Chp 3 - Freud and Psychoanalytic Aspects of Personality Flashcards
Key characteristics of the Psychoanalytic Perspective
1) Influence of the unconscious
2) Unconscious dynamic, conflict with consciousness and with other aspects of unconscious;
3) Critical role of early experience (Stage theory (ppl can get stuck in a stage))
Two innate, biological instincts
- Eros
- Thanatos
Eros
- Sexual, survival
- Psychic energy, libido (sexual)
Thanatos
- Instinct to destruction, return to inanimate state
- Aggressive, self-destructive
Conservation of Psychic Energy
- Psychic “energy” constant across a person’s life
- Psychic energy can be redirected
(Transformation of motives) - Personality development and change a redirection of psychic energy
Transformation of motives
Psychic energy is inherently sexual, but can be transformed and redirected
e.g. redirect to food
Levels of Consciousness
- Consciousness
- Preconsciousness (usually refer to LTM)
- Unconscious
Id
Unconscious
- most primitive of the human mind
- present at birth
- Psychic energy: source of all drives and urges
- Dominates during infancy
- Operates acc to the pleasure principle
Pleasure principle
- satisfy desires and reduce inner tension
- Seek immediate release of psychic energy regardless of consequences
Ego
Conscious
- Redirects pressure produced by id
- emerge dur early childhood
- As we gain diff experience, the ego can access the preconscious
- Operates acc to the reality principle
Reality principle
- Delay discharge of psychic energy until appropriate/ acceptable
Superego
- Personality structure that emerges (5yo) to internalize these societal rules
- Like a conscience, but parts of the superego are unconscious
- not bound by reality (People may have personal ideals that are unrealistic: unattainable)
- Source of guilt, shame, embarrassment, pride, moral judgements
When the superego/ ego do not do their job well,
elements of the id may slip out and be seen.
Ego and Intrapsychic Conflict
Clinical Origins
Dysfunction, why do people have anxiety?
strain on ego
1) constrain id, Keep unacceptable impulses within the id
If the unconscious urges protruded to the conscious, will be conflict
2) intrusions of unconscious into conscious
3) mediates id-superego conflict
4) unresolved conflicts of the ego
3 types of diff types of anxiety
As ego risks failure
Creates
1) Neurotic anxiety
2) Moral anxiety
3) Reality anxiety
Neurotic anxiety
fear our impulses will lead to punishment, loss of parental love
Moral anxiety
superego - guilt
Reality anxiety
real threat
Ways of accessing the Unconscious
- Free association
- Projective tests
- dreams
Free Association
- Complete freedom of thoughts
- Whatever comes to mind
- Initial resistance (until responders stop paying attention to their responses)
- Unacceptable thoughts, wishes expressed
Projective Tests
- Ambiguous figures can be interpreted in many ways
- How you are interpreting them come from the unconscious
e.g. Ink blot, TAT picture
Projective Tests
- Ambiguous figures can be interpreted in many ways
- How you are interpreting them come from the unconscious
e.g. Ink blot, TAT picture
Dreams in context of unconscious
- Restraints weakened during sleep,
- Unconscious threaten to enter awareness,
- Protect by expressing in acceptable form.
Latent Content (dream)
The meaning of the dream
- Repressed wishes and urges, unresolved conflicts
Dream-work
Disguise latent content
make acceptable
Produce manifest content (dream)
The coded and disguised dream,
What is recalled upon waking
Dream interpretation
Undo dream work and translate manifest content back into latent (untapped) content
Reveals contents of unconscious
The best predictor of dream content is what you were ______ about and _____ before you went to sleep.
thinking and doing
Psychosexual Development
- stage theory
- 5 sequential stages
- lasting contribution
- sexual gratification
- childhood sexuality
- If not resolved appropriately then fixation
Fixation (Psychosexual Development)
stuck at the stage
The earlier the stage the person is fixated at, the more serious the impact on the individual’s health
What are the 5 stages of Psychosexual Development?
1) Oral
2) Anal
3) Phallic
4) Latency
5) Genital
Defence Mechanisms
Ego to reduce neurotic anxiety, conserve or safely discharge psychic energy
Repression
- original defense mechanism
- basis of all other defense mechanisms to unconscious
- keep impulses constrained
- Everyone has repression
- Keep the psychic energy bottled up
Types of defence mechanisms (7)
- Denial
- Projection
- Dissociation
- Regression
- Reaction formation
- Displacement
- Sublimation
Denial
- Most primitive
- Failure to acknowledge reality
- Usually only in extreme situations
- may be apparent in daydreams and fantasies
*Normal among young, potentially
dangerous older (psychoses)
Projection
- Project trait, impulse onto others
- Can hate, belittle them, instead of self
- It’s too risky due to the ego to hate indiv themselves
e.g. insecure about own’s intelligence, call others “stupid”
Dissociation
- Separate impulses from consciousness
- Abnormal separation of thoughts, emotions, impulses
e.g. extreme in DID
Regression
Revert to earlier stage of development to escape anxiety
e.g. weaner child demanding a bottle when upset (past of the oral stage but goes back to discharge the anxiety)
e.g. returning home to parents in response to an emotional trauma
Reaction Formation
- Display opposite behaviours to the impulse, because can’t do the thing you acc want to do
- Excessive, exaggerated
- Compulsive performance
(Inner drives of such people (the id) are pushing them to)
e.g overly kind, courteous, considerate when really angry
-Initial urge is to be violent
e.g. Feels unattractive so dresses in provocative clothes, flirts excessively
Displacement
- Directed at safe target
- Not deliberate targeting, unconscious
- hydraulic displacement model (pent up anger)
e.g. angry with boss, therefore abuses family
Sublimation
- Most mature, healthiest
- Transforming of dangerous urges into positive, socially acceptable motivations
- Effectively reduces energy of repression in a healthy way
e.g. sexual impulse expressed as care and nurturance
e.g. acts of creativity
Hypermnesia
- Excess memory
- Reporting memory that wasn’t reportable previously
Infantile amnesia
- Do not remember much about things before 3/4
- Freud: argued that it was because it was before the development of the Ego, and those thoughts were unacceptable, only from the id, therefore stay unconscious
- modern: maturation of the brain/ language
