Theories on Psychology a. Theory on Psychoanalysis, Pleasure Principle, and Reality Principle
psychological disturbances are due to anxiety about hidden conflicts between the unconscious components of one’s personality. These theories suggest that
psychoanalyst should be aware of the unconscious impulses, desires, and fears that are causing anxiety. Psychoanalysts believe that if the patients can understand
their unconscious motives, they have taken the first step toward gaining control over their behavior and freeing themselves of their problems.
According to Freud, unconscious impulses find expression in dreams, slips of speech, mannerism, and symptoms of mental illness as well as through such
socially approved behavior as artistic literary activity. Freud believed that all of our actions have a cause but that the cause are some unconscious motives rather
than the rational reason we may give for our behavior. We are driven by the same basic instincts as animals primarily sex and aggression and are continually
struggling against society that stresses the control of these impulses. Because Freud believed that aggression was a basic instinct, he was pessimistic about the
possibility of people ever living together peacefully Kasschau, 1995: 397-398. Psychoanalytic theories explore the private personality-the unconscious
motives that direct behavior. Psychoanalytic theory is also concerned with the way in which personality develops. Freud compared the human mind to an
iceberg. The small part that shows above the surface of the water represents conscious experience; the much larger mass below water level represents the
unconscious-a storehouse of impulses, passions, and inaccessible memories that affect our thoughts and behavior. Using the technique of free association, which
requires the patient to talk about everything that comes into his or her
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consciousness, including the recall of dreams and early childhood memories, psychoanalysis tries to help the patient to become aware of much that had been
unconscious to discover the basic determinants of personality Atkinson, 1981: 395.
In Freud’s second model, the economic model, he introduces two new concepts that govern the human psyche: the pleasure and reality principles.
According to Freud, individual exists in two different dimensions, characterized by different mental processes and principles, the unconscious and the conscious.
The conscious and the unconscious are at battle for control of a person’s actions. The unconscious or a dynamic system that not only contains our
biographical memories but also stores our suppressed and unresolved conflicts is ruled by the pleasure principle. The pleasure principle strives nothing but for
“gaining pleasure, such as immediate satisfaction, or joy”. Instant relief from all pain and suffering is its goal. The pleasure principle ignores the sexual boundaries
and moral to achieve its goal, as cited from Bressler 1999: 150. On the contrary, the unrestrained pleasure principle comes into conflict
with the natural and human environment. The individual comes to traumatic realization that a full and painless gratification of his needs is impossible. After
this experience of disappointment, a new principle arises. The new principle is called the reality principle that supersedes the pleasure principle: man learns to
give up momentary, uncertain, and destructive pleasure for delayed, restrained, but “assured” pleasure as retrieved from http:evans-experiantialism.freeweb
space.commarcuse02.htm.
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The reality principle formed in a system of institutions. The individual, growing up within such system, learns the requirements of the reality principle as
those of law and order, and transmits them to the next generation. Parents and educators enforce the reality principle http:evans-experimentialism.
freewebspace.commarcuse02.htm. The reality principle helps part of the psyche that recognizes the need for societal standards and regulations on pleasure. It
regulates the instinctual desires of the unconscious and allows these desires to be released in some non destructive way. It acts as a filter or censor of the mind. It
also encourages us to make moral judgment upon societal standards and suppresses the desires and instincts forbidden by society. The reality principle
disguises in the form of punishment. It allows us to feel guilty or afraid or ashamed Bressler, 1999: 150.
In conclusion, as cited in Guerrin 1999: 129-130, the pleasure principle governs the id, which is the reservoir of libido, the primary source of all our
aggressions and desires. It is lawless, asocial, and amoral. Its function is to gratify our instincts for pleasure without regard for social conventions, legal ethics, or
moral restraints. The id as defined by Freud is identical in many aspects to the Devil as defined by theologians.
The id is solely governed by the pleasure principle; on the other hand the ego is governed by the reality principle. The ego is the rational governing agent in
the mind. Freud as cited in Literary Theory Eagleton, 1983: 151-154 also gives
examples of acts based on the pleasure or reality principles. Human has been
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dominated by the need to labor; and for Freud that harsh necessity means that we must repress some of our tendencies for pleasure and gratification. If people do
not work in order to survive, they might simply lie around all day doing nothing. According to Freud, every human has to undergo this repression that is repression
of the pleasure principle by the reality principle. The other act that is based on the pleasure principle is narcissism. Freud said that narcissism is a state in which
one’s body or ego as a whole is ‘cathected’, or taken as an object of desire that is forced by libidinal drives.
In conclusion, pleasure principle is Freud’s notion that we are all driven to satisfy our needs. The reduction of drive gives us pleasure. It is anarchic, sadistic,
aggressive, self-involved, and remorselessly pleasure-seeking. While reality principle is the awareness that the world has reality of its own, separated from
what we wish it to be.