PSYC 2740 Lecture 9: Personality- Chapter 9

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 2740
• Professor: Stephen Lewis

Document Summary

Some psychologists believe that people sometimes are unaware of the reasons for their own problematic behaviours. Some therapists believe that the cause of the problem resides in the person"s unconscious, the part of the mind outside the person"s immediate awareness ex. a past traumatic event. Furthermore, such therapists believe that if they can help make this unconscious memory conscious that is, if they can help the patient recall a forgotten traumatic memory they can put the patient on the road to recovery. Freud began developing the idea that portions of the human mind were outside conscious awareness. Freud began to summarize that the unconscious mind operated under its own power, subject to its own motivations and according to its own logic. He described how the unconscious mind was expressed in dreams and how dreams contained clues to our innermost secrets, desires, and motives.