Chapter Nine Flashcards
psychic energy
- a source of energy that is within each person
- operated according to the law of conservation of energy; the amount of psychic energy an individual possessed remained constant throughout life
life instincts (libido)
- generally considered sexual; any need-satisfying, life-sustaining, or pleasure-oriented surge (freud) (ie. eating as a life instinct as it entails the consumption nutrients necessary for survival)
death instincts (thanatos)
any urge to destroy, harm or aggress against others or oneself (ie. rape as a death instinct as it is fused with sexual energy that brings pleasure)
the relation between libido and thanatos
eating as both instincts: eating for nutrition (libido); chewing and biting into food is destructive (thanatos)
the conscious mind
- part that contains all the thoughts, feelings and perceptions that you are presently aware of
- what you are currently perceiving or thinking about
( ie. making a sandwich and you think about your actions and thoughts (what type of sandwich you want, how to prepare it, and how hungry you are)
the preconscious mind
- any information that you are not presently thinking about, but that could be easily retrieved and made conscious
- vast number of memories, dreams and thoughts that you could easily bring to mind if you so desired
(ie. what were you wearing yesterday? what was the name of your best friend in grade 7? what is the earliest memory you have of your mother?)
the unconscious mind
- contains thoughts, memories, desired, impulses not readily accessible to conscious awareness
- society doesn’t allow people to freely express all their sexual/aggressive instincts so one way they control the urges is keeping them from entering conscious awareness which is stored in the unconscious mind
psychic determinism
- idea that nothing happens by chance or by accident
- there is a reasons behind every act, thought, and feeling
everything we do, think, say and feel - - an expression of the mind — the conscious, preconscious and unconscious
blindsight (unconscious)
- when people lose some/all their ability to see that damages the primary vision centre in the brain but the eyes still work to bring information into the brain
- people who suffer this blindness display interesting capacity to make judgements about objects they cannot truly see
- evidence of the unconscious as one part of the mind knows about something that another part of the mind does not know about
deliberation-without-attention
if a person is confronted with a difficult decision, can put it out of their conscious mind for a period of time, then the unconscious mind will continue to deliberate on it outside of the person’s awareness, helping them arrive at a “sudden” and often correct decision sometime later
id
- something we are born with and is the source of all drives and urges
- operates according to the pleasure principle; the desire for immediate gratification (without delay)
- operates with primary process thinking; thinking without logical, moral, patient rules of conscious thought or an anchor in reality
ego
- part of the mind that constrains the id to reality
- reality principle; understanding that the urges of the id are often in conflict with social / physical reality
- understands that actions of the id can lead to problems and that direct expression of the id actions must be avoided, redirected or postponed
- secondary process thinking; the development of strategies for solving problems and obtaining satisfaction
superego
- internalizes the values, morals and ideas of society
- makes us feel guilty, ashamed or embarrassed when we do something “wrong” and makes us feel pride when we do something “right”
- guilt is the main tool of the superego
- like the id, the superego is not bound by reality as it is free to set standards for virtue and self-worth, even if those standards are perfectionistic, unrealistic and harsh
the interaction of the id, ego and superego
- a well balanced mind, free from anxiety, is achieved by having a strong EGO
- the ego balances the competing forces of the id, on the one hand, and the superego on the other
objective anxiety
fear; occurs in response to a real, external threat to the person
(ie. being confronted by a large, aggressive-looking man with a knife while taking a shortcut through an alley)
neurotic anxiety
occurs when there is a direct conflict between the id and the ego
(danger is that the ego may lose control over an unacceptable desire of the id)
moral anxiety
caused by a conflict between the ego and the superego
(people who punish themselves, low self-esteem, are most likely suffering from moral anxiety from an overly powerful superego)
defense mechanism
how the ego copes with threats and defends against dangers they pose in order to reduce anxiety
types of defense mechanisms
repression, denial, displacement, rationalization, reaction formation, projection, sublimation
repression
the process of preventing unacceptable thoughts, feelings, or urges from reaching conscious awareness
denial
the refusal of insisting things are the way they seem in an extremely anxiety provoking situation
displacement
threatening or unacceptable impulse channeled or redirected from its original source to a nonthreatening target
rationalization
involves generating acceptable reasons from outcomes that might otherwise appear socially unacceptable (goal is to reduce anxiety by coming up with an explanation for an event that is easier to accept than the real reason)
reaction formation
an attempt to stifle the expression of an unacceptable urge; a person may continually display a fluffy of behaviour that indicates the opposite impulse
projection
based on the notion hat sometimes we see in others the traits and desires we find most upsetting in ourselves (what a person dislikes or gets upset with others is often revealing their innermost insecurities and conflicts)
sublimation
the channelling of unacceptable sexual or aggressive instincts into socially desired activities
psychosexual stage theory
children seek sexual gratification at each stage by investing libidinal energy in a specific body part
oral stage
- 18 months after birth
- main sources of pleasure and tension reduction are the mouth, lips, and tongue
- main conflict during this stage is weaning from the breast or bottle
anal stage
- 18 months - 3 years old
- the child obtians pleasure from first expelling feces and then during toilet training, from retaining feces
- some children achieve too little control and grow up to be sloppy and dirty/other children have the opposite problem: they develop too much self-control and begin to take pleasure in little acts of self-control
phallic stage
- 3 - 5 years old
- the child discovers that he has (or she discovers that she does not have) a penis
- the major event is children’s discovery of their own genitals and realization that some pleasure can be derived from touching them
- oepidal conflict
- electra complex
oepidal conflict
unconscious wish for a son to have his mother all to himself, by eliminating the father
electra complex
a daughter desiring her father while at the same time, envies him for his penis (penis envy)
latency stage
- 6 years old - puberty
- mainly when the child is going to school and learning the skills and abilities necessary to take on the role of an adult
- freud believed it was a period of psychological rest, or latency
genital stage
- around puberty
- occurs only if oedipus or electra complex has been resolved
- libido is focused on the genitals, but not in the manner of self-manipulation associated with the phallic stage
successful personality development
defined by the ability to be productive and to maintain loving relationships
psychoanalysis
- a technique for helping individuals whom are experiencing a mental disorder or even relatively minor problems with living
manifest content (in dream analysis)
what the dream actually contains
projective hypothesis
the idea that what a person sees in an ambiguous figure
latent content (in dream analysis)
what the elements of the dream represent
two projective techniques
- inkblot technique: a person interpreting an inkblot as i.e. teeth, claws, blood, etc.
- asking a person to produce something, such as a drawing of a person, and what their draw might be a projection of their own conflicts
process of psychoanalysis
insight, resistance then transference
insight
- intense emotional experience that accompanies the release of repressed material
- when material is reintegrated into conscious awareness, and the person experiences the emotions associated with that previously repressed material, then we say that some degree of insight has been achieved
resistance
- the forces that have worked to repress the disturbing impulse or trauma now work to resist the psychoanalytic process
- as the patient’s defences are threatened by the probing psychoanalyst, the patient may unconsciously set up obstacles to progress
transference
the patient begins reacting to the analyst as if they were an important figure from the patient’s own life
