Freud's Psychoanalytic Theories

Sigmund Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) is considered to be the founder of the psychodynamic approach to psychology, which looks to unconscious drives to explain human behavior. Sigmund Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) is considered to be the founder of the psychodynamic approach to psychology, which looks to unconscious drives to explain human behavior. Freud believed that the mind is responsible for both conscious and unconscious decisions that it makes on the basis of psychic drives. The id, ego, and super ego are three aspects of the mind Freud believed to make up a person's personality. Freud believed people are 'simply actors in the drama of own minds, pushed by desire, pulled by coincidence. Underneath the surface, our personalities represent the power struggle going on deep within us'. Freud did not believe in the existence of a supernatural force which has pre-programmed us to behave in a certain way. His idea of the id explains why people act out in certain ways, when it is not in line with the ego or superego. 'Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.' Freud believed that people rely on religion to give explanations for anxieties and tension they do not want to consciously believe in. Freud argued that humanity created God in their image. This reverses the idea of any type of religion because he believed that it is constructed by the mind. The role of the mind is something that Freud repeatedly talked about because he believed that the mind is responsible for both conscious and unconscious decisions based on drives and forces. The idea that religion causes people to behave in a moral way is incorrect according to Freud because he believed that no other force has the power to control the ways in which people act. Unconscious desires motivate people to act accordingly.Freud did a significant amount of research studying how people act and interact in a group setting. He believed that people act in different ways according to the demands and constraints of the group as a whole. In his book Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, Freud argued that the church and organized religion form an 'artificial group' which requires an external force to keep it together. In this type of group, everything is dependent on that external force and without it, the group would no longer exist. Groups are necessary, according to Freud in order to decrease the narcissism in all people, by creating libidinal ties with others by placing everyone at an equal level. The commonness among different people with different egos allows people to identify with one another. This relates to the idea of religion because Freud believed that people created religion in order to create these group ties that they unconsciously seek for.