part of a persons personality. Freud thought of the human mind as an iceberg that is mostly hidden in the unconscious. He compared the conscious level of the mind to the tip of the iceberg which is the part that can be seen. The unconscious part of the personality is what a person is unaware of, consciousness is awarness, and the preconscious is not immediate awareness but can be easily accessed. The development of defense mechanisms is a major piece of psychoanalysis which is used by the ego to protect a person from anxiety. Psychoanalysis is therapy based on observations of a person that leads to treatment for the root cause of unconscious factors that affect current relationships.

Freud contributed the talking cure to psychotherapy. Freud felt that talking helps because the person saying their thoughts and fears out loud brings them into the open in order for the conscious to deal with them. Psychotherapist can provide emaotional support to their patient’s while they are trying to figure out what is going on. Freud’s ideas were influenced by the time and place in which he lived and by the patients he saw (Funder, 2016). Many of his clients were well-to-do women that reported being sexually abused by their fathers at a young age. At first Freud believed the women but later believed the memories were fantasies made to seem real by psychological reasons.

Prompt 1:Freud’s Personality theory was developed from his use of the case method, which we learned assists in creating ideas; and through Freud’s self-reflection observation. From these case study’s Freud discovered that as he talked to his patients about their psychological problems, he could help or cure them. This process of talking became known as the psychoanalytic approach (Funder, 2016). Freud believed that personalities are constructed from interactions, and he proposed this as the: id, ego, and superego; which Freud called the three fundamental structures of the mind. Freud promoted that the three structures conflicted with each other, and a person’s efforts to find balance among the three structures, determines how people behave and approach the world.

    Furthermore, Freud believed that the balance maintained in any situation determines how conflict is resolved between behavioral tendencies. Freud believed that the id, ego, and superego are always in conflict and that adult personalities and behaviors are a result of these internal struggles manifested within childhood. Freud also promoted that conflicts of the id, ego, and superego change over time from childhood to adulthood, and these conflicts go through five stages with different focuses within each stage called: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. Freud believed that the ability to resolve these internal conflicts determines a person’s future ability to cope and function as an adult. Freud also believed that failing to resolve a stage, can lead to a person becoming fixated in the stage; which leads to an unhealthy personality trait.

    Freud faced criticism about his theory, one major criticism was his theory was not supported by empirical data. Another criticism was his approach was male-dominated. Although various professionals have found faults within Freud theory, his approach to explain personalities is the only complete theory ever proposed (Funder, 2016). Freud’s theory was influential not only because he proposed the only complete theory of personality, but because he developed questions concerning personalities and created a theory to answer those questions. Freud provided a framework that could guide future personality-based studies, even if his theory is proven wrong, his theory was the catalyst for future studies about personalities.

    I believe that because no one introduced any complete theories of personality during Freud’s time, Freud saw an unexplored area and provided a theory. Knowing that future professionals would study his work and eventually reach the proper conclusion about personalities. This may be the reason why Freud wouldn’t turn over his case studies to be analyzed, and why he didn’t use experimental data. By Freud not providing these items or conducting experiments, this would promote others within the profession to study personality, which could have been Freud’s main purpose in the long run.

D.C. Funder. (2016). Personality Puzzle (7^th ed.). W. W. Norton & Company Inc. New York, NY.