Chapter 9 Psychosocial Theories

Question 1

Psychosocial Theories

Answer 1

• Roots partly in the psychoanalytic perspective
• Differed from Freud in important ways
• Focused on the idea that people’s primary tasks in life concern relationships
• Started by examining how infants interact with and are affected by other people
• Grew to carry that theme onward to the rest of life viewing adult personality as a reflection of the same forces that are critical in infancy

Question 2

Neoanlytic theories

Answer 2

Focus on Ego rather than Id

• Robert White: Effectance Motivation and Competence Motivation
• Alfred Adler: Feelings of Inferiority
• Ego Contol
• Ego Resiliency
• Object Relations Theory

Question 3

Object Relations Theory

Answer 3

• group of theories that have diverse origins and terminologies but strikingly similar
• Object= person
• Focus on one person’s relations to others
• Core derives from Freud’s idea
• Ego develops bonds to external objects to release id energies effectively
• Focus on these bonds but only for people as objects
• -The point isn’t to satisfy the id
• -The bond is a basic ego function
• -Personality’s main focus
• -Emphasis on the ego rather than the id
• Themes:
• -Emphasize that a person’s pattern of relating to others is laid down in early childhood
• -Assume that the patterns tend to recur over and over throughout life

Question 4

Margaret Mahler

Answer 4

• newborns begin life in a state of psychological fusion with others
• Personality development is a process of breaking down this fusion, of becoming an individual who’s separate and distinct
• Age 3, stable mental representation of its mother
• Mother with child all the time symbolically
• Object relation is internalized
• View its mother through this image and will generalize it to other people
• Child will act toward others as though they were its mother (and father)
• Stress from a sense of rejection from parent or too much smothering fusion -> stresses are carried by child’s internal object representation into later life -> distortion

Question 5

Symbiosis

Answer 5

period when the infant is fused with its mother

Question 6

Separation-Individuation

Answer 6

• at around 6 months, the child starts to become aware of its separate existence; gradual exploration away from mother
• Built-in conflict between two pressures
• A wish to be taken care of by mother and united with her
• A fear of being overwhelmed in a merger with her and a desire to establish one’s own selfhood
• Mother’s behavior is important to the child’s later adjustment
• She should combine emotional availability with a gentle nudge toward independence.
• If too present in child’s experience -> won’t establish separation
• If pushes too much toward individuation -> sense of rejection and loss = separation anxiety

Question 7

Effectance motivation

Answer 7

• Robert White (1959, 1963)
• Effectance motivation: motive to have an effect or an impact on your surroundings
• Basic motive
• During early childhood, it’s the major outlet for the ego’s energies
• Evolves into competence motivation: motive to be effective in dealing with the environment
• Underlies adaptive ego functioning
• Exercised endlessly
• Moves the person toward ever-new challenges and masteries

Question 8

Feelings of inferiority

Answer 8

• Alfred Adler (1927, 1929, 1931)
• People strive for greater competence, but for different reasons.
• Feelings of inferiority: any sense of inadequacy
• A compensatory process is activated and the person strives for superiority
• Inferiority feelings and superiority strivings continue to cycle with each other constantly
• People keep working to get better, more proficient at what they do
• Viewed the struggle for increased competence to be an important part of healthy ego functioning, calling it the “great upward drive”
• Healthy people continue to function this way throughout life

Question 9

Ego control

Answer 9

• Jeanne H. Block and Jack Block: learning to restrain impulses -> better command of your transactions with the world and avoid trouble from acting impulsively
• Undercontrol-can’t delay gratification in one extreme
• Overcontrol- delay gratification endlessly in another extreme

Question 10

Ego resiliency

Answer 10

• being flexible in dealing with the world -> knowing when to restrain yourself and when to behave more freely
• Modify your usual level of ego control- in either direction- to adapt to a given situation
• Low in ego resiliency-> can’t break out of their usual way of relating to the world
• Ego resilient are resourceful and adapt well to changing circumstances

Question 11

Self Psychology

Answer 11

*Heinz Kohut- *Neoanalyst
*relationships form the structure of the self
*Focuses on experiences that others termed object relations
*People have an essential narcissism
*Self objects
*Parents engage in mirroring
*The child’s sense of self is grandiosed at first
-Illusion of all importance must be sustained to some degree throughout development -> sense of self-importance to adulthood
*Tempered -> deal with difficulties and frustrations in later life
In a healthy personality, the grandiosity is modified and channeled into realistic activities.
-Ambition and self-esteem
*The parent must give the child enough mirroring to nurture development but not too much.
-Similar to Mahler’s separation-individuation and fusion with the other
*Transference

Question 12

Narcissism

Answer 12

a pattern of self-centered needs that must be satisfied through others

Question 13

Self objects

Answer 13

• someone who helps satisfy your needs
• Childhood- parents
• Later- any person as he or she is experienced within the structure of the self
• Exists from the self’s point of view and to serve the self’s needs

Question 14

Mirroring

Answer 14

• giving support to the child and responding in an empathic, accepting way
• Gratifies the child’s narcissistic needs, because it makes the child temporarily the center of the universe

Question 15

Transference

Answer 15

• Later mirroring involves transference from parents to other selfobjects
• You transfer the orientation you’ve developed to your parents to other people, using it as a frame of reference for them.
• Other people become parent substitutes
• You expect them to mirror you as parents did
• Is like Mahler’s idea that the internal object relation corresponding to a parent is used in forming later relationships

Question 16

Attachment

Answer 16

• an emotional connection.
• Need for such a connection is a basic part of the human experience.
• John Bowlby: the clinging and following of the infant serve an important biological purpose: they keep the infant close to the mother -> increases the infant’s chances of survival.
• Mothers (and others) who are responsive to the infant create a secure base for the child.
• The major person in his or her life is dependable- is there when needed.
• Place of comfort (safe haven) when the child is threatened
• A base from which to explore the world
• Temporary dependence on the caregiver fuels future exploration
• Child builds mental “working models” of the self, others, and the nature of relationships
• -“Working models” are later used to relate to the world
• -Resembles Mahler’s beliefs about object representations and Hobut’s beliefs about self objects

Question 17

Strange situation

Answer 17

• assess infant attachment (Mary Ainworth et al., 1978)
• Comprises a series of events involving the infant’s mother and a stranger
• Two times when the infant is left alone with the stranger and then the mother returns.
• Observe the infant throughout, paying special attention to its responses to the mother’s return
• Secure attachment: normal distress when the mother left and happy enthusiasm when she returned.
• Insecure attachment
• Ambivalent resistant: -clingy and became very upset when the mother left
• Response to the mother’s return mixed approach with rejection and anger
• Sought contact with the mother but then angrily resisted all efforts to be soothed.
• Avoidant: stayed calm when the mother left and responded to her return by ignoring her- expected to be abandoned and was retaliating in kind
• Mother of securely attached infants responded quickly to their infants’ crying and returned their smiles
• Synchronous behavior: making replies to a variety of infant actions
• Spoke to their children using richer language than they used when speaking with a stranger
• Mother of ambivalent babies: inconsistent
• Sometimes responsive and sometimes not
• Mothers of avoidant babies: distant
• Radiating a kind of emotional unavailability and sometimes being outright rejecting or neglectful
• Mothers of secure and avoidant infants don’t differ in how much total time they spend holding their babies
• Mothers of avoidant babies: less likely to hold their babies when the babies signal they want to be held.

Question 18

Attachment Style in Adults

Answer 18

• Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver (1987)
• Participants classified themselves (from descriptions) as being secure, ambivalent, or avoidant
• They described the most important romance of their life (past or current) on several scales

Question 19

Secure adults

Answer 19

• more happy, friendly and trusting
• Relationships had last longer
• love is real and when it comes, it stays
• most interdependence, commitment, and trust
• Breakup-> turn to family and friends as safe havens

Question 20

Avoidant adults

Answer 20

• less likely than the others to report accepting their lovers’ imperfections.
• cynical, saying love doesn’t last
• least likely to report being in love in the present or in the past
• Least interested in knowing their partners’ intimate thoughts and feelings
• Least comfortable with sex
• Most likely to cope in self-reliant ways after a breakup

Question 21

Ambivalent adults

Answer 21

• experienced love as an obsessive preoccupation, with a desire for reciprocation and union, extreme emotional highs and lows, and extreme of both attraction and jealousy
• More likely than others to report that a relationship had been “love at first sight”
• falling in love is easy and happens often, but they also agreed that love doesn’t last
• Ambivalent college students -> obsessive and dependent love relationships
• Obsessive reassurance seeking leads to greater conflict and stress in their relationships
• Most obsessive about lost loves

Question 22

2 dimensions of attachment

Answer 22

• Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991)
• Avoidance- attitudes toward others (others are trustworthy or not)
• Anxiety- attitudes toward self (the self is lovable or not)
• Secure= positive of other + positive of self
• Ambivalent (preoccupied)= positive of other + negative of self
• Avoidants
• Dismissive= negative of others + positive of self
• Fearful= negative of others + negative of self
• Sense that a significant other can be available, unpredictable, or unavailable

Question 23

Adult Attachment Interview (AAI)

Answer 23

• Asks people to talk about their early experiences with caregivers
• Whether people either lack childhood memories or idealize their caregivers (both of which are taken as signs of avoidance) and whether people seem preoccupied by unresolved loss or abuse (taken as a sign of anxious attachment)
• People who score as secure on a self-report are only barely more likely to score as secure on the AAI than other people
• Self-report -> Implicit

Question 24

Links to people’s orientations to work

Answer 24

• Hazan and Shaver (1990)
• Ambivalents reported unhappiness with the recognition they got at work and their degree of job security
• Most likely to say their work was motivated by a desire for others’ approval
• Avoidants reported a desire to keep busy with work, and they socialized less during leisure time
• Avoidants use work as a way to escape from their lack of relationships

Question 25

How attachment patterns relate to both comfort seeking and caregiving in stressful situations

Answer 25

• Secured women: talked about being nervous
• Avoidant women: the more anxious they got, the less they sought support
• Secure men: the more anxiety their partners showed, the more reassuring they were
• Avoidant men: the more anxiety their partners showed, the less reassuring they were
• Even get angry if their partners show signs of distress
• Avoidance also predicts greater stress reactivity during discussion of a relationship conflict

Question 26

Tendency to give less support to stressed partners has been shown among avoidant women as well as men

Answer 26

• Feeney and Collins (2001)
• Avoidance related inversely to a measure of responsive caregiving
• Related inversely to reports of a prosocial orientation, trust, and interdependence
• Anxiety -> compulsive caregiving, high egoistic motivation and lower levels of trust
• Higher anxiety and avoidance -> lower sexual and marital satisfaction among married persons

Question 27

Seeking and supplying support

Answer 27

• Fraley and Shaver (1998)
• Avoidant women sought contactless, did less caregiving and displayed more behavioral avoidance than secure women
• Westmas and Silver (2001)
• Avoidants were less supportive in interacting with her than were others
• Becoming a new parent
• Avoidants= more stress and found parenting less satisfying
• Parental adjustment after the loss of child
• Both types of attachment insecurity were associated with elevated levels of grief

Question 28

People’s motivation for helping others depends on their attachment style

Answer 28

• Avoidants: more likely to report helping because they want something in return or they feel obligated and want to avoid the negative consequences of not helping
• Less likely to report helping because they enjoy it or have a genuine concern over their partner’s well-being
• Secure: having autonomous motives for engaging in family caregiving

Question 29

Cope with stress

Answer 29

• Anxious -> severity of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in veterans and secondary traumatic stress in their wives
• Avoidants used more distancing-type coping (try not to think about the situation)
• Ambivalents: higher levels of ineffective emotion-focused reactions (self-criticism)
• Secure: used their social support resources more

Question 30

Attachment and Sex

Answer 30

• Secure: Generally have good sex lives
• Preoccupied:
• May use sex to pull others close to them
• More likely to engage n risky sex, have sex to please partner
• Avoidant
• Have a desire for connection
• May avoid sex, or use it to resist intimacy

Question 31

Different matching of partners

Answer 31

• Security -> reduces typical negative reaction to outgroups -> willingness to explore
• Avoidant -> perceive hostile intent behind others’ behavior
• Secures are most desired as partners -> wind up with each other
• Avoidant man + ambivalent woman = unsatisfying to both partners
• Avoidant men + ambivalent women = stable pairings, despite the dissatisfaction
• Avoidant men avoid conflict -> help the relationship run smoothly
• Ambivalent women work harder at holding things together
• Pairings of avoidant-avoidant, ambivalent-ambivalent are rare
• People with insecure steer away from partners who would treat them as they were treated in infancy
• Avoidants avoid partners- emotionally inaccessible
• Ambivalent avoid partners - inconsistent

Question 32

Collins & Feeney, 2004: Attachment Styles and Perceptions of Social Support

Answer 32

• Dating couples who varied in attachment style
• 1 partner gave speech and other partner “provided” positive or neutral feedback before and after speech
• When participants received supportive notes, there were no difference as a function of attachment
• When participants received neutral notes:
• People high in avoidance perceived pre-speech note as less supportive
• People high in anxiety perceived post-speech note as less supportive
• Secure participants performed best on the speech

Question 33

Attachment Patterns and The Five-Factor Model

Answer 33

• Avoidance- introverted, against security, has associations with both extraversion and agreeableness
• Secures- extraverted
• Ambivalents- neuroticism

Question 34

Theory of psychosocial development

Answer 34

Erik Erikson

• Impact of social phenomena across life
• Personality evolves throughout life, from birth through maturity to death
• No part of life is more important than any other

Question 35

Lifespan Development

Answer 35

Personality develops across a series of stages

Question 36

Ego identity

Answer 36

• consciously experienced sense of self
• Derives from transaction with social reality
• Changes constantly in response to events in the social world
• Forming and maintaining a strong sense of ego identity is critical

Question 37

Competence and personal adequacy

Answer 37

• Aspects of mastery
• If a stage managed well, the person emerges with a sense of competence. If not, the person has feelings of inadequacy
• A desire for competence is a motivating force behind people’s actions- similar in many ways to White’s ideas about competence
• Difference is that Erikson focused more specifically on competence in the social environment

Question 38

Psychosocial crisis/conflict

Answer 38

*during each stage
Interchangeable
*Special meaning
*Differs from the use of either word in everyday speech
*Turning point; a period when the potential for growth is high but the person is also quite vulnerable
*Each crisis is fairly long (none is shorter than about a year)
*Some are quite long (perhaps 30 years)
*Crucial importance more than the sense of time pressure
*The conflict in each crisis isn’t a confrontation between persons, nor is it a conflict within personality. Rather, it’s a struggle between attaining some psychological quality versus failing to attain it.
*Conflict never ends
*Confront repeatedly in different forms throughout life

Question 39

Ego quality, ego strength and virtue

Answer 39

• emerge from crisis with positive orientation toward future events concerning that conflict
• Once established-> remain part of personality

Question 40

Infancy

Answer 40

*Most fundamental crisis of life
*Between a sense of basic trust versus basic mistrust
*Totally dependent on others to meet its most basic needs
-Met-> a sense of security and trust
-Reflected by feeding easily, sleeping well, and eliminating regularly
-Caretakers can leave the infant alone for short periods without causing too much distress because the infant has learned to trust that they’ll return
-Mistrust: fitful sleep, fussiness in feeding, constipation, and greater distress when the infant is left alone
*Sense of trust is extremely important
-Provide basis for believing that the world is predictable- especially relationships
-Enhanced by interactions in which caregivers are attentive, affectionate, and responsive
-Mistrust by inconsistent treatment, emotional unavailability, or rejection
Resembles ideas concerning object relations and attachment patterns
-Dominance of trust over mistrust -> ego strength of hope
-Ego quality->Hope: enduring belief that wishes are attainable; optimism about life

Question 41

Early Childhood

Answer 41

*Second and third years of life
*Focus on gaining control over their actions
*Crisis concerns these efforts- creating sense of autonomy in actions versus shame and doubt about being able to act independently
*Erikson agreed with Freud that toilet training is an important event, but for different reasons.
-Acquiring control over bladder and bowels -> feelings of autonomy (self-direction)
-Emerge when children interact effectively with others
–Failure, ridicule or criticism or if parents don’t let children act on their own -> shame and self-doubt
-Managing this conflict -> ego quality of will: determination to exercise free choice
*Successful management of one crisis prepares you to deal with the next one.
Sense of basic trust is reflected in secure attachment
-Secure -> explored more and self-initiated (autonomous)
-A sense of basic trust seems to promote more autonomy later on.

Question 42

Preschool

Answer 42

• From about 3 to 5
• Being autonomous and capable of controlling your actions = important start
• An ability to manipulate objects in the world leads to an increasing desire to exert influence- make things happen- desire for power
• This is when Freud saw Oedipal conflicts emerging-> metaphor for a more extensive power struggle between parents and child
• Crisis= initiative versus guilt
• Children who take the initiative are seeking to impose their newly developed sense of will on their surroundings
• -Express an act on their curiosity as they explore and manipulate their world and ask about things going on around them
• -Acts and words
• -If taking the initiative leads to disapproval -> feelings of guilt
• If crisis is managed well -> ego quality of purpose: courage to pursue valued goals without fear of punishment
• -Exerting power constantly -> disapproval -> restraint initiative
• Sense of basic trust seems to provide groundwork for the sense of initiative and purpose

Question 43

School Age

Answer 43

*From about 5 to 11
*Conflict: industry versus inferiority
-Industry: fact that the child’s life remains focused on doing things that have an impact
*Pressure to do things that others judge to be good
*Industriousness isn’t just doing things; it’s doing things that others value
-Doing things in ways that others regard as appropriate and commendable
*Begins about when the child enters elementary school
*Teaching children to become productive and responsible members of society
*Intellectual skills are first tested
Urged to do well in school, and the adequacy of their performance is explicitly evaluated.
*Involves learning social roles
-Learn about the nature of adult work
-Being exposed to some of the tools of adult work
*Citizenship
-Sense of industry is being judged partly by the acceptability of his or her behavior to the social group
*Children with a strong sense of industry differ in several ways from children with less industry
-Tend to prefer reality-based activities over fantasy
-More able to distinguish the role of effort from that of ability in producing outcomes
-Get better grades
-Agree more with statements that are socially desirable
*To emerge successfully, children must feel they are mastering their tasks in a fashion that’s acceptable to those around them
-Developing feelings of inferiority-> arise when children are led by others to view their performance as inadequate or morally wrong
*Managing conflict between industry and inferiority -> ego quality of competence: sense that one can do things that are valued by others

Question 44

Adolescence

Answer 44

• Begins with physical changes of puberty and lasts until roughly age 20
• Larger break with the past than any stage up to this point
• Desires
• You’re now beginning to think explicitly about yourself and your life in relation to the adult world
• You’ll have to find your place in that world.
• Decide what roles fit your identity-> knowing who you are
• Crisis: identity versus role confusion
• Identity: integrated sense of self- answer to Who am I?
• Role confusion: every self has many facets that sometimes seem incompatible
• -The greater the incompatibility, the harder it is to pull the facets together, and the more confused you are
• -No role seems to fit your identity
• To emerge with a strong sense of identity
• You must consolidate the self-views from the previous stages, merging them in a way that’s sensible
• This integrated self-view must be integrated with the view of you that others hold.
• -Identity is something you develop in a consensus with the people you relate to.
• Erikson: identity derives from a blending of private and social self-conceptions
• Sense of personal continuity or inner congruence
• Great emphasis on developing a sense of identity- major life task
• If fails to form a consolidated identity-> role confusion: an absence of direction in the sense of self
• Reflected in an inability to select a career
• Identify with popular heroes or groups or even anti heroes to try to fill the void
• Successful identity-> fidelity: truthfulness
• Ability to live up to who you are, despite the contradictions that inevitably occur among the values you hold

Question 45

Young Adulthood

Answer 45

*Through the mid-20s
*Conflict: intimacy versus isolation
-Intimacy: close, warm relationship with someone, with a sense of commitment to that person
–Saw intimacy as an issue in relationships of all kinds, nonsexual as well as sexual
–True intimacy requires you to approach relationships in a caring and open way and to be willing to share the most personal aspects of yourself with others.
–Must be open and receptive to others’ disclosures
–Intimacy requires the moral strength to live up to a commitment even when it requires sacrifice
–People are capable of intimacy only if they have a strong sense of identity.
-Isolation: feeling apart from others and unable to make commitments to them
–If condition aren’t right for intimacy- if no one’s there who fills his or her needs
–Sometimes, people withdraw into isolation on their own- aren’t able to establish intimate relationships in the future
–Social isolation: failure to be integrated into a society
–Emotional isolation: failure to have intimacy in your life- loneliness; feeds on itself
–Less responsive, ask fewer questions, and seem less interested in what the other person is saying -> hard to get to know and are likely to remain lonely
*Ego quality: love- mutuality that subdues the conflicts of separate identities
*People need a strong sense of identity -> intimacy
-Men with stronger identities -> have married
Identity didn’t predict whether the women married, but among those who had married, those with a strong identity were less likely to divorce.

Question 46

Adulthood

Answer 46

• The longest of the psychosocial stages
• Last into the mid-60s
• Crisis: generativity versus stagnation
• Generativity- desire to create things in the world that will outlive you- children for example
• -By creating a new life tied to yours, you symbolically ensure your continuation into the future (men with children scored higher in self-report measure of generativity)
• -Having a view of the self as a role model and source of wisdom for one’s children and to a parenting style that fosters autonomy
• -Creating and guiding the growth of the next generation
• -Shift of focus from a close relationship with one other person (intimacy) to a broader concern with society as a whole
• -Show an integration between that commitment and a sense of agency- commitment to assist next generation
• -May continue through the rest of one’s life
• Stagnation: inability or unwillingness to give of oneself to the future
• -Preoccupied with their own concerns
• -Self-centered or self-indulgent quality
• -Poorer psychological well-being
• Ego quality: care
• Widening concern for whatever you’ve generated in your life

Question 47

Old Age

Answer 47

• Maturity
• Closing chapter of people’s lives
• When people look back and review the choices they made and reflect on their accomplishments and failures and on the turns their lives have taken
• Crisis: ego integrity versus despair
• Ego integrity: feeling that your life has had order and meaning, accepting the choices you made and the things you did
• -Sense of satisfaction- a feeling that you wouldn’t change much about your life
• Despair: feeling that your life was wasted
• -Sense of wishing you had done things differently but knowing it’s too late
• -Bitterness that things turned out as they did
• Intensity -> ego quality of wisdom
• -Meaning making and benevolence
• -Active concern with life and continued personal growth, even as one confronts the impending reality of death

Question 48

Epigenesis

Answer 48

• process by which a single cell turns into a complex organism (in embryology)
• “Blueprint” at the start, with instructions for all the changes and their sequencing
• Applied to his theory- there’s a readiness for each crisis at birth
• The core issue -> focal during a particular stage, but all of the issues are always there
• Principle has several implications
• Your orientation to a particular crisis is influenced by the outcomes of earlier ones
• -Resolving the core crisis of any stage, you’re preparing solutions (in simple form) for the ones to come
• The crises aren’t resolved one and for all. Your resolutions of previous conflicts are revisited and reshaped at each new stage of life.

Question 49

Identity as Life Story

Answer 49

• The sense of epigenetic principle is well conveyed in some of the work of Dan McAdams
• Focuses partly on motivations that underlie personality
• People construct their identities as narratives: life stories
• Never completed story until the end of life -> constantly written and revised
• -Your identity is constantly evolving
• As in any good book
• -Opening= set the stage for things that happen much later
• -Sometimes, future foreshadowed
• -Sometimes early chapters create condition that have to be reacted later on
• -As chapters unfold, characters reinterpret events they experienced earlier or understand them in different ways
• -All pieces eventually come together into full and integrated whole
• Commitment stories: highly generated midlife adults -> report life stories in which they had early advantages, became aware of the suffering of others, established a personal belief system that involved prosocial values, and committed themselves to benefiting society
• -Redemption themes: a bad situation somehow is transformed into something good
• -Link from the sense of redemption to the quality of generativity =quite strong
• Low in generativity -> contamination themes: a good situation somehow turns bad

Question 50

Object relations measure of Bell et al. (1986)

Answer 50

• Four scales
• Alienation: measures a lack of basic trust and an inability to be close
• Insecure attachment: resembles the ambivalent pattern- a sensitivity to rejection and concern about being liked and accepted
• Egocentricity: assesses narcissism, a self-protective and exploitive attitude toward relationships and a tendency to view others only in relation to one’s own needs and aims
• Social incompetence: shyness and uncertainty about how to engage in even simple social interactions

Question 51

Open-ended measure of Blatt et al. (1979)

Answer 51

• A coding system to assess the maturity of people’s perceptions of social relations
• Ask you to describe your mother and father
• Low level maturity -> focus on how your parents acted to satisfy your needs
• High level -> focus more on your parents’ values, thoughts, and feelings apart from your needs
• Very high level -> internal contradictions in the parents and changes over time
• A person’s level of separation and individuation from the parents

Question 52

Attachment and Depression

Answer 52

• Interpersonal rejection -> depression
• Avoidant attachment: neglectful or rejecting parenting -> sadness, despair, and eventual emotional detachment
• -Development of emotional distress when under stress
• -Can be passed from one generation to another
• –Based on behavior not genetics
• Depressed avoidant parents -> emotionally distant parents
• -As a rejecting parent -> avoidant children

Question 53

Play therapy

Answer 53

• Erik Erikson (1963), Virginia Axline (1947), and Melanie Klein (1955a, 1955b)
• use with children
• Give the child the opportunity to do as he or she wishes, without pressuring, intruding, prodding, or nagging
• Children can have distance from others (if they’re worried about being smothered by a too ever-present parent), or they can play out anger or the wish for closeness (if they’re feeling rejected or unwanted)
• Child has the chance to bring feelings to the surface, deal with them, and potentially change working models of relationships and the self in positive ways

Question 54

Criticism

Answer 54

• Unresolved issues
• Clash between this view and the views of trait psychologists and behavior geneticists
• Parenting vs. genetically determined