ABSTRACT
Freudian theories of personality are quite different from other approaches to personality found in academic psychology. The difference is essentially one of methodology. Psychoanalysis represents a cluster of varied theories and therapeutic procedures which are still evolving. The chapter looks in detail at Sigmund Freud’s own ideas about personality and the ways in which these developed. It briefly examines some other aspects of psychoanalysis, discusses the important issue of the nature of psychoanalytic theories and assesses their contribution to the understanding of personality and their significance to psychology in general. One of Freud’s first realizations was that much of the motivation for our behaviour is unconscious and not necessarily accessible to us. Freud in effect draws no strict dividing line between normals and neurotics.
