L6 Freud and Beyond Flashcards
Three major aspects of psychoanalytic theory
Transformed energy: humans function without awareness, without volitional control, energy is transformed
Energy is neither created nor destroyed.
If an object can be obtained, you have free energy again. Catharsis is a way of attaining partial goal attainment
How did the psychosexual stages come about, and what are they?
Freud had a recurring dream about his mother’s death. Her body was carried out by a bird-headed man. Latent meaning: word for bird in German is the slang for sex. Father was absent - he must be a rival for her love! “Surely everyone else has these strange dreams!” Bam! Theory.
Stages: oral, anal, phallic, latent, and genital
Describe the Oedipus complex
Parental desire: when in the phallic stage children have sexual desires for the parent of the opposite sex. The mind represses these desires in the unconscious.
This is resolved when the child learns to identify with the parent of the same sex
What does Fin de siècle Vienna imply?
Reaction to tradition: French term for ‘end of the century,’ a movement that challenged traditional views in Vienna and all over the world at the end of the 19th Century.
Also referred to as the “degenerate movement”
Name the life and death instincts
Eros: the life instinct that drives sexual reproduction - ‘libido,’ creativity, self-preservation
Thanatos: the death instinct that drives aggression, murder, masochism, sadism, (Freud believed this instinct motivated WWII)
Nirvana Principle: is the striving for rest that underlies the death instinct.
What are the three demands that make up Freud’s structural model?
Id: driven by the “pleasure principle,” i.e., biologically driven desires/ instincts, child-like, cannot tell difference between reality and fantasy
Ego: reacts to the demands of external reality, governed by the “reality principle,” also strives to integrate both Id and Super ego into personality
Super ego: moralistic perfectionistic, often takes on cultural, social, and familial norms
What is the theory behind the development of neuroses and hysterical symptoms?
The faulty handling of the three demands (Id, ego and super ego)
Why do we use defence mechanisms? And what are the six main mechanisms?
Our ego uses defence mechanisms to reduce anxious feelings that arise when Id and Super ego come into conflict.
Repression Regression Rationalisation Projection Reaction formation Sublimation
What is the main goal of Psychoanalysis?
Free association: The goal is to encourage free association until repressed pathogenic ideas become conscious, therefore easing the symptoms
Carl Jung 1875 - 1961
Collective unconscious: populated by instincts and archetypes that are passed down through our ancestors. Most of the information is repressed, but comes through as personality.
Association test: saw utility in Freud’s association test
Alfred Adler 1870 - 1937
Classical Adlerian Psychology: Joined Freud’s group but later broke away to form his own “Individual Psychology”
Karen Horney 1885 - 1952
Culture: bases understanding of people on culture
Womb envy: challenges Freud on ‘penis envy,’ says it might occur in some neurotic women, but womb envy occurs just as much in men.
