Psychoanalytical theorists note that a person’s core personality is developed and stabilized at a relatively young age. Freud would assume my successful adult personality is a byproduct of the successful completion of his psychosexual stage theory. Success would be determined by a lack of fixation within either the oral, anal or phallic stages. Freud postulated that small amounts of psychic energy are used up while passing through these early childhood stages. If a person completes these stages rather than fixating upon the intense pleasure of the stage, then a healthy personality will develop. However, fixation will cause the excessive use of psychic energy and without the maximum amounts of psychic energy; the adult personality will appear malformed. It is easy to validate many aspects of Freud’s Psychosexual Stage theory because it is easy to observe how traumatic experiences in early childhood do indeed manifest in many unconscious character traits.
However, I am not strong because I have found successes in the earliest stages of my life. I have found strength in both the acknowledgment and dismissal of victimization. I was severely abused and neglected. While everyone must experience the trauma involved with the completion of developmental stages, I experienced the perversion of the early stages. As a small child I suffered from ambiguous attachments to deprivation of many basic human needs such as food, love, safety and sometimes shelter. I suffered a traumatic brain injury at two years old in which the latent affect is solely physical; I am going blind.
It would seem that Freud might postulate that my strength has manifested because I successfully deny and repress trauma. I would argue that denial implies that I do not admit these events and repression assumes that I cannot articulate these traumas because they are not within my conscious thoughts. However, they are present in many of my dreams therefore, valid.
Sigmund Freud might even have thought I am strong because my well-developed ego has mastered defense mechanisms such as sublimation and displacement. Rather than sucking up precious physic energy by constantly repressing trauma, I found socially acceptable outlets to channel my dangerous id impulses. He would say that my work as a child advocate and foster parent are signs of sublimation because these are socially acceptable ways to vent undesirable emotions. I can engage anger and confrontational impulses in the defense of someone who cannot defend themselves. He would say I became an Army soldier and Veteran of Foreign Wars in an attempt to redirect rage and contempt toward an enemy that can justifiably be harmed.
I wouldn't agree with him. I would accuse him of an over-active need to make excuses. He would then, assess my defunct personality as unmanageable and solicit a prior authorization for a frontal lobotomy; thus, relieving me and society of my dysfunction.
Besides, Have you ever seen the inside of a can of "Whoop-Ass"? This picture very much resembles how I feel about me on the inside.
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