Freudian psychology is based on theories about the transference, libido, unconscious mind, repression, dreams, libido and infantile sexuality. Freud’s account on the human mind’s structure (the ID, the ego, and the superego) has led to a new understanding of the treatment of human psychological disturbance and development.

According to Freud, libido is the generator of all psychic energy. He reasoned that the states of human minds are influenced by two competing forces namely cathexis and anticathexis. The investment of mental power, object or an idea is cathexis; for instance, the ID’s energy can be harnessed by the ego to release the excess energy from the ID.

If a person was totally driven by ID, he or she would relate his or her feelings to other things, especially the thing he has been craving for; for example, a hungry person would resort to creating a mental image of delicious food that he or she has been craving for. A person who can not seek out the delicious meal to appease his or her hunger will, as well, read through a cookbook or a favorite recipe blog.

A person who is totally driven by the socially influenced superego employs the anticathexis as explained by Freud. Anticathexis, therefore, involves the superego suppressing the needs of the ID that are socially unacceptable; this is when the anticathexis suppresses human desires, needs or urges. According to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, there is only excess libidinal energy available; when much of the psychic energy is devoted to repressing urges and desires through anticathexis, there is less energy left available for other processes.

Freud also believed that the behaviors of humans are also influenced by two driving instincts of life and death; the instinct of life involves the need for reproduction, pleasure and reproduction: love, sex, food and shelter. He proceeded to observe that every human is constantly and unconsciously driven by the need for death. This explains why people exhibit self-destructive behaviors.