Psychoanalytic theory is generally attributed to Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. Freud is considered the father of psychoanalytic theory, and his original thoughts on the idea sprang from his study of physics, in which he determined that the human personality is a type of energy system. Psychic energy may be diverted to some subconscious process or issue that the person has yet to work out and then may surface in some unintended fashion until psychoanalysis enables him to figure out what is causing it and resolve it.
Freud's perspective was that the individual's subconscious mind exerted a powerful impact on his behavior, often without his being aware of it himself. A "Freudian slip," for example was an inadvertent misstatement or faux pas that Freud believed came from a subconscious agenda. A woman who accidentally calls her youngest child by the name of an older sibling that has died may have had the youngest child as a psychological replacement for the dead child, for example. Freud's theory also had a strong sexual component, as evidenced by his Oedipal complex theory in which a son is thought to subconsciously desire his mother. Freud saw the human psyche as having different facets-the id, ego, and superego. The id is the main component of an individual's personality and is in large part subconscious, while the ego is the facet of the psyche that interacts with the physical world. The superego is a conscience or moral compass that directs the individual's behavior as being right or wrong.
Lacan's psychoanalytic theory was similar to Freud's in terms of having an Oedipal complex but Lacan delineates the child's psyche in terms of the imaginary stage and the mirror stage. In the imaginary stage, he has not yet distinguished himself from his mother, and in the mirror stage he begins to distinguish himself from her and other human beings. Lacan's interpretation of the ego is a self-identificatio...