Chapter 6: Psychoanalytic Perspective (Psychoanalytic Structure and Process) Flashcards
Major Assumption
- personality made up of set of dynamic processes or forces
- dynamic forces can conflict with each other: responsible for motivation
- motivation is largely unconscious
Sigmund Freud
Topographical Model of the Mind: conscious, preconscious, unconscious
The Conscious
awareness
The Preconscious
memory, outside the conscious but can be brought to the conscious mind
The Unconscious
outside the conscious awareness
Freund’s Structural Model of the Mind
- ID
- EGO
- SUPEREGO
The ID
- the hedonist
- basic drives, motives and instincts
- operates on pleasure principle: when drives cause pressure or tension, ID acts to discharge the tension
- Primary Process Thinking: imagine what will fulfill need and form fantasy of it
- ID is totally irrational, wishes are unsatisfactory and unrealistic: operates in inner world
The Ego
- the mediator
- one’s sense of self
- operates on reality principle: transforms the ID’s urges into actions that will be effective and realistic: takes external world into account
- secondary process thinking: delays gratification of ID urges until it is appropriate (reality testing: problem solving, executive functioning)
- Ego has no moral sense, pragmatic and value free
The Superego
- one’s sense of right and wrong
- embodies values of parents, family and society
- inner conflicts are resolved as introjection
- divided into two parts
1. ego-ideal values: conforming to values of ego ideal feels good
2. the conscience: sense of wrong and prohibited behavior: punishes with guilt after the behavior - superego operates on all levels of consciousness
Conflict between ID and SUPEREGO
- resolved by the ego (ego strength)
- ego puts the breaks on the Id
- superego directs id behavior in a moral way
- healthy personality: balance between all drives
Unresolved conflicts of Id, Superego, Ego
- lead to anxiety and neurosis
- goal of psychoanalysis: discover unresolved conflict through introspection, free association, dream analysis
Drive
a biological need state which leads to a psychological need or desire
2 Types of Drives
- Eros
2. Thanatos
Drive Eros
- life instincts
- survival
- sex
- reproduction
- pleasure
Drive Thanatos
- death instinct
- all humans desire to return to inanimate state
- aggression stems from death instinct
Interpretation of Dreams
- dreams as wish fulfillment
- manifest content (overt)
- latent content (unconscious): too taboo to enter conscious mind, takes symbolic form
Catharsis
- tension builds as a result of drives
- release of emotional tension is called catharsis
- important concept in psychodynamic therapies
Ego-Defense Mechanisms
defense mechanisms: strategies for reducing anxiety caused by thoughts, desires, or impulses
- helpful in short-run, but unhealthy in long-run
- ex. repression
Special Defense: Displacement
- changing the way blocked energy or impulse is expressed
- transfer object
- anger towards boss, expressed toward boyfriend
- considered neurotic defense
Special Defenses: Sublimation
- transfer of energy or object so that expression becomes socially acceptable
- e.g. aggression, play football instead
- considered a natural defense
- move beyond ID drives and become civilized
Psychosexual Stages of Personality Development
- in each stage, libido is discharged through specific part of the body
- successful progression through stages: healthy personality
- unsuccessful progression through stages: fixiation
- fixiation: libido gets stuck in that stage, harder to resolve conflicts
Oral Stage
- birth to 18 months
- main source of stimulation: mouth
- mouth brings tension reduction and pleasure
- process: eating
- oral sadistic phase: pleasure from chewing, biting
Oral Stage Personality Traits
- optimism, trust, dependency, gullibility
- related to traits of verbal aggression
- oral character: eating, drinking, smoking, nail biting
Anal Stage
- 18 month to 3 years
- anus focus of libido
- sexual pleasure comes from defecation
- toilet training: external control over internal urge
Anal Stage Personality Traits
- toilet training with praise: adult productivity and creativity
- toilet training with punishment: rebellious, withholding
Phallic Stage
- 3 to 5 years
- genitals
- first: pleasure from self - masturbation begins
- later: opposite sex focus
- hostility for same sex parent begins
Phallic Stage: Oedipus Complex
- boys first sexual longings for another in the person of his mother
- castration fear
Phallic Stage: Electra Complex
- girls first sexual longings for another in the person of her father
- penis envy
Phallic Stage Personality Traits
- successful resolution of this stage leads to identification with same-sex parent
- unsuccessful resolution: machismo, sexual aggression, workaholic, flirtatious, seductive, impotence
Latency Period
- age 6 to puberty
- sexual and aggressive drives are less powerful
- ego and super ego continue to emerge and develop
- focus on intellectual pursuits
Genital Stage
- puberty through adulthood
- libido focus on genitals
- Freud: only a few people pass this stage successfully
Genital Stage Personality Traits
- healthy: sexual desire for others, desire for mutual attachment and sexual gratification
- control over sexual impulses
Psychoanalytic Perspective CONs
- vague, ambiguous, concepts are not operationally defined
- concepts cannot be easily tested, little evidence
- much based on Freuds experience with only a small set of patients
Psychoanalytic Perspective PROs
- understanding of unconscious drives
- highlight importance of early childhood in formation of personality
