The psychoanalytic theory was developed by Sigmund Freud who sought to make an impact on the world. This theory was developed in the late nineteenth century, and it is said to bring out what is at the unconscious or subconscious level up to consciousness (Ackerman, 208). Freud argued that the behavior of people could be understood through examining their unconsciousness, and thus he believed that if there was a disturbance in a persons life it was most probably related to something in their unconscious. According to Freud, people could access their unconscious through different ways such as slips of the tongue, in their dreams, and by using their sense of humor. These would manifest unconscious conflicts and bring them to the persons conscious state causing them to act in a certain way.
The psychoanalytic theory also explains self as the mental structure. A person is never one thing but is instead a multiplicity of interacting systems and processes (Watson, 204). Multiple different factors contribute to this concept of self, and in order to understand a persons behavior, one would have to explore and examine those factors first. As human beings, we have two drives or instincts which enable us to
live. The life instinct, Eros, which includes our urge to survive and sexual drive, and the death instinct, Thanatos, which is a persons destructive tendencies and the instinct that we need to be prepared to fight for what we need or want. As explained above, unconsciousness is one of those factors, childhood is another. Freud focused heavily on the early years of life (particularly the first five) and the implications it could have on a persons life. He believed that they had a substantial impact, and were able to explain why a person behaved the way they did. Furthermore, a persons relationship with self is determined by the functioning of their id, ego, and superego. The ego acts a balance between the id which works on the pleasure principle and the superego which is often referred to as your conscience. Both sides of the balance need to be kept in check because if one ends up dominating the other, it could lead to serious issues in a persons behavior. If there is a disturbance in a persons mental health, one would need to examine all of these factors to find where the fault lies. By identifying the cause of the problem and remedying it, a persons behavior would hopefully change for the better.