dev psych terms

Question 1

actual neuroses

Answer 1

• psychopathology caused by an actual physical trauma.
• Damaged neurons keep from sexual discharge
• When freud moved away from trauma, realized not just physical, pseudo neurosis, can be conflict in one’s mind
• A neurosis is a psychological state characterized by excessive anxiety or insecurity without evidence of neurologic or other organic disease, sometimes accompanied by defensive or immature behaviors.
• Into the class of actual neuroses fell, chiefly, neurasthenia and anxiety neurosis. Later Freud added hypochondria.

Question 2

Affects

Answer 2

• pre-linguistic – once we can put language to it, it’s a feeling

Question 3

ambivalence

Answer 3

• Kernberg, person has to put together positive and negative aspects of mommy – healthy!
• For a period of time, there is normal splitting – as the child grows & matures begins to integrate the pos & neg
• Not good if they repress

Question 4

anal stage

Answer 4

• 1-3 yrs
• Retention and elimination of feces associated with control of self for the other (superego development) reflected in ambivalence and conflicts between activity/passivity, submission/autonomy, cleanliness/messiness, control/impulsivity, expression/sublimation/repression
• Challenge: has to do with child being potty trained, although bigger than this, as kids become mobile, parents go from positive affect to reprimanding and “no.”
o -Parent trying to control child’s behavior (but kids want to control their own behavior)
o -Often societal rules don’t make sense to kids
• -Some adults still very sensitive to control
• -May have impact later in intimate relationships

Question 5

anal sadistic

Answer 5

• expulsion/dirtying things
• aggression expulsion – response to controls
• Aggressive acting-out - expression of anger wishes connected with discharging feces as destructive (example of fantasies of explosions)

Question 6

anxiety, psychoanalytic theory of

Answer 6

• When child first displays anxiety and shame, the superego is emerging
• Focus on function of anxiety related to threats to the organism
• Real anxiety: threat from a known danger
• Neurotic anxiety: threat from an unknown source

Question 7

anxiety, psychoanalytic theory of p2

Answer 7

The accumulation of energy in the psyche is converted into anxiety.
If this energy is not discharged or transformed, neurotic symptoms emerge.
Anxiety may result from conflict between the mind’s agencies (ie. Id impulses threaten the Ego).
Defense mechanisms mobilize to protect the ego when anxiety is detected.
Freud’s first view of anxiety = when libido pushes for expression ego senses danger and represses libidinal urges so this drive cannot be discharged. The result is damming of the libido and subsequent anxiety.
Real anxiety=threat from a known danger.
Neurotic anxiety=threat from an unknown source.
Automatic/Annihilation Anxiety: the infant fears their existence is at risk due to unbearable frustrations over hunger and excessive external stimulation (loud noises, extreme temperatures, etc.) Also fear of loss of the primary object

Question 8

anxiety (A. Freud: instinctual, superego, objective)

Answer 8

• Anna Freud – three types of anxiety; instinctual (ego vs. id), superego (ego vs. superego), and objective (ego vs. external world).

Question 9

average expectable environment (Hartmann)

Answer 9

• Hartmann; an environment that is responsive to the child’s psychological needs.
• Parallels good enough mother, gets us out of perfect, and out of bad
• May be good enough for one baby
• Fit is fluid, shouldn’t be perfect
• Needs to be optimal failure, leads kid to figure things out on their own

Question 10

basic trust

Answer 10

• get this in the oral stage
• the sustained inner feeling of optimism regarding oneself and the world-at-large. It develops out of frequent experiences of one’s childhood needs being met with satisfaction. If overcome crises and thus develop trusting, confident disposition.

Question 11

castration anxiety

Answer 11

• (during phallic stage) identification with the father. Fear of castration due to the realization of forbidden sexual desire. Symbolic threat to genitals, not physical.

Question 12

Cathexis

Answer 12

• the attachment/concentration of libido (emotional energy) to a particular object or goal. The investment of libido in objects. Can cause schizoid personality features in children who experienced neglect or abuse.

Question 13

component instinct

Answer 13

• Infantile elements of sexuality (based on sexual excitation in erotogenic zones) that may contribute to adult sexuality and/or perversions. Example: scopophilia (pleasure in looking)
• Adults integrate different aspects of sexual excitation we’ve experienced throughout life
• Men & women begin to look at different things when they meet each other (women –face; men-breasts)
• Perversion does exist, arousal gets attached to some object
o More people engage, becomes fixed

Question 14

compromise formation

Answer 14

• Ego’s solution to an intrapsychic conflict and/or conflict with the external world
• related to drive demands (id) and prohibitions (superego), involves signal anxiety (awareness of possible danger) and employment of defenses to reach a compromise expressed in behavior (expression/inhibition).
• Maladaptive compromises (internal anxiety/guilt/shame or external consequences, e.g., punishment) may be seen as neuroses – the persistent over-employment and non-adaptive use of certain compromises may be seen as character pathology reflective in personality disorders.
o ex: not allowing self to express emotion, maladaptive

Question 15

conflict-free ego capacities

Answer 15

• synthetic functions of the ego that are conflict free, innate, and inherited. They allow infants to immediately fit into their immediate environment (AKA primary autonomous ego function).
• The equipment that allows them to do so consists of a set of intrinsic potentials called CFECs. This is in contrast to other psychoanalytic work, which indicates that adaptation comes out of resolution of conflict, whereas Hartmann stated that these abilities are inborn.

Question 16

consciousness/system cs

Answer 16

• awareness of the immediate environment.
o The actual contents of awareness; i.e., what one is conscious of at a given moment. Freud’s way of talking about “the conscious” is similar to what a cognitive psychologist means by attention.

Question 17

depressive position

Answer 17

• One of Klein’s 2 positions on how we organize ongoing experience
• integrating negative & positive experiences
• ex: when person we’ve attacked is person we love, leads us to guild, and to heal the relationship
• when vilifying partner, in paranoid-schizoid state
• guilt, healing – depressive position

Question 18

Paranoid-Schzoid

Answer 18

• One of Klein’s 2 positions on how we organize ongoing experience
• Initially don’t put negative and pos experiences together (ex cant put together mom who puts me in babyseat & mom that I love)
o A) first state – cant integrate any of this (kernberg – child utilizes normal splitting)
o Next move on to depressive position

Question 19

developmental lines

Answer 19

• Anna Freud believed that development moves back and forth along multiple lines of development, and that a child can develop in one area, but not in another. These development lines tracked the unfolding of a specific maturational theme at different periods of children’s lives and indicated what was typical or atypical. The level a child reaches on a developmental line is the result of the interaction of drives, ego development, and its relation to the nurturing environment. She proposed the existence of multiple developmental lines and made a distinction between normal and pathological development. This presented a major departure from the previous developmental model and instead depended on day-to-day observation of children.

Question 20

differentiation subphase

Answer 20

• Mahler) First phase of the separation-individuation process; child shifting from symbiosis to individuation. Takes place between 5 and 10 months. Infant is more alert to external stimuli. Infant begins to explore and starts to compare what is and what is not mother (e.g. scanning faces and checking back with mother).
• Early movement toward individuation. Characterized by separation/stranger anxiety and by clinging to the primary caregiver or to a transitional object serving as the caregiver.

Question 21

drive

Answer 21

• Drive is the psychological manifestation of an instinct; e.g., libidinal drive is the manifestation of the sexual instinct. Physiological discomfort motivates drive. Goal is to eliminate deprivation and/or move away from a noxious stimulus.
• Freud – drive has a biological component
• psychic representations of somatic states
• Biological drive becomes psychological b/c of the representation.
o An innate force which is biologically present at birth. It is goal directed towards eliminating deprivation or moving away from noxious stimuli.

Question 22

drive derivative

Answer 22

• Drive derivative – a drive can be expressed through a derivative (ex: porsche)
o Ex: can be expressed in language (cursing), can see in libidinal drive (dress)
• Conscious expression of repressed contents of wishes, fears & fantasies, such as symptoms, play, artistic creations
o Consequences of motivational impacts of drives – thought, impulse, wish, behavior

Question 23

economic hypothesis

Answer 23

• Newtonian mechanistic view of the workings of physical objects and the law of entropy as compared the workings of the mind. The concept of energy is central to the workings of the psyche. The drives are the motivating forces that activate the human psyche. Energy that accumulates within a system leads to a buildup of pressure, which unless relieved, would lead to the destruction of the system.

Question 24

ego/ ego function

Answer 24

• function=compromise formation - Ego allows you to manage and moderate impulses when your biology wants you to do otherwise
• use of defenses
• expression
• compromise → expression or inhibition
o neuroses – maladaptive compromise
o solution to intrapsyhic problem that isn’t good
• defenses – part of compromise
• defenses created by ego
• Intellectual part of selves that does reality testing
• Contact with external reality is an ego function
• All learning and modification comes through the ego
• Creates compromise

Question 25

ego-dystonic, ego-syntonic

Answer 25

• Drives influence ideas and behaviors.
• These drives are either Ego Dystonic (unacceptable to the ego, or experienced as foreign to the self)
• or Ego Syntonic (consistent with the ego ideals)

Question 26

ego ideal

Answer 26

part of the superego – forms through late anal into phallic stage
• set of standards reflecting exemplary view of self – (the ideal child – the ideal self representations/identification & fantasy)
• may lead to formation of ideals or narcissistic injury, shame, guilt or envy, jealousy, spite, envy, jealousy, spite
o a lot of people feel shame about who they are

Question 27

ego instincts

Answer 27

• Freud’s understanding that there are other kinds of motivations like eating, breathing, sleeping – these are life-sustaining and not related to neuroses; in opposition to drives.

Question 28

electra complex

Answer 28

• phallic stage – freud believed that oedipal complex had to apply to girls
• girls realized already castrated
• leads to devaluation of mom, attachment to dad now
• decides she wants a penis “penis envy”/desire for baby
• desire for baby leads to identification with mom = resolution of electra complex =consolidation of superego
• feminist critique – phallocentric=power
• what girl internalizes is that the men have the power
• identification with mom is identification with sexualized object
• internalized denegration with own sexuality (have to have type of body esteemed by men)

Question 29

epigenesis

Answer 29

• idea that there is a developmental thrust, there is a plan, certain developments that emerge over time that we can predict
o Can predict the terrible twos
• Developmental events unfold based on a pre-existing sequence and rate of development
• ex: children’s eye sight changes at pre-ordained time
o highly adaptive, should attend to mother immediately (can only see that far), over time becomes far sighted

Question 30

Eros

Answer 30

• libido, though sees it as more broad
• A motivational force/energy that binds elements of experience into a whole. The life instinct innate in all humans. The desire to create life; favors productivity and construction. Associated with genital pleasure/satisfaction.

Question 31

erotogenic zone

Answer 31

• where there is pleasure in body (baby = mouth)
o Change as we get older – mouth, anus, genital
• Body part when stimulated is a source of pleasure, gratification
• All mental disorder is housed in dysregulation of neuropathways
• action really is in the brain centers
• Freud – everything was mechanical and physical
• Anxiety of trauma related to actual physiological part of the body
• ex: ice cream
• stimulation is developed in pre-ordained stages that are predictable, has impact on the formation of a personality
• Arousal zone – occurring in relationship with ones parents
• a lot of issues client present with are particularly salient at different points in life
• Freud – all adult neurosis comes from childhood
• just when psyche is developing having interactions with caretakers

Question 32

fantasy

Answer 32

• can involve imagining images during the daytime, dreaming at night, and can be a creative adjustment function; accompanies all psychological interaction. It is unconscious, something that is being mentally constructed, that we will never fully see at the true unconscious level.
o For the mother, the more positive the prenatal experience is, the more positive her fantasies will be of the unborn child.
o Expectant mothers tend to reduce their fantasies in the 7th month to reduce disappointment if the child is not perfect
• Klein) conscious thoughts that are the product of the imagination; a person’s conscious creation of an imagined reality of what may be possible. This is different from “phantasies”, which are the unconscious thoughts that are associated with instincts.

Question 33

fixation

Answer 33

• regression can happen under stress
• An arrest at a phase of development because of difficulties the child cannot overcome
• Unchanged, unmodulated persistence of earlier patterns of thought, modes of relating to objects, reacting defensively to danger, or adaptations into advanced levels of maturing development, when their manifestations may be deemed inappropriate. Note: regression to fixation points when under stress or more significantly, developmental arrest, preempting to proceed to more advanced developmental level.
• genetic viewpoint

Question 34

genital/Oedipal phase

Answer 34

• Freud proposed that it takes place between the ages of 2.5 and 6. While Klein suggests that the Oedipus complex begins at the end of the first year or beginning of the second year.
• Physical maturation of systems of genital functioning; conflicts in drive expression, containment, sublimation; increased strain on ego functioning and balancing superego and id imperatives; integration of drive states; object relations dynamics (idealization, devaluation, ambivalence – whole objects)
• Increased sexual drive
• Increased aggression
• Increase in id
• Conflict in drive expression can crease psychological difficulties
• How do we deal with these forceful drive states? Job is to get good healthy control
• Developmental task is to develop healthy sexual behavior

Question 35

Oedipus stage/complex:

Answer 35

• A boy fears that his father will punish him for his feelings toward his mother by removing the locus of these feelings, the penis. This fear causes the boy to abandon his incestuous attachment to his mother and begin to identify with his father, imitating him and adopting his values, a process that results in the formation of the boy’s superego.
• Paralleling the castration anxiety felt by boys, girls experience penis envy. The girl blames her mother for depriving her of a penis and desires her father because he possesses one. Ultimately, the girl, like the boy, represses her incestuous desires and comes to identify with the same-sex parent, the mother, through the development of a superego.
• Freud: instinctual drives, aims, object relations, fears, and identifications are organized during the phallic stage.

Question 36

Genetic viewpoint –

Answer 36

• developmental point of view
• the course of an individual’s development follows inborn laws that represent a sequential series of invariant phases or stages. Freud’s psychosexual model is an expression of the genetic hypothesis.

Question 37

Hartmann

Answer 37

• Adaptive point of view (emphasis on ego functioning and adaptation of id to “reality” – society)
• Shaped US ego psych
• introduced ego & drive of psychological structure is more around adaptation
• How do we adapt to society and external forces?
• Alloplastic: alters the environment to adapt
o Autoplastic: alters self to adapt
• Are you more likely to adapt yourself to the environment or vice versa (rigidity vs compromise)

Question 38

homeostasis

Answer 38

• create equilibrium – try to relieve pressure
• Infant’s internal milieu → relationship with their mother
• “tendency of organism to restore equilibrium if constancy is disturbed”

Question 39

hysteria

Answer 39

• conversion d/o – the first ones Freud looked at
o Some psychological content gets affixed to a body part or some external object.
o Neurosis characterized by emotional instability, repression, dissociation and suggestibility. The theory behind this is that the event that is causing the conversion disorder is so disturbing that it can’t be thought of consciously, so it is converted somatically.

Question 40

ID

Answer 40

• Hypothetical psychic system (structural theory) encompassing the instinctual drives – motivational forces “that have a peremptory quality and function on the mind to seek gratification” – pleasure seeking orientation.
• Part of the system UCS, reflecting biological urges.
• disagreement whether the id only contains biological forces (that are represented as instincts) or also includes other forms of repressed mental representations.
• As reflected in dual drive theory – primary biological forces concern libido and aggression

Question 41

identification

Answer 41

unconscious
• “Process where self representation is altered to become more like the representation of another, occurring intrapsychically,” example of child modeling behavior after the same-sex parent
o Karen: Identification may lead to negative results: identification with hated aspects of a parent.

Question 42

infantile neurosis

Answer 42

• Internalized conflict at a particular stage of psychic structuring
• Oran/anal – am I being fed enough? Taken care of?
• psychological conflict, predictive of adult neurosis
• fixation points in childhood. How we manage all of the conflicts in childhood influence how we manage these conflicts as adults

Question 43

instinct (Freud, Bowlby)

Answer 43

Freud – its biological
• Drive, instinct is a psychic representation of a somatic state
• an innate or genetically inherited species-specific goal directed set of behaviors.
• All behavior motivated by the drives (a drive is the psychological representation of an instinct and an instinct is the neurological representation of a physical need).
• Life instincts perpetuate (a) the life of the individual, by motivating him or her to seek food and water, and (b) the life of the species, by motivating him or her to have sex. The motivational energy we use is satisfying drives is called libido.
Bowlby –
• instincts related to self-preservation can be seen in the mother-child bond; attachment is formed through interactions that create dopaminergic reactions, e.g., baby smiles and mother smiles back. Specific behaviors occur as a result of the instinct for self-preservation/attachment.

Question 44

instinctual aim

Answer 44

• agro (object – hit someones face)
• Can be aroused by shoe – object can shift
• If aggression, object is the object of that aim – destroy a specific object
• One of the four elements of an instinct. The idea that the aim of the instinct is always satisfaction.
• an intended goal inherent in instinctual behavior. The aim of the instinct is always satisfaction/gratification.

Question 45

instinctual object

Answer 45

• wherever there is an impulse there needs to be an object. For example, in order to have a sexual instinct there needs to be an object to act out that instinct. Failure to find an object to achieve the instinctual aim leads to instinctual frustration…this leads to pain.
o The object is that in or through which satisfaction can be achieved. The object can be the subject’s own body.
• the object through which satisfaction can be achieved. Can be a person’s own body. Infant can be drawn to an instinctual object without having learned about its function, e.g., the mother’s breast. Failure to find an object through which to achieve the instinctual aim leads to frustration.

Question 46

Instinctual drives –

Answer 46

• motivational forces, have permatory quality & function of mind → gratification
o Mostly concerned with pleasure

Question 47

Introjection

Answer 47

• According to Freud, the ego and the superego are constructed by introjecting external behavioral patterns into the subject’s own persona.

Question 48

internal objects

Answer 48

• think in terms of object relations theory – kernberg – internal object not purely acc representation of object – combo what is internalization is actual interaction + fantasy + drive

Question 49

latency

Answer 49

• (B/W oedipal & genital)Developmental phase (6-11or onset of puberty) period of relative quiescence (Freud); contemporary viewpoint is oedipal struggles continue but are warded off by superego development and advancements in defense, such as, reaction formation, sublimation.
• When latency hits, quiet point in the body
• No new arousal, so energy can go somewhere else (reading, writing)
• Hones in on ability to control emotions
• Ends at puberty

Question 50

latent content

Answer 50

• (Dreams) - outside of awareness; symbolic content; unconscious

Question 51

manifest content

Answer 51

dreams – verbally known
• Embodies the experienced content of a dream. Freud postulated that the dreams of adults have been subjected to distortion, with the dream’s so-called ‘manifest content’ being a heavily disguised derivative of the ‘latent’ dream-thoughts present in the unconscious.

Question 52

metapsychology

Answer 52

• Freud’s metapsychology is composed of 5 different POVs incorporating most of the positions throughout his life.
• Economic (amount of energy taken up and discharged in the psyche),
• topographic (CS, PCS, UCS),
• dynamic (focuses on the balance of forces and counterforces acting on the drives),
• genetic (developmental),
• structural (id, ego, superego as the major agencies of the mind).

Question 53

multidetermined, overdetermined

Answer 53

• A psychic event or act may be caused by more than one factor
• over-determined - by the interactions within the psychological system
• all of our beh is overdetermined (lots of psych meanings that contribute)

Question 54

naricissm, primary

Answer 54

• is the self-involvement all infants start out with. The investment of libido into oneself.

Question 55

narcissism, secondary

Answer 55

• is a turning of libido away from objects back to the ego, as with what we now call the narcissistic personality.

Question 56

Object

Answer 56

• sim to internal object – object is a psychological object created out of actual experience + fantasy + drive
• a mental representation of a person made up of the individual+fantasy+needs in the context of need states. So don’t talk about the mother, talk about the maternal object because the mental image is partly a result of the child’s own mental imaging and unique experiences with the mother.

Question 57

object constancy

Answer 57

• a process through which the child internalizes a whole image of their caregiver.
• The achievement of consistent internal representation of the object (the parent) that is stable and able to be maintained regardless of whether the object satisfies or doesn’t satisfy the child’s needs.
• The tendency for objects to remain perceptually invariable regardless of wide variation in conditions of observation.
• Allows for the formation of relationships that can survive disappointments / frustrations.
• Develops once the ego is formed and the child experiences him/herself as having separate identity from the caregiver and other people are seen to have separate existences.

Question 58

oral phase

Answer 58

• 0-1
• Starts with physiology – what is the zone that’s providing pleasure?
o Infant relates to world through mouth
o -mucus membranes have the most nerves, therefore infants experiencing most stimulation
o -doesn’t go away (ex. kissing, eating)
• First: oral gratification/satisfaction
• Then: oral aggression/oral sadism (teething – much more interactional. when they get frustrated they bite. begin to get a reaction. stage of oral sadism.
o in adulthood, friend who gives compliments followed by jabs
o -deprived in childhood, now 400 lbs, never enough with food, and extends to relationships
• Followed by: gratification vs. frustration impacts the formation of basic trust - do I feel safe in the world? what is the child internalizing?
• Either comes out of this stage with fundamental sense of trust (enough love) not too much frustration
• Some clients may be orally dependent – everything is about their needs, never enough
• Freud – If people have conflicts at this stage – fixation, will always be an issue

Question 59

penis envy

Answer 59

• in electra complex girl decides she wants a penis “penis envy”/desire for baby
• desire for baby leads to identification with mom = resolution of electra complex =consolidation of superego

Question 60

phallic stage

Answer 60

• Boys: rivalry with father > fear of castration >
o internalization of threat > identification with
o father > resolution of Oedipus complex > consolidation of superego functioning
• -Boys love mom, become jealous of dad/creates a rivalry, wants to get rid of him, fears that dad is going to castrate him, joins with dad = resolves oedipal complex
• -Little boy identifying with dad, wants to be like him=consolidation of superego
• Oedipus comples=cornerstone of neuroses
• According to Kohut, there is an oedipal phase, but not every phase leads to conflict, but can become conflicted
• -Kohut – castration isn’t in the physical sense

Question 61

phylogeny

Answer 61

• The history of the development/evolution of the species is recapitulated in the development of the individual
• Phylogeny vs. ontology: Freud got phylogeny from medicine of the time
• Passed down physiologically, biologically got from medical model
• believed that psychological conflict is passed down genetically
• Oedipus complex based primarily on phylogeny, based on times when there was primal urges, and fighting
• Freud ended up rejecting his own theory

Question 62

pleasure/unpleasure

Answer 62

• the goal of psychical activity is to avoid unpleasure; increases in excitation resulting from the accumulation of undischarged energies produce unpleasure, whereas the discharge of the accumulated tension associated with those energies produces pleasure; cathartic therapy helps patients discharge their accumulated tension; part of the economic hypothesis/entropy model (Freud & Breuer)

Question 63

preconscious/system pr-cs

Answer 63

• Linguistic link to unconscious

* Mental content not immediately conscious, but may be brought into conscious awareness (ex: priming, free association)

Question 64

primal scene (same as oedipal)

Answer 64

• Childhood perception of parental sexual intercourse/behavior – observed, overheard, fantasized, meaning ascribed
• Introducing the phallic stage
• -Kids become aware of sexuality in some form
• (All along the way kids enjoy being stimulated – baths)
• 3+ - can see self stimulation
• -lots of exposure to sex in media

Question 65

primary autonomous ego functions (under ego)

Answer 65

• Hartmann, divided ego functions into primary and secondary autonomous functions. Primary functions, such as the cognitive functions of perception, intelligence, thinking, comprehension, language, learning, and the synthetic function of the ego are innate, inherited ego characteristics and conflict-free.

Question 66

primary process (unconscious)

Answer 66

• one’s thinking (process) or sensation that is very close to the most raw biological aspects of the Self; not censored and potentially highly impressionistic.
• This cognition/mentation involves drives (i.e. aggression, images of blood), tends to be more primitive, unconscious and instinctual, and at or below a minimal linguistic level.
• This is often observed by one experiencing extreme psychosis (i.e. magical thinking: believing aggression is coming from inanimate objects).

Question 67

primitive defenses

Answer 67

• certain defense mechanisms are employed by the ego very early in life - mostly before age 2 and 3.
• More mature defenses develop as the ego becomes more organized (after object constancy established).
• Primitive defenses include splitting, projection, denial, and acting out. Paranoid-schizoid adaptation can be considered a primitive defense.

Question 68

projective identification

Answer 68

• a person projects a part of the self onto others;
• differs from simple projection in that leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy,
o e.g., a paranoid person may assume cops are out to get them and may thus attract attention by acting suspiciously and encouraging cops to act in a way that confirms the paranoid’s (false) beliefs.
o Or, if think someone is rude, may act standoffish; this encourages the other person to act standoffish and this fulfills the original assumption.
• A defense mechanism meant to protect the ego against potential persecution and separation from others.

Question 69

Psychoneuroses

Answer 69

• Psychological conflict
• Not actual damage
• This term refers to any mental imbalances that cause distress but, unlike psychosis and personality disorders, do not prevent or affect rational thought (i.e. obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety neurosis, hysteria, and phobias).

Question 70

psychic determinism

Answer 70

• Wishes, thoughts, behaviors, affects are not random
• the assumption that behind every mental process there is a cause, either conscious or unconscious. this can be seen in the “Freudian slip”. Nothing is random. Every action is meaningful and the result of a compromise. Each thought and associated feeling is influenced or determined by the ones that preceded it.

Question 71

reality principle

Answer 71

• The ego functions according to reality as opposed to what is (purely) desired. Immediate gratification is not always feasible, so the ego allows for delayed gratification.
• attending to external reality; awareness of the demands of the environment and the necessity of conforming to those demands.
o Enables the ego to come to terms with what is real, even though it may be disagreeable, rather than what is merely desired
o Reality principle modifies the pleasure principle to meet demands of external reality… closely related to maturation of ego functions (Meissner, 138)

Question 72

repetition compulsion

Answer 72

• Reenactment of childhood conflict, ego’s function of mastery and regulation or in some instances masochism
• drives, keep working though
• the need to repeat a behavioral pattern over and over again. This can become maladaptive, e.g., in relationship patterns. Freud: drive is expressed until it reaches final gratification. Contemporary: drive is expressed until some compromise is reached.

Question 73

Repression

Answer 73

• A defense that the ego initiates to keep unacceptable id wishes from emerging in consciousness because of the threat they represent to the ego. May contribute to resistance in therapy.

Question 74

Resistance

Answer 74

• Psychological resistance is the phenomenon often encountered in clinical practice in which patients either directly or indirectly oppose changing their behavior or refuse to discuss, remember, or think about presumably clinically relevant experiences.
• Anything that is in opposition to the development of insight or the therapeutic process.
• (Freud) idea that neurotic symptoms are a result of the struggle between repressed material trying to access executive functioning in order to be expressed (id) and mental controls trying to keep material from being expressed (ego). Repressed idea may surface (disguised) as a neurotic symptom. Freudian slips, dream material, etc. are all examples of this phenomenon.

Question 75

secondary autonomous ego functions

Answer 75

• (Hartmann): functions that were once involved in developmental conflicts, such as oral, anal, or phallic/oedipal and were freed as a result of the resolution of those conflicts through the process of neutralization. Energy was neutralized, the conflict removed (sexual and aggressive qualities removed from drives), and the ego function then contributes to adaptation.

Question 76

secondary process

Answer 76

– getting into language
• - conscious mental activity, particularly conscious and rational activity directed toward satisfaction of drives
o Under control of ego: thought processes including problem solving, judgment, and systematic thinking enable us to meet the external demands of the environment, and the internal demands of our instincts, in rational, effective ways

Question 77

signal anxiety

Answer 77

• Unconscious affective response to an anticipated danger situation (internal or external threat)
• In model when we talk about compromise, ego has to net out a compromise between internal (pleasure) and external threat (sinful done something wrong, guilt)
o Generally outside of conscious awareness
• Signal Anxiety: anxiety whose purpose is to warn of an impending threat and prepare the individual for flight, fight, or surrender. Can conceptualize as a subset of unconscious mental processes that have a signal function of anticipating danger.
• Such unconscious anticipatory processes are a general feature of the mind that includes responses to both real and imagined (neurotic) appraisals of a situation.

Question 78

Structural Approach

Answer 78

• Freud 1923 – tripartite model of the mind –
• psychic apparatus (id, ego , superego) reflects hypothesized agencies, structures, systems, that operate in a dynamic tension.
• Psychological functioning can be conceptualized in terms of the tension-regulatory operations centered on ego functions.

Question 79

Sublimation

Answer 79

• In short, channeling an impulse into a socially desired activity.
• The ego harnesses instinctual energy and channels it into a socially acceptable pursuit. I.E. the voyeur becomes a photographer.

Question 80

superego

Answer 80

• Internal representation of standard of behavior and moral demands imposed from without (society standards, prohibitions, injunctions mediated through the parents/caregivers)
o Mediated through societal standards
o Internalize this
o formed out of parental identifications and influenced by fantasy and the level of drive, may be considered the outcome of internalized object relations
o Observes and evaluates behavior – self-punishment/praise affecting self-esteem and consequent affective experience and self-regulation of esteem.

Question 81

symbiosis

Answer 81

• reciprocal relationship between two people.
• Symbiotic period of child development is when the child depends on the mother for survival - can be seen as “one psychic being” - at its peak btw 4/5 mos.
• Occurs before child develops own sense of individuality (separation-individuation).

Question 82

synthetic function

Answer 82

• (Hartmann) An autonomous ego function. The ego’s ability to synthesize drives, tendencies, and functions of personality.
• This allows the individual to think, feel, and act in an organized and directed manner. Opposed to repression which represents a loosening of ties with reality.
• Considered the “centralization of function” in personality integration.

Question 83

thanatos

Answer 83

• The death instinct; a self-destructive force, part of Freud’s dual instinct theory; the aggressive drive is regarded as he expression of Thantos.

Question 84

Topographic Approach

Answer 84

• Freud’s original emphasis – unconscious has wishes, ideas, feelings outside of conscious awareness
• Preconscious associations can lead to conscious experience; foundation of technique of “free association”
o Ex: Hunger, thirst sleep = conscious (ego)
• However, conflicts around sex drive, aggression creates problem
• Dual drive theory – 2 motivations create problems for people

Freud’s division of psyche into three layers: the preconscious, the conscious, and the unconscious. Freud’s topographical model represents his “configuration” of the mind. According to Freud, there are three levels of consciousness:
Consciousness/System Cs: awareness of the immediate environment. The actual contents of awareness; i.e., what one is conscious of at a given moment. Freud’s way of talking about “the conscious” is similar to what a cognitive psychologist means by attention. Anything that is thought, perceived or understood resides in this conscious
Preconscious/System pr-cs: Summary: The preconscious is all the material that is stored in our memory that can be readily and voluntarily accessed.
Unconscious/System Ucs: Material passes easily back and forth between the conscious and the preconscious. Material from these two areas can slip into the unconscious. A repository for socially unacceptable ideas, wishes or desires, traumatic memories, and painful emotions. The id resides in the UCS.

Question 85

transference

Answer 85

• when a client projects unconscious feelings from previous relationships onto the therapist. From a PA view, transference brings repressed material to the surface where it can be processed and the sources of neurotic symptoms identified.

Question 86

tripartite model/self

Answer 86

• id, ego, and superego. the self is a construction outside of this model.