Depression, or a depressive disorder, is not just a passing sadness but rather a blue mood or a sense of worthlessness that continues overtime. “A lack of desire to engage in formerly pleasurable activities becomes present” (“Depressive Disorders,” 2015). On top of that, many people that are diagnosed with depression will experience the inability to concentrate, excessive sleeping, and significant weight loss or gain. Like a cat stuck in a tree, people begin to act helpless. It becomes a struggle to get out of bed every morning. Many people with depression believe that anything they do will turn out bad. What hurts these people the most is that they have given up, even from the potential to recover from the disorder. They zone into …show more content…
Psychoanalytic believers think that mental disorders stem from influences and desires stored in the unconscious mind. The battles between the conscious and unconscious are what create many of the psychological disorders. In creating the psychoanalytic theory, he also created personality characters as well as defense mechanisms, which both tie into and help support his theory. Sigmund Freud created what he called the Structural Model, which separates personality into three different sections. The first section is called the id. The id is very selfish and is only interested in fulfilling personal inclinations. The id is based on the pleasure principal, so that means it will go to any length to get instant gratification. Freud also stated that the id uses a technique called wishful fulfillment. In other words, if the id is unable to obtain a desire, it will imagine what it wants. Next is the ego. The ego’s main purpose is to satisfy the wants and needs of the id with realistic circumstances. Many times, the id’s impulses aren’t socially acceptable so the egos job is to not let these thoughts escape the unconscious. “By the time a child is five year old, the third part of the personality structure is formed. The superego represents society’s, and in particular, the parents values and standards” (Burger, 2015, p. 45). The superego is like any authority figure; it focuses …show more content…
First he could look towards his personality characters for some insight on the issue, especially the superego. As stated before, the superego has a huge weapon in the form of guilt. But in people diagnosed with depression, Freud might take this idea a little further. The superego might be projecting too much guilt, which can become overbearing. “It can burden the ego with impossible standards of perfection” (Burger, 2015, p. 45). This can create an ongoing feeling of shame and guilt due to unattainable measures of oneself. Another place Freud can turn to when answering the call of depression are his defense mechanisms. These mechanisms are there to help but, when not used or even overused, can create problems within a patient. Repression, in a nutshell, attempts to keep bad thoughts from entering the conscious mind. The ego is the main force that drives repression. People with depression might have a weak ego causing repression to be less effective and in doing so for example could lead to thoughts of low self worth and even hurting themselves reaching consciousness all spiraling down into depression. Displacement is another defense mechanism, which uses the strategy of gathering impulses and guiding them towards people or things that are not threatening. People with depression could have this reversed. They could be displacing things back on to themselves. Frustrating thoughts and actions function