analyze the personality of Abraham Lincoln using the concepts and terminology of the theory you have chosen in the course project document. Your analysis should include the following:

• Your subject’s personality structure and dynamics
• Psychological or character types, if part of the theory
• Personality development from childhood to adulthood
• Effect of environment on personality, including learned behavior
• Possible causes of positive and negative aspects of the subject’s personality

Sigmund Freud was born raised in the Austrian city of Freiberg on May 6th, 1856. At four years old, his family shifted to Vienna, the town where he lived and worked for most of  his life. He earned his medical degree in 1881 to become a distinguished psychoanalyst. After his graduation, Freud promptly established a private practice and started treating various psychological disorders. Early in his career, Freud became largely influenced by the works of his friend and Viennese accomplice, Josef Breuer. Inspired by Breuer, Sigmund Freud posited that neuroses originated from deeply traumatic experiences from a patient’s past.

Among  the most appreciated publications of Freud is Studies on Hysteria (Studien über Hysterie) a book he co-authored with Josef Breuer. The book describes their professional roles and studies of a number of patients suffering from hysteria. The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens) is another of Freud’s book that is considered as most successful as it outlines his psychoanalytic theory. The book peeps at a number of deviations that occur during daily life, including Freudian slips, speech errors and concealed memories.

Sigmund Freud came up with the Psychoanalysis theory of personality which argues that human behavior is the summative result of the interactions existing in  three components of the mind: the id, ego, and superego.

Id  is  the most primitive component of the three structures, as it  is concerned with instant gratifications of the basic physical needs and desires. It entirely operates outside of the conscious thoughts.
The superego is largely concerned with social rules and morals that is similar to what is popularly referred to as moral compass. It gradually develops immediately a child learns about their cultureand what is considered as  right or wrong.

The ego is the most rational and pragmatic part of human personality. It is less primitive than id and is partly conscious and also partly unconscious. It is what Freud considered to be the inner self and its role is to balance the popular demands of the id and superego in the most practical context of reality.

This theory, commonly to as Freud’s structural theory of personality development, accords great emphasis on the roles of unconscious psychological conflict in shaping human behavior and personality. Dynamic interactions in these fundamental parts of the mind are thought to continually progress through five distinctive psychosexual stages of human development. These are:

The Oral stage that develops between the age of 0 – 1.5 years. Here there is fixation on all things orally. If not satisfactorily met there is a possibility of a child developing negative oral habits and behaviors.

The Anal stage comes in between 1.5 to 3 years of age. This stage is primarily related to the popular development of  healthy toilet training habits.

The Phallic stage occurs between the age of 3 – 5 year of age. There is the development of healthy substitutes or rather alternatives for the sexual attraction that boys and girls have towards a parent of the opposite sex.

The Latency stage occurs between the age of 5 – 12 years. This stage involves the development of healthy and dormant sexual feelings for an individual of the opposite sex.

The Genital stage that occurs at the age of 12 – adulthood. In this stage, all the accumulated tasks from the previous four stages get  integrated into the mind thus allowing for the beginning of healthy sexual attraction, feelings and behaviors.

The theory, however,  explains the development of pathological behavior, Sigmund Freud’s theory explains that  human behavior  is an instinctive drive, related to how a person was brought up and not the situation, and thus is an unavoidable part of human life (Glassman, 2004). Freud believed destructive energy, expresses itself majorly through  aggression to others, and also  as self-destructive behavior. Moreover, the primitive forces of life and death instincts, seek to constant expression and satisfaction, and at same time, opposing each other in our subconscious part. This conflict is the genesis  of all bad behaviors.

REFERENCE

Bargh, J. A., & Chartrand, T. L. (1999). The unbearable automaticity of being. American psychologist, 54(7), 462.

Breuer, J., & Freud, S. (1895). Studies on hysteria. Standard Edition 2: London.

Fisher, S., & Greenberg, R. P. (1996). Freud scientifically reappraised: Testing the theories and therapy. John Wiley & Sons.

Freud, S. (1894). The neuro-psychoses of defence. SE, 3: 41-61.

Freud, S. (1896). Further remarks on the neuro-psychoses of defence. SE, 3: 157-185.