Topic > Who I Am: A Look at My Personality Development

A mask is used to cover a person's face; their expressions and their features. The Latin word for personality, persona, refers to a mask worn by actors in a play. This makes me lean towards the question: is our personality a mask for who we really are or the perspective we give on how we want others to see us? Personality is used to describe a person with many unique traits that trace back to genetics, influences, and experiences combined for the internal and external aspects of our character. Who am I? To describe who a person is you can't answer with a sentence, it's an accumulation of theories. My personality draws from psychodynamic and humanistic theory. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Sigmund Freud's approach to psychodynamic theory holds that our interactions between the three parts of the mind (id, ego, and superego) result in a person's behavior. Personality develops in childhood and accompanies the person throughout the years. The first part of the mind to develop is the Id, this lives in our unconscious that craves instant gratification, asks us to drink water and eat food when we are thirsty or hungry. The second part of the mind that develops, the Superego, is the one that acts like the angel and devil on our shoulders, sending messages of guilt or pride. Finally, according to Freud, the Ego is the mediator between the two, the most rational part and finds the best way between the Id and the Superego by living in the conscious mind. The way a person is brought up has a lot to do with his character today. Someone may develop their own traits, but how people treat another, what they see, and how they choose to handle certain situations has to do with the person's history, their past. That said, I'm sure I had an amazing experience in my first few years, but it wasn't all perfect. Psychodynamic theory is strongly determined by unconscious factors over which we have no control, Id, Ego and Superego. Defense mechanisms, such as sublimation, denial, displacement can occur when stress begins to develop and anxiety forms. Freud believed that children go through five stages during development; oral, anal, phalic, latency and genital. These developmental stages have an immense impact on our personality. Just like the example of the pacifier and a baby, once the pacifier is removed the baby will instead use their thumb for satisfaction, if they don't move on from this to adjust to reality it can create anxious habits such as biting their nails. As a child, my parents were very strict and I always thought about doing anything and overanalyzing situations because I thought about the consequences. I bit my nails until I was 14, when I started to care more about my appearance and knew that short, stubby nails weren't very feminine. Freud discussed the anal stage, from one to three years. My mom always talks about how I learned to potty train and started walking by my first birthday, she wanted me to learn fast. Knowing that my mother is very pushy, lovable and demanding, I can only imagine myself at 1 year old practicing every day to walk and not urinate on my own. I also happen to have a type A personality and suffer from a compulsive disorder. I tend to be very organized, however if something is out of place or something doesn't go right I get anxious and agitated, even today. The Electra complex is the result of the phallic phase. When you start to get older you tend to feel jealous towards your partner.own parent. At the age of six my father remarried and as I was his only child for a while, this led to an attachment. Noticing that the attention was no longer on me, I would do things to get his attention. For example, I would pretend to have a stomach ache so he can stay home with me, play and make me soup. At some point, I reached the latency stage where I focus my attention on other things like dance lessons and spending more time with my mother and my closest friends to distract myself from the idea that my father's attention wasn't mine. mainly me. After that, I moved on to the genital phase where I started finding the opposite sex attractive and focusing my attention on that. I started asking if I can invite boys to my birthday parties and my friends and I would like to talk about the cute boy at school. Even today I can recognize that these phases had a great impact on my life. When you meet someone for the first time you cannot say that their personality has been influenced by all these experiences, however, being able to understand the phases and concepts leads you to a better understanding of why a person acts in a certain way or what some of his decisions are based on People's childhood experiences shape their personality (Corr and Matthews, 2009) The influence between parent and child represents the child's development. Vulnerability and defenses such as guilt, impulsive actions, and shame regulate emotional distance between family members by protecting against intolerable experiences (Strolorow, 1992). Evidence from Strolorow's (1992) research demonstrated that the experience and organization of a child's development is based on caregivers and the relationship with the child. My father remarried and I had the privilege of having a half-sister, we are seven years apart. I adored my sister regardless of how much my family said she was an intolerable child. My stepsister and I were different than the rest of my 22 cousins, I had divorced parents, and the rest of my aunts and uncles were high school sweethearts. This can make you feel excluded and different from the rest of the family. My father and stepmother didn't get along, I remember that in the midst of arguments, shouting and offensive words I would take my sister into the bedroom and play cartoons with the volume at maximum, to prevent her from hearing what was happening. It has become a weekly, almost daily habit and in a child's mind this can be traumatic. The relationship began to deteriorate, leading to divorce. The situation at my father's house was sad. I always wanted to stay at home with my mother to avoid conflict, but I didn't know my father was depressed. At this point, when things started to get confusing for our family, I started looking for satisfaction elsewhere and keeping myself busy, but also unaware of the fact that my father was depressed and mentally ill. Four months later I was given the worst news of my freshman year of high school: My father died by suicide. This has affected my life in so many ways, but especially in the area of ​​my personality, I feel like I have become a slightly different person, who still carries the traits of psychodynamics because those childhood experiences follow you throughout your life. Although humanistic theory is in reverse On the side of the table psychodynamic theory may be similar in how it plays a role in personal psychological development. Neither is more dominant than the other and they all come from different branches and studios. Freud's theory established that behaviors are the result of unconscious desires from childhood stages through later years. Abraham Maslow states that humanism is formed from needs.