2.3 An overview of psychoanalytic theories involved

Since psychoanalysis is a huge structure, it is necessary to make a brief introduction about the theories which are going to be utilized in the paper. 

2.3.1 Personality structure

Personality structure, or personality theory, based on unconscious is the core of Freud’s psychoanalytic theories (Che, 2014). It reflects the main thrust of his ideas — the development of unconscious and sexual instinct, and expresses the basic point of his ideas — the dynamic relation between instinct and society.

In earlier stage, Freud pides human psyche into three structures, which are unconscious, preconscious and conscious, and among which he deemed unconscious as the most important, because it is the basic of deep level psyche and the inner drive of human activity, and it decides the whole conscious live (1990 b). 

In later stage, he developed his previous theory into tripartite personality structure, which includes id, ego and super-ego. Id refers to the primitive and inherent unconscious structure part, and it consists of instincts. Id follows the pleasure principle, seeking satisfaction blindly. Ego is the supervisory and coordinative structure part, which represents reason and nous. It follows the reality principle, supervising and properly satisfying Id as a mediator. Super-ego is the most moral structure part derived and developed from ego, which represents conscience, ego ideal and ethics passed down from ones parents and their proxies. It follows the perfection principle, guiding ego and restricting id in order to achieve self-fulfillment. In Freud’s view, only aforementioned three keep balanced will people’s personality develop healthily; otherwise it will result in neurosis (1990 b). Freud’s personality structure can greatly help us to analyze the thought and behavior of people.