Psychoanalysis' breaking-through
Discussion on personality constitution must begin with contemporary
psychology: Let's begin with the differences between consciousness,
subconsciousness and hidden consciousness. Consciousness
is the range a person's thoughts can reach; subconsciousness
includes one's thought activities he deliberately ignores, but
emerge to his consciousness after people remind him of them;
hidden
consciousness includes modern people's accumulated thoughts
all pressed together, that only through hypnosis or when one
becomes psychopathic would these thoughts resurface. Psychoanalysis
can be divided into three sections: (1) id; (2)
ego; (3) superego. Id is the most primitive section
of human thoughts. It is like when we smell something very tasty,
we reflectively drip down saliva from our mouths or we grab
the food instinctively and send it into our mouths without delay.
This is primitive reflection; our desires not being constrained
by anything is "id". Ego is one's various emotional
reactions to the surrounding environment; that is, ego concerns
about the relation between oneself and his surrounding environment.
Human being's mental activities must on the one hand deal with
one's primitive desires and on the other make our primitive
desires fit to our practical living environment, hence our ego
has to give rise to various mental defenses. Superego states
that, even though the relation between man and his environment
is very intimate, but man cannot live in harmony with his environment
if he is being very obstinate. Superego deals with matters from
a community's standpoint; it is abiding by social virtues. Human
beings' id, ego and superego never stop interacting with each
other. Id is a desire instinct; ego is the cooperation between
oneself and the environment, under the condition that it also
has self-centeredness at its starting point; superego then has
the environment as well as concerns for group survival as its
starting point. Without any one of them in balance with each
other will result in serious imbalance of one's personality.
For instance, if our ego is too weak, facing the judgment of
our superego or the society's criticism, we will easily loose
track and feel inferior about ourselves. But if we have an aggressive
ego, we will do anything to benefit ourselves at other people's
expenses and disrupt social order as well. If our id is too
strong, we will become aggressive, attacking others like an
animal.
An infant's growth can be divided into three different stages
in accordance with his psychosexual development:
oral stage, anus stage and phallic stage. Between
the time when a child is born until he is one-and-a-half years
old, it is oral stage constituted with more id than the other
two. Survival, eating, drinking and crying when hungry form
the central part of a baby's life. If an infant is not taken
care of properly at this stage, when the infant grows up it
will become negative influences on him. So do not think an infant
is too young, too little to know what goes on around him or
to him; it is very frightening to know how fast mental problems
are planted without warning in one's mind during this stage.
Before an infant is born, he already has some instincts that
will aid him in his survival after he is born, like crying when
he feels hungry. Many information of the outside world are provided
by the pregnant woman to her baby in the womb; so a pregnant
woman's emotional as well as physical reactions to the outside
world are important elements affecting the development of fetus'
personality. Therefore, a mother-to-be should pay more attention
to keep her physical and mental conditions in appropriate states.
