(5) Psychodynamic Approach

Question 1

According to Freud, the human mind consists of 3 parts:

Answer 1

1) The conscious mind.
2) The pre-conscious mind: stored info recallable to consciousness.
3) The unconscious mind: A reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings and memories

Question 2

Society does not allow the free expression of all our sexual and aggressive instincts, meaning….

Answer 2

• Incest; Hatred towards siblings, parents, or spouses; Memories of childhood traumas
• One way to control these urges is to keep them from entering conscious awareness in the first place

Question 3

What is the id?

Answer 3

• Most primitive structure.
• Source of instinctual drives.
• Operates on the pleasure principle.
• Characterized by “primary process thinking”.

Question 4

What is the ego?

Answer 4

• Operates on the reality principle – mediates between the id and the external world and between id and superego.
• Characterized by “secondary process thinking” – the development of strategies for solving problems and obtaining satisfaction.
• The “executive branch.”

Question 5

What is the Superego?

Answer 5

• The moral structure – conscience.
• Internalised taboos and moral values of society.
• The morality principle – the “judicial branch”.

Question 6

What is Compromise formation?

Answer 6

-Compromise formation is a key task of the ego - to find a balance between the key demands of motivation, morality, and practicality.

Question 7

What is capgras delusion?

Answer 7

Enoch and Ball (2001)
-Capgras delusion resolves ambivalent feelings of love and hatred towards a spouse or close relative.
Capgras & Carette (1924)
-Capgras delusion represents an attempt to veil forbidden incestuous desires (e.g., a young woman’s incestuous desires for her father)

Question 8

What is -Moral anxiety ?

Answer 8

Fear of one’s own conscience (e.g., feeling guilty when you do something against your moral code)

Question 9

What is -Neurotic Anxiety?

Answer 9

Fear that instincts will get out of hand and cause someone to do something which they will be punished for

Question 10

What is objective anxiety?

Answer 10

Fear of danger from real world - Level is proportionate to degree of threat

Question 11

Repression

Answer 11

Repression: Blocking threatening material (impulses, ideas, memories) from consciousness

Question 12

Displacement

Answer 12

Displacement: Discharging pent-up feelings on safer targets than those arousing the feelings

Question 13

Projection

Answer 13

-Projection: Attributing one’s own unacceptable impulse or action to another. We can then condemn them instead of condemning ourselves

Question 14

Reaction formation

Answer 14

Reaction formation: Expressing the exact opposite of an unacceptable desire.

Question 15

Regression

Answer 15

Regression: Retreating to an earlier developmental level involving less mature behaviour and responsibility.

Question 16

Undoing

Answer 16

Undoing: A repetitive action that symbolically atones for an unacceptable impulse or behaviour.

Question 17

Compensation

Answer 17

Compensation: Making up for feelings of inferiority or perceived limitations developing other positive traits

Question 18

Sublimation

Answer 18

Sublimation: Channeling frustrated sexual or aggressive energies into different areas, particularly more socially acceptable or even admirable areas (e.g., sport, art, charity).

Question 19

Humour

Answer 19

Humour: Dealing with unpleasant ideas and situations with wit and self-deprecation

Question 20

What did Freud say about humour?

Answer 20

• Freud: jokes allow the expression of impulses ordinarily held in check, especially aggressive and sexual impulses.
• Nevo and Nevo (1983) asked high school students to write funny captions to pictures. The students “used Freud’s techniques as if they had read his writings.” i.e. the students’ responses were filled with aggressive and sexual themes.

Question 21

What did Freud say about psychosexual stages?

Answer 21

• The emergence of the ego and superego are associated with five stages in personality development.
• Each is characterized by a dominant mode of achieving libidinal (sexual) energy. Erogenous zones = bodily areas which are chief focus of pleasure.
• If a child fails to resolve a conflict at a stage, he or she may get stuck in that stage or become fixated, resulting in a corresponding adult character type.
• Each successive stage represents a more mature mode of obtaining sexual gratification.

Question 22

Oral stage?

Answer 22

• (birth - 18 months).
• Erogenous zone: mouth, lips and tongue (sucking, swallowing, exploring objects with the mouth).
• Key conflicts are associated with issues of dependency on others. Fixated = alcoholism? Eating disorders? Smoking?

Question 23

Anal stage??

Answer 23

• (18 months - 3 years).
• Erogenous zone: anus-buttocks region. Child obtains pleasure from first expelling faeces and then, during toilet training, from retaining faeces.

Question 24

Anal stage fixation

Answer 24

• Key conflicts are associated with issues of self-control.
• Fixated
• Anal-retentive: organised, controlled, rigid, obsessive-compulsive, stingy
• Anal-expulsive: disorganised, messy, overly generous

Question 25

Phallic stage?

Answer 25

• 3-5 years
• Erogenous zone: genitals. Key conflicts: The Oedipus and Electra Complexes. Castration anxiety, penis envy.
• Sexual desire for opposite-sex parent (and desire to eliminate same-sex parent).
• Resolution: identification with same-sex parent and development of superego.

Question 26

How do phobias develop?

Answer 26

• Phobias result when unconscious anxiety is displaced onto a neutral or symbolic object (Freud, 1909).
• ‘Little Hans’ - developed a horse phobia after seeing a horse fall to the ground and writhe around violently.
• Freud – Hans’ Oedipal fears of his father became unbearable and were displaced onto horses.
• Horses were particularly suitable father-symbols because of their large penises.

Question 27

How do fetishes occur?

Answer 27

• Freud – fetishism originates in the (male) child’s horror of castration.
• The fetishistic object as a symbolic substitute for the mother’s missing penis.

Question 28

Latency stage

Answer 28

• (6 - 12 years).

- Sexual motivations channelled (sublimated) into age-appropriate interests and activities such as sports and hobbies.

Question 29

Genital stage

Answer 29

• (puberty - adulthood).
• Individual driven by two basic motivating forces: sex and aggression.
• Healthy individuals release this energy through socially appropriate channels: sexual intercourse with age-appropriate adults, sports, career progression etc.

Question 30

What is the goal of psychoanalytic theory?

Answer 30

• Goal: Insight, the bringing into conscious awareness of formerly unconscious material.
• Sufficient for curing psychological disorders.

Question 31

How does the psychoanalytic theory work?

Answer 31

• Interpretation, suggesting hidden meanings to patients’ accounts of their lives.
• Psychoanalysts must overcome resistance of patient.
• Neutrality, a distant stance to minimise therapist’s personal influence.
• Facilitates transference, whereby patients transfer their feelings about people in their life onto the analyst.
• Analysts use the transference to aid interpretations, must avoid reacting as the real figure would.
• Must also be on guard for countertransference, where their own feelings influence their responses

Question 32

Free association?

Answer 32

• Free association: client verbalises whatever comes to mind without editing or censoring the stream of thought
• Goal is to reveal aspects of the unconscious mind, unconscious desires

Question 33

Slip of the tongue

Answer 33

• Freud: the little ‘accidents’ of daily life are often expressions of the motivated unconscious, such as calling someone by the wrong name, missing an appointment, or breaking something that belongs to another.
• Nothing actually happens by accident—instead, there is a reason behind every act, thought, feeling, and utterance.

Question 34

Dreams?

Answer 34

• Dream analysis - the Royal Road to the unconscious.
• Manifest content. Latent content. Relaxation of censorship.
• Dream work – the process by which the brain censors’ dreams.

Question 35

What is wrong with Freud’s data?

Answer 35

Universal theory of human behaviour based primarily on observations of wealthy, educated Viennese women.
-Freud recorded his interpretations rather than describing actual behaviour.

Question 36

What did Freud believe about Schreber?

Answer 36

• Schreber believed he suffered from plague, his brain was softening, and that he had no stomach or -intestines. He developed the paranoid belief that his psychiatrist, Flechsig, was the cause of all this torment.
• Freud (1911
• Schreber had unconscious homosexual feelings for his father
• These feelings displaced onto Flechsig (“Schreberloves Fleschig”)
• Then projected onto Flechsig (Flechsig loves Schreber)
• Then transformed from feelings of love into hatred (Flechsig hates Schreber).

Question 37

What did Freud believe about fetishes ?

Answer 37

Many psychoanalysts have argued that any opposition to psychoanalytic ideas is a form of resistance (Kline, 1981).
-In this way intellectual opposition to psychoanalytic theory becomes a prediction of the theory, and therefore evidence for the theory.

Question 38

Is Freud’s theory sexist?

Answer 38

Sexism: Women essentially castrated men - thus develop weaker superegos and have weaker moral character.
-Overemphasis on sex: e.g. could have had his own psychological issues

Question 39

Summary of pros and cons

Answer 39

Pros: Innovative (revolutionary!), rich, insightful. Enduring contributions include insights about unconscious motives and conflicts, importance of early childhood experiences, psychological defences.
-Cons: Far-fetched, overly sexualized, sexist and unscientific (unparsimonious and unfalsifiable).