Question

Q- How are thoughts and actions governed by the preconscious, conscious, and unconscious? Why are ego-defense mechanisms necessary? Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of Freudian theory of personality development.

Answer 1

• The conscious mind hold all our thoughts which we are aware of,preconscious mind holds thoughts which are supressed but can be brought into awareness if needed and unconscious mind hold all those thoughts which we do not want to deal it.
• Our unconscious mind mostly holds all our negative and painful thoughts,which we do not wish to face,as it may because disturbances in our life.For example,if you have faced a near death accident,or death of a loved one,you do not want to remember such events as they have been emotionally heavy on you.
• Our conscious mind involves what we are currently thinking and aware about,much similar to short term memory.
• The preconcious mind has thoughts which are not conscious but can be brought into awareness,when required.For instance,if someone asks you what you had for breakfast,you would be pulling this information out of preconscious.Phone numbers,bank account numbers,addresses etc. are stored in your preconscious.
• Unconscious mind also holds our desires,feelings,habits and impulses,which might be unacceptable by the society,so when tend to repress it.Such impulses which are unacceptable and painful tend to influence our behaviours thus causing anxiety.
• Freud considered all the memories and thoughts which are painful,shameful,distressing to be kept in our unconscious mind which we do not want to be a part of the conscious awareness,which is why we make use of defense mechanisms to deal with the anxiety caused by these feelings.
• They protect us from distress,threats to self esteem and things we dont wish to think about.For example,denial defense mechanism is used when we completely deny the existence of the problem.We are unable to face the reality or admit the truth.
• It helps to protect our ego from things,with which we cannot cope.They are helpful for protecting our ego from stress and providing a healthy outlet but over use can have negative impacts and may act as self deception.
• Freud empahsized too much on sexual issues as the basis of conflicts and disregarded the importance of interpersonal and other social factors in causing mental illness.
• Though his theory and therapy helped to provide in depth study of the hidden thoughts which form the root cause of our behaviours,which also helped the patients to gain an insight into their unconscious mind and make life altering changes to lead a healthy life.