24th October 2023

Models of the Mind

Freud’s theory of how the mind was structured developed over time, along with his clinical practice. He moved from the topographical model to instinct/drive theory before settling on his structural theory of the mind. We’ll cover how he theorised the mind was divided, including the function of each aspect and how these models developed and changed over time. Let’s first look at the topographical model:

Topographical model

Within The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud also covered his first theory on how the mind was divided. In this topographical model, the mind was split into – The conscious system, the preconscious system, and the unconscious system. These are elaborated on below:

The conscious system

• Brings perceptions from the body and mind into awareness.
• Communicates contents by language and behaviours only.
• Freud believed consciousness utilised a form of psychic energy, referred to as attention cathexis, to process ideas or feelings.

The preconscious system

• Contents and processes that are able to be brought into awareness by the focus of attention.
• Acts as an interface between the conscious and unconscious systems.
• Acts to maintain the ‘repressive barrier’ to keep unacceptable or unpleasant memories, desires, or impulses out of awareness.

The unconscious system

• Contents are kept out of awareness by repression.
• Governed by the pleasure principle to seek pleasure and avoid pain.
• Characterised by primary process thinking, with the aim of fulfilling desires.
• Felt to be closely linked to both one’s instinctual sexual and self protective drives.
• Can only enter awareness by transferring through the preconscious system first.

Limitations of the topographical model

Freud realised that the use of defence mechanisms (denial, displacement, repression, etc.) to protect oneself from unpleasant or distressing feelings, thoughts, or desires was not utilised in awareness and, therefore, not accessible by the conscious system. This meant that his theory of repression and the preconscious system being the same was not viable, as content in the preconscious system should be able to be brought into the conscious system by the focus of attention. Secondly, Freud also observed that his patients would often express an unconscious need for punishment. This conflicted with the theory that the unconscious, in part, was linked to the self protective drive to avoid pain.

Instinct/drive theory

Following the topographical model, Freud focussed on instinct theory, using mainly biological terms, which raised some problems when describing psychological constructs. In biological terms, instinct defined behaviours that were genetically derived, whereas in modern research, instinctual patterns are learned through experience. Instinct and drive are used interchangeably in modern terms. Freud’s theory of instinct was split into four principal aspects:

Source – The part of the body from where the instinct comes from.

Impetus – The amount of intensity related to the instinct.

Aim – Any actions related towards discharging tension of or fulfilling the wish of the instinct.

Object – The target of the above action(s).

Instincts

Libido – Freud defined libido as the ‘force by which the sexual instinct is represented in the mind’. He recognised that libido did not begin fully formed in the mind, and rather, it underwent a long and complex process throughout psychosexual development.

Ego – Freud theorised that there were both sexual instincts and ego instincts related to self-preservation. He felt there was both an ego libido and an object libido. Any narcissistic elements were considered as related to libido, and the remaining non-sexual aspects were part of the ego instinct.

Aggression – In modern psychoanalysis, dual instinct theory refers to libido and aggression. However, Freud thought of aggression as part of the sexual instincts in the form of sadism. Realising that there were non-sexual aspects to aggression, he later placed these (including hate) as part of the ego instinct and any sadistic parts as sexual instinct. Later, he further defined this with aggression being its own separate instinct, with the source being skeletal muscles, and the aim was for destruction.

Life and death – Freud referred to these as eros (life) and Thanatos (death). These were thought to underlie both the sexual and aggressive instincts, with Freud believing the dominant force in biological terms being thanatos.

Pleasure and reality principles

In 1911, Freud redefined his primary and secondary process theory into pleasure and reality principles. The pleasure principle is the ingrained process of aiming to avoid pain and seek pleasure. The reality principle, instead, is a learned process associated with mature development and is based on the idea of delayed gratification.

Structural model

In his 1923 publication, The Ego and the Id, Freud moved from the topographical model to further develop his theories of the reality and pleasure principles with the structural model of the mind, a theory that is still maintained today in modern psychology. In this model, he divided the mind into the id, ego, and superego. These are elaborated on below:

Id

This contains our instinctual drives present from birth, including both the life (eros) and death (thanatos) instincts (as above). It operates on the pleasure principle and is unable to make changes to or delay these inbuilt drives.

Ego

Felt to contain all three of the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious systems from the topographical model. As part of the conscious and preconscious, it is responsible for verbal expression and different forms of thinking (logical / abstract). It also contains the defence mechanisms, as covered in the previous section, which are in the unconscious part. It operates on the reality principle and processes decisions by moderating between the instinctual drives of the Id and the stimuli the ego receives from the outside world.

Superego

In control of maintaining an individual’s morals based on ideas and values learned from their parents around age 5/6. The superego continues to examine one’s behaviour and thoughts, comparing against expected standards and providing positive or negative feedback (e.g. feelings of guilt). This occurs mostly unconsciously but, interestingly, can be thought of as what we would commonly call our ‘conscience’.

Analytic psychology

Carl Jung, a Swiss Psychiatrist who had initially worked with Freud, formed his own school of psychoanalysis known as analytic psychology. In this, he related to and widely expanded on Freud’s theories of the mind. The main aspects of this work are defined and elaborated on below:

Personal unconscious – Interchangeable with Freud’s unconscious, containing an individual’s repressed, ignored, or forgotten experiences.

Collective unconscious – Jung expanded on unconsciousness to define a common collective unconscious that includes all of humankind’s shared mythological and symbolic past. Within this are what he called archetypes – defined as representative symbolic images that are universally known and understood throughout modern society (e.g. explorer, caregiver, outlaw).

Archetypes – Archetypes also exist for the roles of father, mother, child, and many more. These are felt to impact the development of complexes; for example, a mother complex would occur from the conflict between an archetypal expectation of what it is to be a mother vs the real life experience of being a parent and the interaction with their child.

Introversion/extroversion – Jung was responsible for noticing and naming the contemporary terms of introversion and extroversion, with these being the two types of personality organisation. As you’ll be aware, introverts tend to focus inward on their own thoughts and feelings rather than the external world, whereas extroverts engage more with this, including people and objects. In general, people are a mixture of both personality types.

Other concepts

Jung defined several other concepts to illustrate and explain different facets of personality and how we display these to the outside world. The basic principles are detailed below:

Persona – A mask covering personality which represents the ‘face’ shown to the outside world.

Anima – The unconscious feminine side of man.

Animus – The unconscious masculine side of a woman.

Individuation – The main aim of analytical therapy is to achieve adaptation to reality and fulfilment of creative potential. The ultimate goal is to reach individuation. This involves a person developing their own unique sense of identity via integration of their personality, undeveloped psyche, and external experiences into a well functioning whole.

References

• Sadock, B.J., Sadock, V.A., & Ruiz, P. (2015). Kaplan and Sadock’s Synopsis of Psychiatry:
• Behavioral Sciences/Clinical Psychiatry (11th ed.). Wolters Kluwer. 154-160, 179-180.