Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud was an amazing phychologist with many great ideas and theories.  One of his most popular is the unconscious mind.  Freud was not the creator of the unconscious mind theory, but he was definitely the person who made it popular.  He said that the mind is like an iceberg (click here for a picture! http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/freud.html), and that the conscious area is like the top part that you could see.  The unconscious area is like the part of the iceberg underneath the water. It is the largest part of the iceberg by far, but you are unable to see it, just like you aren't able to really analyze what is going on in the huge unconscious area of your brain.  The brain also is made up of three parts, according to Freud.  The first part of the brain is the id, which we have from birth.  It is the most basic human instincts and works through the pleasure principle.  The second part is the ego, which works as a balance for the id and the last part of the brain, the super ego.  The ego uses logical and secondary process thinking to achieve goals.  The super ego works as our conscience.  It judges whether an action is moral, right or wrong.  The unconscious area holds the things like our drive, instincts, and the things we can't bear to think about, like memories or emotions connected with trauma.  The unconscious is also the source of our motivations, whether they are simple or complex desires.  It is a place for our feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories that are repressed.  Most of the thoughs in our unconscious are unpleasent, like pain or anxiety.  Even when we are unaware, our unconscious mind always influences our behavior.  Freud thought that instead of dismissing simple unique characteristics, we should analyze them to find an explantion and cause for the action.  He believed that there was a deeper, more meaningful reason for a slip of the tongue or pen.  Human instincts are also connected with Freud's unconscious mind theory.  He said that we had a life instinct which covers all the self-preserving instincts, and the death instinct, which covers all actions toward self destruction, aggression, and cruelty.  Sigmund Freud's theory of the unconscious mind was very popular and is still used in today's world. Without his theory, we wouldn't have much of the knowledge that we have today to help explain the things we don't know about ourselves.

Sources:
The Conscious and Unconscious Mind
Kendra Cherry
http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/consciousuncon.htm

Sigmund Freud
Dr. C. George Boeree
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/freud.html

The Theory of the Unconscious
Stephen P. Thorntonhttp://www.iep.utm.edu/freud/