What Did Freud Do For Us?

Freud helped us to understand ourselves and our inner personality. To recognize our feelings he analysed our dreams. He believed all dreams had different meanings. For example, if furniture occurs in your dreams this would symbolise women. Freud believed this because women are portrayed as house wives.


Our upbringing determines our adult personality due to the 5 stages in which we experience from birth through childhood. These 5 stages are (oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital). The most important occur between the ages of 0-5, these stages verify our behaviour later on in life. Fixation is used to explain many adult behaviour traits such as biting your nails would mean your fixated in the oral stage and if you are tight with money, you are fixated in the anal stage.


Our personality is made up of 3 parts. These are the ID, EGO and SUPEREGO. The ID is what you would call the devilish side of your personality and is present from birth, this is said to be the ‘pleasure principle’ because it demands immediate gratification.


Freud believed we use unconscious ego defence mechanisms to protect the ego from temporary threat or trauma and to help us cope with issues we may have. They are a way of coping with certain problems. Examples of defence mechanisms – repression which is forcing painful memory, feelings into the unconscious mind. Denial which is refusing to accept and aspect of reality.