This assignment will outline four approaches to psychology. The approaches are: psychodynamic, biological, cognitive and behavioral approach. The psychodynamic approach studies the unconscious activities in the mind to process human thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (Bernistein, 2013). Freud was able to treat clients by having them remember negative aspects of their past through psychoanalytic techniques such as free association, dream interpretation, and transference (Wollheim, 2008). According to Sigmund Freud who founded the approach, human personality and behavior function at three levels of awareness in the mind; what we are thinking about now (conscious), thoughts, memories that we can recall (preconscious), and inaccessible desires, thoughts that can be brought into the conscious mind using psychoanalytic techniques (Erickson and Murphy, 2008). He also deduced that the adult personality is composed of three parts: Id, Ego, and Superego (Gross, 2010). Present at birth and located in the unconscious, the id operates according to the pleasure principle and seeks immediate gratification without considering the consequences of actions. in satisfying these instincts (Plotnik and Kouyoumdjian, 2007). The id contains two biological drives that are the basis of all mental energy: eros fueled by the psychic energy known as libido, and the tanators which hides the aggression directed against everything that prevents the gratification of eros, according to Freud (Leeming Madden and Marlan, 2009). The ego determines which id desires must be satisfied at the right time. The ego abides by the reality principle (Coon and Mitterer, 2013). The ego uses defense mechanisms such as repression to subdue libido impulses from the id that cause anxiety and depression (Weber,...... middle of paper ......J. and Tomlinson, P. (1997) Piaget, Vygotsky and beyond. London: Routledge. Stephenson, W. (1953) The study of behavior: Univ of Chicago Press. Tauber, A., (2010) Freud, the reluctant philosopher: Princeton University Press. Tulving, E. and Craik, F. (2000) The Oxford handbook of memory: Oxford University Press.Van Horn, J., Irimia, A., Torgerson, C., Chambers, M., Kikinis, R. and Toga,. A. (2012) Mapping connectivity damage in the case of Phineas Gage, 7 (5), e37454: 10.1371/journal.pone.0037454. Weber, S. (2000) The legend of Freud: Stanford University Press. Wollheim, R. (2008) Freud: A Modern Master. London: Fontana Press. Hill, G. (2001) AS Level Psychology through Diagrams. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zuckerman, M. (2005 ) Psychobiology of personality Cambridge: Cambridge University Press..