chapter 16 - psychoanalysis

Question 1

what are the socio-cultural influences that have shaped (and continue to shape) our notions of the causes and treatments for psychological disorders?

Answer 1

• Freud noticed a lack of work done concerning psychological problems
• before there were lobotomies, insulin treatments, and shock therapy
• Freud essentially invented talk therapy (mostly women, depressed and anxious about sex); main diagnosis was hysteria

Question 2

what are the socio-cultural influences that set the stage for some of Freud’s ideas? (Victorian sexual repression, Darwin)

Answer 2

• the community between humans and animals; the ideas of humans being motivated by instincts rather than reason
• our powerful animal instincts, like sexual urges and aggression, drive our personality and must be inhibited in some way
• sexual repression, Freud worked with a lot of women that had anxious thoughts about sex

Question 3

concerning the nature of human nature, are we rational or irrational? How do different psychoanalytic thinkers answer this question? How have others before Freud answered this?

Answer 3

Freud:
- by showing the continuity between humans and other animals, Darwin strengthened Freud’s contention that humans, like nonhuman animals, are motivated by instincts rather than by reason
- according to Freud’s psychoanalytic investigation, human nature comprises some deep characteristics which yearn to satisfy particular needs and impulses (aggression, the ego, the need for love, avoidance of pain in all areas of life)
Jung:
- arguably rational, believed that a structure is present at birth that developed in Lamarckian fashion
- archetypes as the generic images that provide each person with a framework for perceptual and emotional experience
Before Freud:
- Schopenhauer believed humans are governed more by irrational desires than by reason; because instincts determine behavior, humans continually vacillate between being in a state of need and being satisfied
- Nietzsche saw humans as engaged in a perpetual battle between their irrational and rational tendencies. it is up to each person to create a unique blend of these tendencies with their own personality, even if it violates conventional morality
- rationalists = rational, romanticists = rational, empiricists = irrational, existentialists = rational (order) and irrational (chaos)

Question 4

how was Freud influenced by Darwin’s ideas?

Answer 4

• Darwin’s ideas about competition and survival of the fittest are reflected in Freud’s belief that the central human drive was to achieve significance and compensate for inferiority
• Darwin influenced Freud’s belief that the biological instinct of sex and aggression motivated human behavior
• the unconscious and instinctual demands of the id realte to Darwin’s idea that humans are born with drives that promote survival and reproduction

Question 5

how does Freud incorporate human development into his theory?

Answer 5

• according to Freud, the experiences a child has during each stage determines, to a large extent, their adult personality; believed the foundations for one’s adult personality are formed by the time a child is about 5 (id, ego, superego)
• Freud’s psychosexual theory stages capture the main growth points of a person from infancy to adulthood and focus on different facets of wants, needs, and desires (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital)

Question 6

what does modern research tell us about the notion of repression?

Answer 6

• there are no memories that are significantly traumatic and still not accessible. we remember trauma so that we can avoid it (other than psychogenic amnesia, where we forget trauma briefly and it comes back later)
• we do forget things; our confidence in memory is not correlated with accuracy
• memories are complex phenomenon, frequently influenced by a variety of internal and external factors. things are constantly added and distorted as we remember them

Question 7

how does Freud’s structure of personality relate to some of the key cognitive abilities and other related outcomes discussed during the first week of class?

Answer 7

ID: instinct and the pleasure principle
- immediate gratification (hedonism; seek pleasure and avoid pain)
- relates to consciousness
EGO: the learned self (2-3 years of age)
- self-awareness and mental time travel
- reality principle, delayed gratification
SUPEREGO: 5 years of age (learned)
- the ego ideal and internalization
- morality, theory of mind, social emotions
- perspective-taking

Question 8

what are some of the similarities between Adler and Horney?

Answer 8

Similarities:
- dicusssed the self
- emphasized the idea of a collective unconscious
- agreed that childhood and interpersonal relationships were important to adult development
- deemphasized Freud’s role of sexual urges in development
- discrepancies make us feel anxious but they drive us and often make us feel better
Differences:
- Adler emphasized (over)compensation and conscious motivation
- Horney talked about the real and ideal self, and unconscious anxiety