Different psychiatrists have observed individuals for the development of personality. Each has resolved a view based on those observations. They have often been quite different from each other. Those differences lead to a completely different interpretation of adult behavior and its meanings. In addition, they separate theory based on what is most important to the psychiatrist.
The development of personality is how an individual becomes that individual (Gerson, 1994). It includes the “stable and enduring patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving” (Gerson, 1994, 2). Character forms by resolving conflicts of drives and tensions, and the pressures to conform and socialize. Psychoanalytic models of personality integrate innate predispositions with the environment and its impact. In these theories, parents act as models for ego, ego-ideal and superego. Introjection and identification are basic processes. The child develops partially based on the parents’ characteristics, and the ways in which conflicts with the parents are resolved. The stages in the child’s life when the interactions with parents take place area also part of the process.
Sigmund Freud attached a sexual perspective to the entire human psyche (Gerson, 1994). He defined three components of a person: the id, the ego, and the superego. The conflicts between the three parts often conflicts, creating personality. When the conflicts are not treated, neuroses occur. Each person also has two drives or instincts that are in conflict, life and death. The life instinct is eros, and the death instinct is thanatos (Rana, 1997). Both are parts of the id. Libido is the energy or force for the formation of the id, ego, and superego.
Carl Jung developed a personality theory based on what he saw as the undeniable religious nature of humans (Cowgil. 1997). According to Jung, dreams gave great insight into the psyche.