Final answer:
The psychoanalytic approach attributes a large contribution to personality to early relationships and conflicts with childhood caregivers, with a focus on the unconscious mind's drives and early childhood experiences.
Step-by-step explanation:
According to the psychoanalytic approach, a large contribution to personality is made by early relationships and conflicts with childhood caregivers. Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, suggested that our personality is profoundly influenced by unconscious drives, principally by those related to sex and aggression, and shaped by early childhood experiences. His theory pointed out that much of our mental life takes place outside our conscious awareness. Freud stated that personality develops through a series of psychosexual stages, with each stage centered on pleasure deriving from specific erogenous zones. Failing to resolve conflicts at any stage could lead to fixation and consequently an unhealthy personality, whereas successful resolution contributes to healthy development.
Freud's followers, known as neo-Freudians, accepted the importance of childhood experiences but placed less emphasis on sexual drives and more on the social environment and effects of culture on personality. These theorists, including Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, Erik Erikson, and Karen Horney, explored dimensions such as the inferiority complex, the collective unconscious, and psychosocial development.