Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory and Child Behavior

Running head: PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology
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PSYCHOLOGY 2
Introduction
Sigmund Freud in his psychoanalytic theory outlines three primary components that
determine human behavior. These three components include the ego, superego, and id according
to Freud, (2017). The main concern of this theory is to explain how the personality and behavior
of human being shape up because of the unconscious psychological conflicts. Consequently,
some people have raised their concerns concerning Freud’s theory. In their critics, they claim
that Sigmund missed the point because sexuality is the one that plays a vital role in shaping
human being’s personality and behavior. However, Freud insists that the only challenging task
that human beings have is how to balance the three aspects that influence their behavior. The
approach which an individual use to adjust the three component determines how the person faces
the world and solve various issues he or she may encounter.
The first principal component is superego. Superego mainly focuses on morals and social
rules. Morals are the things that an individual considers right or wrong. During child
development, the child would encounter a culture which has its way of judging things that are
wrong or right. From those rules, the child will develop the superego. For instance, some cultures
instruct the children not to speak to anyone they do not know. The second factor is Id. It is
concerned with pleasing of the urges and physical needs of an individual. The aspect works
without an individual notifying it is there. For instance, if an individual’s Id passed another
person taking ice cream, it would automatically take the ice cream without you noticing it. The id
of an individual does not care that it is unfair to pick up something belonging to another person,
however, the only concern of an Id is to pick the material they want. The third factor is the ego.
Ego is less primitive as compared to the Id of an individual. According to Freud, the role of the
ego is to balance the needs of the superego and the id. For instance, if a child is passing an

PSYCHOLOGY 3
individual who is taking sausage, the ego would differ with the Id of the child. The Id will say “I
want the sausage,” but the superego will argue that “It is wrong to pick another person’s
sausage.” The last option for the child would be to go and buy sausage. However, this step would
go for more than fifteen minutes which would be unpleasant. The conflict in these three
components develops gradually in the life of an individual from childhood to adulthood.
However, the development of the conflict will follow certain stages. The stages include oral,
anal, phallic latency and genital. In these five stages, the child would come up with different
types of conflicts. In this assignment, it will make use of the book I’d Really Like to Eat a child”
to analyze the Freud theory.
About the child book
The child book, I’d Like to Eat a child, has three characters which include Achilles,
mama crocodile, and papa crocodile. During the time for breakfast, mama crocodile brings
bananas to consume, however, the event turns out to be challenging when the younger crocodile,
Achilles demands to eat a child. Mama crocodile finds it questioning to solve the stalemate.
However, mama and papa crocodile decide to prepare sausage to Achilles. Unfortunately,
Achilles fails to eat the sausage and demands a child. Papa crocodiles come with an idea to make
a chocolate cake to distract the attention of Achilles become happy on seeing the chocolate,
however, he is not satisfied. He heads to the river to get a child. He is amused by seeing a girl
child in the river. However, the challenge is that the girl is more significant than Achilles. Later,
Achilles runs ack home shouting that he needs to eat bananas to grow bigger.
The interpretation of the book using the Sigmund Freud theory.