Freud Flashcards

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1
Q

Who is Sigmund Freud?

A
  • neurologist
  • 1856-1939
  • lived primarily in Vienna
  • created theory from personal experiences and memories
  • studied with Charcot in Paris
  • explored benefits of cocaine
  • developed psychoanalytic practice
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2
Q

Freud’s Austria

A
  • Characterized by an even more rigorous form of Victorian sexual morality than England
  • Intense moral preoccupation with sexuality, particularly in women and children
  • Young women were expected to be chaste before marriage
  • Sexual exploration and masturbation were assiduously suppressed
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3
Q

What was Freud’s general theory?

A
  • Unusual, or “perverse,” sexual desires dominate the mind
  • These became unconscious, no longer under the control of a person’s self-conscious and voluntary choices
  • Manifested in a person’s involuntary actions, like mistakes and slips of the tongues, as well as in mental pathologies, like obsession, paranoia, hysteria, and anxiety
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4
Q

What did Freud and Breuer work on together?

A
  • studies in hysteria
  • use of hypnosis in treating hysteria
  • case of Anna O.
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5
Q

What is free association?

A
  • under the right circumstances, patients describe previously hidden material that seemed related to the causes and cure of their hysterical symptoms
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6
Q

What did Freud discover about hysteria?

A
  • Physical changes could not be observed
  • Early traumatic sexual experiences were responsible for hysterical symptoms expressed by adult patients

traumatic events –> physical changes in the nervous system –> anxiety symptoms later in life

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7
Q

What is psychic determinism?

A
  • Idea that unconscious forces have the power to influence behaviour
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8
Q

What is the topographic model?

A
  • personality is divided into three levels of awareness
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9
Q

What are the 3 parts of the topographical model?

A
  • conscious
  • preconscious
  • unconscious
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10
Q

What is the conscious?

A
  • contains the thoughts you are currently aware of
  • experiences in awareness
  • limited aspect of personality
  • changes constantly
  • can deal with only a small percentage of all the information stored in the mind
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11
Q

What is the preconscious?

A
  • large body of retrievable information
  • storehouse of memories and thoughts
  • can call into consciousness
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12
Q

What is the unconscious?

A
  • thoughts that cannot be easily brought into awareness
  • no immediate access
  • except under extreme situations
  • home of the instincts
  • responsible for much of everyday behaviour
  • majority of thoughts
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13
Q

What is the structural model?

A
  • divides personality into 3 parts often not at peace with each other
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14
Q

What are the 3 parts of the structural model?

A
  • id
  • ego
  • superego
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15
Q

What is the id?

A
  • at birth
  • selfish part of you
  • buried in unconscious
  • impulses center on themes of sexuality and aggression
  • id impulses ever present, held in check by other parts of healthy adult personality
  • pleasure principle: concerned only with what brings immediate personal satisfaction regardless of physical or social limitations
  • wish fulfillment: if the desired object is not available, id will imagine what it wants
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16
Q

What is the ego?

A
  • 2 years
  • reality principle: primary job is to satisfy id impulses in a manner that takes into consideration the realities of the world and consequences of the action
  • keep impulses unconscious
  • moves freely between conscious, preconscious and unconscious
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17
Q

What is the superego?

A
  • 5 years
  • represents society’s values and standards
  • internalized values
  • places more restrictions on what we can do
  • primary weapon is guilt
  • conscience
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18
Q

What conflicts threaten the ego?

A
  • reality anxiety
  • neurotic anxiety
  • moral anxiety
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19
Q

What is reality anxiety?

A
  • tangible dangers
  • threat is really there
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20
Q

What is neurotic anxiety?

A
  • id vs ego
  • vague feelings of anxiety sparked by the sensation that unacceptable unconscious thoughts are about to burst through the awareness barrier and express themselves in consciousness
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21
Q

What is moral anxiety?

A
  • id vs superego
  • superego can become too powerful and burden the ego with impossible standards of perfection
  • ever present feeling of shame and guilt
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22
Q

What is the structural model like in a healthy individual?

A
  • a strong ego does not allow the id or the superego to much control over the personality
  • below our awareness we have an eternal state of tension between a desire for self-indulgence, a concern for reality, and the enforcement of a strict moral code
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23
Q

What is the Triebe?

A
  • strong internal forces that motivate human behaviour
  • drives or instincts
  • propelling forces of personality
  • form of energy
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24
Q

What are the 2 important instincts?

A
  • libido
  • thanatos
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25
Q

What is the libido?

A
  • life or sexual instinct
  • oriented toward survival
  • most of human behaviour
  • erotic content and any action aimed at receiving pleasure
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26
Q

What is the thanatos?

A
  • death or aggressive instinct
  • compulsion to destroy and conquer
  • desire to die and return to the earth
  • mostly turned outward and expressed against others
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27
Q

What are defense mechanisms?

A
  • ego strategies to defend against anxiety
  • techniques of ego to deal with unwanted thoughts and desires and reduce or avoid anxiety
  • provoked by everyday conflicts
  • denials or distortions of reality
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28
Q

What are the types of defense mechanisms?

A
  • repression
  • sublimation
  • displacement
  • denial
  • reaction formation
  • intellectualization
  • projection
  • regression
  • rationalization
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29
Q

What is repression?

A
  • active effort by the ego to push threatening material out of consciousness
  • or keep from ever reaching consciousness
  • requires constant expend of energy
  • most important
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30
Q

What is sublimation?

A
  • ego channels threatening unconscious impulses into socially acceptable actions
  • id is allowed to express aggression and ego doesn’t have to tie up energy holding back impulses
  • most successful
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31
Q

What is displacement?

A
  • channelling id impulses to nonthreatening objects
  • do not lead to social rewards
  • many of our irrational fears are symbolic displacements
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32
Q

What is denial?

A
  • refusal to accept that certain facts exist
  • insist something is not true despite evidence to the contrary
  • extreme form of defense
  • less in touch with reality, more difficulty functioning
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33
Q

What is reaction formation?

A
  • hide by acting in a manner opposite to threatening unconscious desires
  • expression of opposite id impulse
  • as if thought is so unacceptable that the ego must prove how incorrect the notion is
34
Q

What is intellectualization?

A
  • removal of emotional content from the thought before allowing it to enter awareness
  • considering something in strictly intellectual, unemotional manner
  • helps bring previously difficult thoughts into consciousness without anxiety
35
Q

What is projection?

A
  • attribute a disturbing impulse to someone else instead of to ourselves
  • free ourselves from the perception that we are the one who holds a certain thought
36
Q

What is regression?

A
  • retreat to an earlier, more childlike, safer period of life
37
Q

What is rationalization?

A
  • reinterpreting behaviour
  • generating self-justifying explanations for our negative behaviours
38
Q

What is Freud’s psychosexual stages development theory?

A
  • Sequence of development made up of stages characterized by primary erogenous zones and sexual desires
  • Each stage has a specific influence on the adult personality
  • Adult personalities of people are greatly influenced by the events of early childhood
  • Personality develops in stages
  • Each stage defined by erogenous zone
  • Resolve conflict to move to next stage
39
Q

What is an erogenous zone?

A
  • part of the body, when touched, provides pleasure
40
Q

What is a fixation?

A
  • results when child is unable to move through a stage
  • excessive frustration or gratification
  • the tying up of psychic energy
  • less energy for normal functioning
  • adult expresses behaviours characteristic of fixated stage
41
Q

What are the psychosexual stages of development?

A
  • oral
  • anal
  • phallic
  • latent
  • genital
42
Q

When is the oral stage?

A
  • first 18 months
43
Q

What are the primary erogenous zones of the oral stage?

A
  • mouth
  • lips
  • tongue
44
Q

What is a fixation at the oral stage?

A
  • traumatic weaning or feeding problems
  • leads to oral personality
  • dependent on others
  • infantile need for oral satisfaction
  • fixation after teething; excessive levels of aggression
45
Q

When is the anal stage?

A
  • 18 months to 3 years
46
Q

What are the primary erogenous zones of the anal stage?

A
  • anal region
47
Q

What is a fixation at the oral stage?

A
  • traumatic toilet training
  • anal personality
  • orderly and rigid
  • stubborn or generous
48
Q

When is the phallic stage?

A
  • 3 to 6 years
49
Q

What are the primary erogenous zones of the phallic stage?

A
  • penis or clitoris
50
Q

What characterizes the end of the phallic stage?

A
  • Oedipus complex
51
Q

What is the Oedipus complex?

A
  • sexual attraction for their opposite sex parent
  • boys develop castration anxiety
  • girls develop penis envy
  • Oedipal desire never fully eliminated, they are repressed
52
Q

What is castration anxiety?

A
  • fear that their father will discover their thoughts and cut off their penis
  • think this fate has already befallen girls
53
Q

What is penis envy?

A
  • desire to have a penis
  • feelings of inferiority and jealousy because of its absence
54
Q

How is the Oedipus conflict resolved?

A
  • repress desire for opposite sex parent
  • type of reaction formation
  • identify with same sex parent
  • boys begin taking on masculine characteristics and girl feminine characteristics
  • adopting parents values and standards paves way for superego
55
Q

When is the latency stage?

A
  • 6 years to puberty
56
Q

What are the primary erogenous zones of the latency stage?

A
  • none
57
Q

What is the latency stage?

A
  • sexual desires abate
  • boys and girls are uninterested in each other
58
Q

When is the genital stage?

A
  • puberty
59
Q

What are the primary erogenous zones of the genital stage?

A
  • adult genital regions
60
Q

What is the genital stage?

A
  • if a child progressed to this stage, without leaving large amounts of libido fixated at earlier stages, normal sexual functioning is possible
61
Q

What are the seven techniques for to get at unconscious material?

A
  • dreams
  • projective tests
  • free association
  • freudian slips
  • hypnosis
  • accidents
  • symbolic behaviour
62
Q

What are dreams?

A
  • provide id impulses with a stage for expression
  • type of wish fulfillment
  • manifest content; what the dreamer sees and remembers
  • latent content: what is really being expressed
  • unacceptable images can safely surface in our dreams in symbolic form
  • trained psychoanalysts can identify common dream symbols
63
Q

What are projective tests?

A
  • Assesses unconscious material by asking test takers to respond to ambiguous stimuli
  • Identifying objects, telling a story, or drawing a picture
  • Provides insight into what is going on in the unsconsious
64
Q

What is free association?

A
  • strange, uncensored ideas flowing into awareness
  • temporarily bypass the censoring mechanism employed by ego
  • not so easy
65
Q

What are Freudian slips?

A
  • unconscious associations that momentarily slipped out
66
Q

What is hypnosis?

A
  • ego put into a suspended state during a deep hypnotic trance
  • bypass ego and get directly to unconscious material
  • not all clients are responsive
67
Q

What are accidents?

A
  • intentional actions stemming from unconscious impulses
  • resistance: consciously did not remember, unconsciously deliberate effort to thwart
68
Q

What is symbolic behaviour?

A
  • daily behaviours that are symbolic representations of unconscious desires
  • ex: daisies symbolize mother, man liked rubbing feet into doormat with images of daises; symbolically acting out hostility toward mother
69
Q

What is psychoanalysis?

A
  • system of psychotherapy
  • developed by Freud
  • bring crucial unconscious material that is causing the disorder into consciousness where it can be examined in a rational manner
  • client speaks freely, without distractions
  • therapist and client work together to help ego exercise appropriate control over id impulses and/or oppressive superego
  • therapist interprets significance of statements, behaviours, and dreams
70
Q

What are some drawbacks to psychoanalysis?

A
  • lengthy
  • expensive
  • transference and countertransference
  • early insight could be threatening for an unprepared ego
  • clients must obtain a reasonable understanding of psychoanalytic theory before appreciating therapist’s interpretations
71
Q

What is an indication that psychoanalysis is getting close to crucial material?

A
  • resistance
72
Q

What is transference?

A
  • emotions associated with people from the past are displaced onto the therapist
  • handling transference is delicate and crucial part of therapy process
73
Q

What is countertransference?

A
  • therapists displace their own feelings toward other individuals onto the client
74
Q

How do psychoanalysists measure personality contructs?

A
  • projective tests
  • bypass direct reports
75
Q

How do projective tests work?

A
  • ambiguous stimuli
  • describe what they see, tell stories, react to material
  • responses highly idiosyncratic (individual)
  • projections from the unconscious
  • significance of response not apparent to test taker
76
Q

What are some types of projective tests?

A
  • Rorschach inkblot test
  • Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
  • Human Figure Drawing test
77
Q

What is the Rorschach inkblot test?

A
  • 10 cards with blots of ink
  • client describe what they see
78
Q

What is the TAT?

A
  • ambiguous pictures
  • client tells a story about each
79
Q

What is the Human Figure Drawing test?

A
  • client draws a picture
  • sometimes asked to draw person or family or tree
  • mostly for children
80
Q

What are the strengths of Freud’s theory?

A
  • first comprehensive theory of human behaviour and personality
  • set the direction for subsequent personality theory and research
  • developing first system of psychotherapy
  • techniques like free association, hypnosis and dream interpretation became standard tools
  • popularizing and promoting many important psychological concepts
81
Q

What are the criticisms of Freud’s theory?

A
  • ideas not original or groundbreaking; many ideas appear in literature that predates Freud’s work
  • many hypotheses generated by theory not testable
  • heavy reliance on case studies to support theory falls short of standards
  • patients hardly represented typical adults
  • all info about clients was filtered through Freud
  • possible that Freud, consciously or unconsciously, caused his patients to say what he wanted to hear