10. Psychoanalytic Theory, Practice and Implications for Assessment Flashcards
what did freud try to explain?
tried to explain the nature of being by recourse through the fundamental drive in terms of who we are
How were Freud’s theories impacted by the time he lived in?
lived at a time when there was a strong ethos around Europ
o humans rational, decent
o time when it was assumed women were not sexual
o having sexual impulses would be an indication of witchery
What aspect of the human did Freud look at?
Aspects of humans that are not conscious
According to Freud what were the two fundamental urges and instincts?
sexual impulses and aggressive impulses
How did Freud describe humans?
We all are primitive which is all about cells reproducing as well as the aggressive impulses which is part of what it means to human (can be seen in the violent theme of our history)
What is the topographical model of mind?
that the mind includes the conscious, preconscious and unconscious
What is the iceberg theory?
That only a small part of the mind is shown
What did Freud say with regards to dreams?
dreams are the royal road to an understanding of the unconscious
What did Freud argue about dreams?
we all have these patterns and Freud argued that we enact these patterns without understanding what they are
According to Freud, if humans understood unconscious motivations what would happen?
we can make choices about these patterns and repeat or change these patterns to get what we want
how did Freud suggest we could fix mental illnesses such as epilepsy and psychological and brain disorders?
If we can understand the conflict which underpin difficulties (that cannot be consciously determined) we can treat these symptoms
What were freud’s methods?
free association
use of dreams
short term psychodynamic methods
What was free association?
asked people simply to share what occurs in their mind and over time people became good at it which was a way for him to get to the unconscious
What were the two ideas of free association?
the secondary process and primary process
What was the secondary process in free association?
- the way in which we make sense of things
- thinking, rationality, the way of making us understand
- freuds idea to get to the primary process is through the secondary process
What is the primary process in free association?
- basic human experience
- everyone has some part of themselves that is a bit mad.
- A part we don’t fully understand when we go off the rails that we don’t understand
- a merky way of being in the world and relating to antoher
- “this isn’t like you”
What did the use of dreams involve?
making all of those things overt and conscious
What were the two types of content in dreams that Freud suggested
Manifest content - the things you see in the dream
Latent content - the underlying meaning
What did Freud suggest was the structure of personality?
that we were all driven by the id, ego and superego
What was the id?
the pleasure principle, things we need - food, sex
What is the ego?
the reality principle. compromised formation between the id and the idea of what we should be doing and the expectations of what we are
what is thanantos?
death
what is euros
life and love
What is the super-ego
the ego-ideal
What are the psychosexual stages of development?
oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital
What did the psychosexyual stages of development suggest?
we all gain erotic pleasures in different areas of self which is related to particular personalities. We can become fixated at any of these stages which will affect the kind of personality we have
What are some examples of defence mechanisms?
Repression, denial, Projection
What is the defence mechanism of repression?
blocking a wish or desire from conscious expression (i.e. suppress its memory and dont talk about it)
What is the defence mechanism of denial?
refusing to believe a reality
What is the defence mechanism of projection?
Attributing an unconscious impulse, attitude or behaviour to another
What is the defence mechanism of displacement?
one might have a difficulty at work and then place the certain feelings onto someone else who has nothing to do with the original source of the discomfort
What do defence mechanisms do?
keeping issues unconscious
what are the assumptions of the psychodynamic paradigm?
- Dualistic RES COGITO
- Intrapsychic theory
- Psychic determinism
- Unconscious determinism
- Historical Principle
- Determination by drive or instinct
- Reductionistic
What did Dualistic Res Cognito suggest?
understanding of the mind and the internal mind is different to the idea of what goes on in the external world and we therefore need a language to understand the mind
What did the dualistic res Cognito lead to?
psychic determinism
What does the historical principle suggest?
that the early years are terribly important in how we become who we are
Who are modern psychodynamic theorists?
- Melanie Klein and contemporary Kleinian theory
* Heinz Kohut and the Psychologies of Identity and Self
What were the criticisms of Freud?
- Reliance on individual cases
- Difficulties of prove as to why Freud is right or wrong
- Lack of empirical evidence – this is questionable
- Person versus situation
- Controversy in relation to treatment outcome
what does the classical drive theory suggest?
- Anger and sexuality are basic drives need to be acknowledged and integrated with the ego
- Anxiety - result of damming up libido (sex, aggression) or/ a natural consequence of wishing to not remembering scary things.
- Depression is anger turned inward; talked about bereavement in a very significant way
- Remembering - an important part of treatment.
Where did Carl Jung work?
in a psychiatric hospital and therefore took a very different approach
what was cark Jung’s theory?
we don’t just have a conscious and unconscious but also collective unconscious
Why could Jung not work with Freud?
o could not work with Freud because freud believed it was all about sexuality. but Jung sexuality was not the be all and end all, but we are also driven by some spiritual connection with god (religious man), this religion was spiritual tradition. This lead to Jung’s idea of individuation – we continue to develop for the rest of our lives
What are the psychological functions?
thinking, intuition, sensation, feeling
What is the theory of individuation?
everyone has a dominant one of these qualities (i.e. thinking, intuition, sensation, feeling) and over the course of life we develop the other aspects of ourselves
What are our psyche organs
Persona, shadow, anima, animus, self
What is the persona?
The social role or mask. How we present ourselves to the world
what is the shadow?
The unacceptable within. The part of ourselves we dont know. Others know, but we dont
What is the anima?
Feminine side of the male psyche
What is the animus?
The masculine side of the female psyche
What is the self?
The ultimate unity of the personality
What does conflict between anima and animus result in?
conflict between these aspects of self that we give rise to our personality
What is introversion?
direction of interest inwards towards the inner world of thoughts and feelings
o need time alone
What is extroversion?
direction of interest outwards towards external objects and relationships
o good at talking with others
What do extroverts find difficult to understand?
Introverts
what does synchronicity mean?
o meaningful coincidence
o feeling about something then
What does Jungian therapy consist of?
a therapeutic orientation
How does Jungian therapy describe dreams?
• Dreams not simply about symbols that freud has. Dreams are: o Compensatory o Prospective o “Big dreams” o Amplification
What does Jung mean by compensatory when talking about dreams?
they drew our awareness to our unconsciousness
What does Jung mean by amplification when talking about dreams?
have the person amplify the meaning associated with each of the symbols in the dream
What is active imagination?
where you think about things in conscious self rather than dreaming
Who was Melanie Klein?
Worked with Freud but broke from Freud
Why did Melanie Klein break from Freud?
She believed that Freud got it wrong in one fundamental way in that they used one-person psychology
What psychology did Melanie Klein believe in?
we all live in a world of a 2-person psychology
What did Melanie Klein believe made us who we are?
who we are not determined with forces in ourselves, but also involved with persons around us. We think well of ourselves because we have seen through the eye of another
What did object relations theorists suggest about the Freudian theory?
Believed Freudian theory underemphasized the larger social and cultural context.
What do object relation theorists believe conflict occurs from?
Conflict not from drive pressure and regulation, but from shifting and competing relational configurations which are composed of relations between the self and others, real and imagined
Where does the psycho-dynamics of personality come from?
Mother and child early on where the child is dependent on the mother to be alive
How does the mother impact the personality of the child?
we take in their comment and introject aspects of each other. it is the degree to which we introject the mother when we develop this notion of self.
What did Heinz Kohut question?
Who are we? What is the nature of self? how did we come to be who we are?
what did Kohut believe the self was driven by?
The self is not driven by sexual desires (Freud) or early relationships (attachments – Melanie Klein) rather our fear of this integration. Therefore what we experience is what makes us feel integrated ourselves.
What did Kohut look at?
Looked at early theories of attachment - thus being mirrored by the other the centrality of narcissism real self and false self self object mirroing transference
What is pathological narcissism?
a sense that everyone and everything is an extension of the self or exists to serve the self. There is a grandiose sense of self importance and need for constant attention.
What is the primary problem with narissistic people?
Primary problem with narcissistic people – dependent upon the other and lack the idea of an internalised sense of feeling good about themselves
What is the definition of contemporary psychoanalytic treatment according to Marguilies (2000)?
“…a sustained dialogue over time with its goal of increased awareness-and so psychological freedom – all through the medium of an intense immersion in and exploration of the relationship itself.”
What are questions for testing narcissism?
• I like to look at myself in the mirror.
• I am not particularly interested in looking at myself in the mirror.
• I am going to be a great person.
I hope I am going to be successful.
• I am more capable than other people.
There is a lot that I can learn from other people.
What approach to psychodynamics did Shedler take?
a contemporary approach
How did the psychodynamic theory change according to Shedler?
it has moved from one-person and two-person psychology to affect and emotion (i.e. other people are involved)
What does The contemporary approach to psychodynamics focus on?
affect and expression of emotion
What does the contemporary approach to psychodynamics explore?
attempts to avoid distressing thoughts and feelings
What are the 3 categories of defences according to the contemporary approach to psychodynamics?
mature, intermediate and primitive
What are the mature defences?
humour, rationalising
What are the primitive defences?
denial, acting out
What does the contemporary approach to psychodynamics identify?
recurring themes and patterns. Early experiences are important and will predict current experience
What is the projective hypothesis to contemporary psychodynamic theory?
The assumption that personal interpretations of ambiguous stimuli must necessarily reflect the unconscious needs, motives, and conflicts of the examinee is known as the projective hypothesis (Gregory, 2007).
What is the aim of the projective method of psychodynamics?
Aim to evaluate underlying intrapsychic conflicts, urges, motives, etc. By allowing the subject to project these conflicts onto the ambiguous stimulus material.
What do the projective methods of psychodynamics involve?
Involve the presentation of ambiguous stimuli or task, allowing the examinee considerable freedom of response.
Why do the projective methods of psychodynamics use ambiguous stimuli?
to reduce refensiveness
when was the Roscharch Psychodiadnostik 1st published?
1921
how many cards does the Roscharch Psychodiadnostik include?
10 cards that are symmetrical, presented and sequential order and are increasing in colour
Who was Rorscharch?
a swiss psychiatrist
What is the thematic apperception test?
include 31 cards of black and white pictures that have different subject content. and the person has to explain what they think is going on in the picure
what age group does the Children Appreception test measure?
3-10
How are the TAT and CAT scored?
on a basis of 10 variables
What is involved in drawing tests?
the subject is given a paper and are asked to draw a person and figure of the opposite sex OR are asked to daw a house, tree and a person
What is an example of a semi projective test?
sentence compeltion tasks
What is the level of validity for the Rorscharch test?
high
