Freud Flashcards
What was Freu’d legacy to psychology?
- into of unconscious part of mind
- neurotic symptoms both express and shield hidden impulses
- psychoanalysis
- hypnosis(cathartic method)–> concentration technique –> free association
- psychosexual development as a theory of personality
- dreams are unconscious desires
What is psychoanalysis?
- therapy involving talking about experiences that may lead to resolution of certain problems/symptoms
With the change from hypnosis to the concentration technique to free association, what were the outcomes for the patient?
- hypnotic (cathartic technique)
- pt becomes more and more autonomous
What is a problem with Freud’s theories?
- the theories are not testable (not scientific)
- not refutable
What did Karl Popper say about Freud’s theories of psychoanalysis?
- that they are irrefutable
- not scientific (because it is immune to falsification)
What did Solms say about Freud’s theories?
- he did not have the technology to know how the brain was organised
What is the Quine - Duhem thesis?
- the possibility of making a theory consistent with any seemingly disconfirming data.
What were the origins of Freud’s theory of personality?
- hysterical symptoms as meaningful
- there is some origin to these hysterical symptoms
- the cathartic method released these trapped emotions
What are some criticisms of Freud’s?
- irrefutable
- didn’t have technology to know how the brain was organized
- not scientific in its methodology
What is some evidence towards psychoanalysis as a testable theory/scientific?
- according to Fisher & Greenberg (2002) and Erwin (2002), has been experimental and papers supporting Freudian psychoanalysis
What is some neuroscientific evidence for Freud’s claims?
- much of our mental activity is unconsciously motivated, there is now neurological mapping of Freud’s id, ego & superego
- the left hemisphere employs mechanisms of defense
What are some problems of an attempt to test Freud’s concepts?
-fractionates his theory
What is the ego’s role and why is it important for this function?
- role to repress Id’s unconcious drives that might prompt behaviour that is incompatible with our civilised society
- this repression is necessary bc the drives express themselves in unconstrained passions, childish fantasies, and sexual and aggressive urges
What is one of the best known aspects of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory?
- most of mental life occurs outside of conscious awareness
What does unconscious refer to?
- refers to that which we are not aware
BUT EXISTENCE OF WHICH WE ARE NEVERTHELESS READY TO ADMIT ON ACCOUNT OF OTHER PROOFS OR SIGNS
How do unconscious and conscious mental states differ from conscious mental states?
- by their being UNKNOWN
In Freud’s Interpretations of Dreams (1990), he described the physical apparatus consisting of which two systems?
- unconscious (material that has been actively repressed and denied access from pre-conscious-conscious)
- pre-conscious-conscious
In 1923, Freud changed his ideas how?
- proposed that intra-psychic life consists of id, ego and super-ego
- break between agencies (unconscious, pre-conscious-conscious) is rejected
What is the id?
- linked to physiology of body
- unconscious expressiong of instincts
- most is from repression
- the ‘reservoir’ of libido and psychical energy
- conflicts with the ego and superego
- expresses itself in symbols/images (e.g. dreams)
- goes according to ‘pleasure principle’
What is topography?
- the science of defining the regions of the mind
What is the ego?
- mostly unconscious (also preconscious-conscious
- draws energy from the id
- lower portions merge into the id
- organized according to secondary process thought- attention, judgement, reasoning, planning, logical cognition
- driven by ‘reality principle’
What is the super-ego?
- also merges into the id and can operate unconsciosuly
- emerged from the ego and comes to dominate it
- ‘vehicle of tradition’
How does the superego differ from the id and ego?
- it is developed, not born instinctually
Does Freud himself discuss the id, ego and super-ego as separate parts or dynamic relationships?
- he reifies them
Does personality = conscious domain?
- no, mental life cannot be reduced to the conscious domain
How does Freud say we understand unconscious behaviours?
- it is not verbal, it is PRE-VERBAL, it is only imagery
- putting words to materials, it is no longer unconscious
What evidence is there for the existence of unconscious material?
- psychopathology of everyday life (e.g. slips of tongues)
- dreams
- hypnotic suggestion
- resistance/repression
- defense mechanisms
According to freud, why do we keep ourself in a state of not-knowing?
- because conscious awareness is too threatening to your societal expectations etc.
- this involves repression
What is repression?
- an unconscious force which PUSHES disturbing thoughts our of consciousness.
What results from failed repression>
- return of the repressed
- leak our unconscious material
e. g. slips of the tongue, dreams
What is resistance?
- the force that keeps pathogenic experiences out of consciousness
What is the difference between resistance and repression?
- resistance is the force keeping pathogenic experiences out of consciousness, whereas repression is pushing disturbing material out of consciousness
What is projection?
- attributes tendencies, desires, emotions, thoughts to others that she/he refused to recognise in herself/himself
- primary defense mechanism
What is the difference between psychoanalytic and cognitive-affective neuroscience approaches to the unconscious?
- Freud said that the unconscious was what shaped conscious mental life; whereas empirical findings suggests that findings confirm the existence of cognitive processing outside of conscious awareness
According to Freud, what can be understood from dreams?
- expressions from unconscious material
- they can, in principle, be interpreted- you can discover what they mean
What did Freud suggest about dreams?
- that they are wish-fulfillments of the unconscious
What did freud say about dreams and wish-fulfillments?
- dreams are a compromise–> have censorship
- the superego acts as a censor to allow for
What is the difference between latent content and manifest content?
- LATENT CONTENT: is its revealed meaning- the true nature of the repressed wish
- MANIFEST (REMEMBERED) CONTENT: what appears to the dreamer when they awaken and report; the primary processes of censorship (symbolisation, condensation & displacement)
What are the four processes of dream censorship?
- displacement: replace an important idea with a remote associated idea, shifting focus from one thought to a more diffuse thought
- condensation: several images fused to create a single composite
- visual representation: use of concrete/visual symbols to stand for some abstract thought
- secondary revision:moments just before we wake, our preconscious makes latent content into a form sensible to our waking intelligence (causes more distortion)
How can dreams be understood?
- free association
What are some criticisms of dream interpretation?
- random and arbitrary
- may be some evidence that dream content represents unconscious and conscious preoccupations
- dreaming does not just occur when there is intra-psychic conflict
- sleep research: not all dreams involve censorship
What are the some of the claims made by contemporary neuropsychology?
- dreams require interpretation
- dreams are meaningful
- dream are motivated
- dream cognitiion is disinhibited
What is some evidence to suggest that dreams are expressions of some instinctual drives that cannot be expressed consciously?
- close link btw brain structures responsible for dreaming and those responsible for biological emotions and motivations.
