L10 - Defence Mechanisms and Psychosexual Stages

Question 1

Define defence mechanisms

Answer 1

Processes which stop the individual from becoming consciously aware of unpleasant thoughts, feelings, memories
Usually occur when faced with trauma

Question 2

Describe repression

Answer 2

Blocking unacceptable thoughts and impulses

Influence our behaviour unknowingly

Question 3

Describe denial

Answer 3

Refusing to accept reality to avoid dealing with feelings associated with trauma, and actin as if the situation didn’t occur

Question 4

Describe displacement

Answer 4

Directing negative thoughts and feelings towards an innocent person or object because you feel that you can’t direct them towards the person you should be

Question 5

State the 5 psychosexual stages

Answer 5

Oral (0-2 yrs)
Anal (2-3)
Phallic (3-6)
Latent (6-12)
Genital (12+)

Question 6

Describe what Freud believed about psychosexual stages

Answer 6

Need to express sexual energy is the most important in personality development

Question 7

Describe the oral stage

Answer 7

Mouth is main centre for pleasure e.g. sucking

Question 8

Describe the anal stage

Answer 8

Become aware of demands of reality and needing to conform to demands of others 
Toilet training (control bodily waste)

Question 9

Describe the phallic stage

Answer 9

Focus sexual energy on genitals
Oedipus complex and castration anxiety
Electra complex

Question 10

Describe the Oedipus/Electra complex

Answer 10

O: boys unconsciously wish to possess their mother and remove their father
E: opposite of Oedipus

Question 11

Describe castration anxiety

Answer 11

Boys fear their father will remove their penis for desiring their mother
Internalise their father’s superego and identify w them

Question 12

Why do girls have a weaker superego?

Answer 12

No castration anxiety

Don’t internalise mother’s superego in the same way boys do with their father

Question 13

Describe the latent stage

Answer 13

Develops mastery of external world
Conflicts and issues from previous stages are repressed
Can’t remember childhood much

Question 14

Describe the genital stage

Answer 14

Sexual energy focused in genitals

Directs us towards sexual intercourse and adulthood

Question 15

Freud believed pleasure is obtained through what in the psychosexual stages

Answer 15

Get pleasure from the build-up and tension of sexual energy

Question 16

When does the ego develop

Answer 16

Anal stage

Question 17

Advantage of psychodynamic approach related to psychoanalysis

Answer 17

Freud demonstrates first way of psychological treatment instead of biological
Range of techniques to access unconscious
Allowed modern day psychotherapies to develop

Question 18

Disadvantage related to case studies

Answer 18

Small sample of case studies and also only on adults

Not enough to make universal claims on human nature

Question 19

Disadvantage related to falsification

Answer 19

Concepts are unconscious so can’t be tested or disproved through empirical testing
Unscientific