Chapter 9 Flashcards
What is modern thinking on dream analysis?
Still the main tool used by Psychoanalyst therapists.
Unequivacable proof one way or the other impossible due to interpretative nature.
Hall and Van de castle found men tend to fear physical injury - is this proof of oedipal theory.
Research studies: Dreams are often meaningful but rather than of unconcious thought more to do with related life experiences.
Breger - has reinterpreted Freud - think of man opening patients dressing gown.
Slms - uses current neurophysical evidence that cognition and perception structures are used during dreaming lending support to freud.
What is dream analysis?
Freud believed it was possible to access the uncon through dream analysis.
Dreams are distortions of human wishes - distorted because the mind, even though asleep is still at work.
2 dif types of distortions are described: displacement (think of woman strangling little white dog that Freud interpreted as woman wanting to strangle her sister in law)
Dramatization: Pictoral forms. Links between images only uncoverable with additional info gained from other methods such as verbal accounts, free association etc.
Certain pictures viewed by Freud as indicative of sexual reasoning - Called Symbols - tie = penis, chests and cupboards = female organs and climbing up = sex.
Do other Psychologists accept the possibility of unconciousness
Yes. Experimental Psychologists empahsise the automaticity of much of our cognition and that it is implicit (i.e. unconcious).
However - they don’t see conflict between the uncon and con. Rather they see them as fluidly interplaying
What does Freud call ‘survival of the group’
Libido
Survival of the individual being the other biological drive.
What does Freud mean by Sexual
Any kind of body stimulation
What are Freud’s Stages of development
There are 3 stages in the first 5 years of what he feels are biological development:
Oral - approx 1st yr
Anal - approx 2nd year
Phallic - approx 4th year
This is followed by a latent stage - during which focus transfers o social elements such as school as developing peer relations.
Sexuality returns at adolescence and the pre-genital modes are incorporated i.e. oral = kissing.
Each Stage involves a particular body zone and a mode of activity
Thus, for the oral stage the mode of activity is sucking and biting. The oral stage comes when the child is completely dependent on others for their needs. If these are not met then the basis for pessimissitic emotional orientation is set.
The anal stage is associated with control and therefore is seen as the prototype of dealing with authority.
What two stages is Freud’s phallic stage divided into and how is this division made?
Oedipal Conflict and Penis Envy. The split is made on male/female.
The phallic stage is from around the fourth year of childhood. Focus shifts from the anal stage to curiosity with genitals and physical stimulation from rough play.
according to Freud a boy’s close affection for his mother during the phallic stage become sexualised.
The boy beings to see his father as a rival for his mother’s attention.
Leads to increased hostility towards father and possibly also fear.
This is resolved by increased identification with the father, assimilating his perceived values and attitubutes.
Critics suggest that this may exist but only where the father remains dominant and aloof and thus this is very particular to Freud’s world.
Freud had very little to say about womaen. Came down to Penis Envy.
A girl’s crucial issue would be when she discovered she had no penis. This would at first lead to her rejecting her mother and devaluing women and turning to her father, later turning back to her morther as she’s in the same position as herself.
Fundamentally she desires a penis.
Pregnant fantasies were seen as trying to recover the missing part.
Criticisms of both these see the notions as arising from cultural practices
What is transference?
Developed by Freud
Concept that emotional feelings aroused in early relationships are unconciously transferred into adult relationships.
Parental pressures at various of the early psychosexual stages of development can carry over into later relationships.
For example issues at the anal phase can lead to issues with authority.
Oedipal conflict can lead to over-idealising their mother and repressing sexual feelings.
Think of man who marries ideal, but but has girl on the side for sex.
What is Fixation
Occurs if a child is either over stimulated or deprived at any of the stages. Thus someone who is deprived at the oral stage may be overly concerned with oral gratification (chewing sweets, smoking etc)
Freud blames OCD on fixation at the anal stge.
What is the id
The drive to satisfy biological needs. Gratification = pleasure, Frustration = tension.
What is the ego
The ego emerges as the child develops perceptual and logical capacities and thus the goal of pleasure (as wanted by the id) is tempered by the demands of reality.
What is the super ego
The parental voice. As the child grows older so they start to assimilate the values and attitudes of adults around them through identification. It represents the moral regulatory power.
What is psychodynamics (simplified form)
The conflict between the id, ego and super ego. Angst arises from this “intrapsychic conflict. To alleviate this agnst there are a series of defence mechanisms.
Defence mechanisms are not pathological, they occur in everyday life all the time - however what interests PAs is those defences that are rooted in the past. Thus personality emerges, in part, from the typical defences people learn to use as children.
List the top 5 Defense Mechanisms
Repression (the most significant) Displacement Sublimination Projection Reaction Formation.
What is Repression
Impulses that are disturbing are simply shut out.
