Psychodynamic psychology, although still practiced clinically, is not one of the current major approaches to personality psychology. During the 1950's and 1960's, numerous attempts to test experimentally the claims of psychodynamic psychology failed to show any positive results. As a consequence, the field of personality psychology mostly abandoned the core theories of psychodynamics and turned to trait theoretic, humanistic, or social learning theories of personality.

Nonetheless, an understanding of the psychodynamic approach to personality is crucial because it provides a foundation and counterpoint for all of the approaches that followed. Freud's basic assumptions about human nature have continued to influence the way both lay people and personality researchers think about human nature. His emphasis on the importance of the unconscious, the role of early life experience, and the role of basic, biological instincts formed the context within which modern theories of personality were formed. Many of today's theories explicitly reject Freud's claims; but in doing so they show their indebtedness to psychoanalysis just as much as if they had accepted them.

In the first section of this SparkNote, we focus on the basic assumptions and methods that lie behind Freud's psychoanalytic theory. In the second section, we delve deeper into the basic instincts (sex and death) and mental structures (id, ego, and superego) that combine to produce everyday behavior and mental life. We also discuss the kinds of strategies that the ego can use to defend itself against unwanted impulses. In the third section, we summarize Freud's stage-based account of the development of personality. Finally, in the fourth section, we give an example of a post-Freudian, Erik Erikson, who shared some methods and assumptions with Freud but differed importantly in his conception of the basic instincts that drive development.