Midterm 2 psychodynamic Flashcards
Topical components of the mind and personality (Freud)
Freud’s Topographical Model of the Mind
1. Conscious component (accessible):
•surface area of the brain
•what you’re currently aware of
•frontal lobes associated with decision making (thoughts/perceptions) and explicit information
2. Preconscious component of the mind (readily accessible):
•below conscious
•hippocampus associated with stored knowledge/ordinary memory
•ex: what you ate for dinner, heard in class
3. Unconscious (inaccessible):
•below preconscious, inner most part of brain (deepest)
•brain stem (fears, violent motives, selfish needs)
•difficult to bring unconscious thoughts to pre/conscious
Two subcomponents of the unconscious
- Dynamic unconscious: stores threatening information (sexual/violent urges)
- Nonconscious: stores non threatening behaviour in implicit memory (driving a car/autopilot)
Structural model of personality
- ID: drives instincts
•Present at birth
•Almost entirely unconscious
•Inherited, instinctive, and primitive
•ex: sexual instincts, aggressive instincts
•Operates using the pleasure principle: immediate gratification of needs
•Engages in primary process: creating a mental image of object/event that would satisfy need (wish fulfillment)
•ex: picturing moms breast when hungry - Ego: safe expression of ID instincts
•Uses reality principle (takes surroundings into account to satisfy impulses)
•Engages in secondary process: looking at reality/for objects that matches image created by primary process
•ex: infant looks at environment and crawls to mother to satisfy instinct
•Reality testing: realistic thoughts allows ego to form plans to satisfy needs in the current situation
•Ego strength: the ability to deal with competing demands/taxing situations
•most difficult job (balancing superego and ID)
•Logical, but not moral (stealing an apple)
•Self control (delayed gratification)
•Functions within unconscious, preconscious, and conscious
*unconscious: interacts with ID
*preconscious: relies on memory
*conscious: interacts with the outside world
Ego control: the extent to which an individual can control impulses (spectrum)
Ego resiliency: the ability to flexibly modify one’s typical level of ego control to adapt to the situation (ex: sex and wanting a baby)
- Superego: morality, conscience (what is socially acceptable/unacceptable)
•Last component of personality to develop
•Phallic stage: introjection (incorporating values from your parents)
•Inhibit Ids instincts, ensure ego acts morally, and strives for perfection
•ex: starving, forgot wallet, still won’t steal
•Functions witting the unconscious, preconscious, and conscious
*unconscious: interact with ID
Two subsystems
•ego ideal: what we should do
•conscience: wha the should not do
•ex: starving, forgot wallet, still won’t steal
Stage theory of psychosocial development
assumptions
Assumptions
- there are 5 stages of personality development where our personality is formed by success/failure to resolve them
- first three stages are an unconscious conflict related to our need for sexual (bodily) gratification
* similar to darwin: seek gratification of instincts through bodily drives - in each stage, an erogenous zone is the focal point to obtain sexual gratification
- successful development occurs when individuals navigate through the stages without fixation
- becoming fixated (conflict isn’t resolved) at different stages results in different dysfunctional personality types
- fixation at one stage prevents successful resolution at another stage
- fixation in first three stages results in maladaptive personality characteristics
- our personality is determined by 5
Stage theory of psychosocial development
- Oral stage (0-18m)
•erogenous zone: mouth
•sexual impulses: largely expressed through taking things in mouth (nursing)
•main conflict: weaning child off breast (literally and figuratively - less reliant)
•fixation: when infant is prematurely weaned or experiences trauma when weaning
Personality results from fixation
•oral incorporative (before teeth): consumption/taking things in - alcohol, overeating, collecting things
*prototypical characteristics: mothered by others (gullible, dependent, cheerful)
•oral sadistic (after teeth): chewing/biting - nails, ridiculing others
*prototypical characteristics: sarcastic, cynical, hostile
- Anal stage (18m-3y)
•erogenous zone: anus
•sexual impulses: largely expressed through defecation
•main conflict: when child is toilet trained (child learns value of producing things at the right time, basis for adult creativity and productivity)
•fixation: if child is subjected to rigid,lenient, or premature toilet training practices
Personality results from fixation
•anal expulsive: sphincter control/dhiaria
*prototypical characteristics: untidy, disorganized, hostile, destructive
•anal retentive: constipation
*prototypical characteristics: stingy, stubborn, orderly, rigid, obsessive
- Phallic stage (3-5y)
•erogenous zone: genital region
•sexual impulses: largely expressed though self stimulation of genitals
•main conflict: oedipus for boys and electra for girls
•fixation: if child is unable to identify with same sex parent, resulting in poor moral development
*males: more masculine characteristics (aggressive, dominant)
*females: ongoing penis envy (promiscuous, flirtatious, sarcastic)
•females are more likely to become fixated - Latency stage (6y-puberty)
•erogenous zone: genital region
•sexual impulses: less pronounced
•main concept: children direct energy towards learning and peer group activities
•fixation: doesn’t happen (no specific conflict), this stage has little psychological growth (wrong) - Genital stage (puberty-adulthood)
•erogenous zone: genital region
•sexual impulses: largely expressed though mutual expression (sex)
•main concept:
•fixation: no specific conflict, this is the ideal stage for “psychosexual maturity”: developing a well functioning personality from self serving infant to successful social adult
Oedipus and Electra complex
Oedipus complex:
•boys desire sex with their mother so see their father as a rival who will retaliate by castrating them
•castration anxiety forces boy to identify with their father
•through identification with their father, boys resolve conflict, internalize his values (superego development) and gain various satisfaction of their sexual impulses towards their mother
Electra complex
•girls have strong attraction towards mother
•when they realize they lack a penis, they blame their mother
•girls then shift affection toward their father, developing a desire to have sex with him
•through identification with their mother, girls resolve the conflict, internalize her values (developing superego), and gain various satisfaction of their sexual impulses towards their father
3 types of anxiety (Freud)
Freud’s definition of anxiety: an often objectless fear (a fear that frequently doesn’t have an apparent cause/not able to identify the source) with three specific types CHART
- Tangible real dangers: being in an accident, snakes, exams
•good anxiety because it keeps us safe
•conflict: ego + environment - Punishment: ID impulse to be aggressive may result in neurotic anxiety kicking in and telling you you’ll get in trouble because you’ve done this before and got in trouble
- Superego: morality (from what parents told us is wrong), resulting in guilt or shame
•ex: younger kid learning its inappropriate to have sex and your superego telling your ego not to do that because of morals
Anxiety suggests that the ego is under threat, resulting in
- the ego removing itself from the threatening situation
- the ego inhibiting the expression of the ID impulses
- the ego adheres to the moral codes of the conscience
Irrational ways to cope with anxiety
If these rational strategies aren’t possible, the ego may use defence mechanisms which
•Involve a distortion of reality
•Operate in the unconscious mind (engaging with the ID)
- Denial: refuse to acknowledge (was never conscious)
•more likely to report high self esteem and lower anxiety because they’re denying their low self esteem/anxiety - Repression: motivated forgetting (conscious to unconscious)
- Rationalization: failing to acknowledge the real reason for doing something
- Reaction formation: very exaggerated counter to their own opposite treating impulse (ex: homophobic men were aroused watching gay porn)
- Regression: oral fixation when faced with anxiety (overeating)
- Sublimation: healthiest (Freud) (ex: surgeons argued to have very aggressive instincts/ID impose but use it in a socially acceptable way)
CHART
Therapeutic methods in psychoanalytic theory
Psychoanalysis: a method to restructure personality where the goal is to bring unconscious conflicts to conscious awareness (insight by reliving emotional experience)
Two types
1. Free association: the patient says with no hesitation what comes to their mind
•no resistance: say anything you’re thinking
•therapist sits behind patient, then interprets patients thoughts to identify unconscious conflict
•once identified, the analyst must reveal the unconscious conflicts to the patent so they can resolve it
•parapraxes (freudian slip): memory lapses, slips of speech, and accidentally saying things provides insight into a persons true desires
- Dream analysis: the patient recounts their dreams through free association
•manifest content: narrative of the dream that is consciously remembered
•dream interpretation: analysis of dream parts
•latent content: memories from proceeding day or in general, fantasies, forgotten events, and repressed desires (deepest - sexuality and aggression) that give rise to the manifest content
•dream work: synthesis (condensation, displacement, symbolism, secondary revision) - Projective techniques: confront people with ambiguous stimuli to assess unconscious processes
•ex: Rorschach inkblot test: person views the inkblots in certain order saying what they see, then the person views them all again while experimenter reminds them of what they said and why they said it
Methods involved in Dream work
- Condensation: the unconscious compresses several latent elements into a single manifest image
• ex: power and hostility are represented by an axe - Displacement: the unconscious shifts emphasis away from the important threatening image into a safer image
•ex: abusive father represented as an frail old man - Symbolism: the unconscious uses a common and acceptable image to symbolize an unacceptable latent element
•ex: penis as sticks - Secondary revision: the unconscious synthesizes the disjointed images that have been created through condensation, displacement, and symbolism into a coherent story by adding a setting/plot
Freud’s ideas today: contemporary psychoanalysts
- Focus on emotional experience and expression
- Exploration of defence mechanisms
- Free association not used anymore but can reveal information about schemas, impact associations which are a focus in cog psych today
- Resistance and transference used in lots of therapies today
- Exploration of wishes, fantasies, and dreams
- Discussion of childhood
Meta-analytic study find psychoanalytic therapy is as effective/more effective than other forms of therapy
•generally quite strong and increases overtime
•short term psychoanalytical therapy can also be helpful, but longer better
•has a stronger impact than antidepressants
Freud: had a massive influence on all psychologists (childhood impacts adulthood, talking about problems makes u feel better, etc.)
Box
Because plagiarism was easier back then, its hard to know if Freud was the sole greater of psychoanalysis
Freud’s own oedipal complex: didn’t have a good relationship with father and was very close to mother
Conflict, defence, and metaphors in the psychodynamic perspective
Conflict: pressures within personality (ID, ego, and superego) can conflict with each other
Defence: responses to a conflict that everyone uses
Metaphors: mind references to sociopolitical systems/human behaviour is symbolic of someones hidden qualities
Life instincts, death instincts, and catharsis
Life/sexual instincts (Eros): set of drives that deal with survival, reproduction, and pleasure
•ex: hunger, pain, avoidance
•Libido: the energy of those instincts
Death instincts (Thanatos): Freud believed that people unconsciously desire to die, but because death instincts are held back by life instincts, its not always visible
•ex: aggression comes from eros blocking thanatos
•Apoptosis: found active gene directed to suicide (critical to development and cancer)
Catharsis: the release of emotional tension
•aggression: should reduce this resulting in you being less aggressive in the future
•isn’t well supported by data
Defence mechanisms
CHART
Suppression: white bear phenomenon: best to have something else to think about, those who suppress rebound later
Processes of origination of problems with corresponding memories
Origins: early psychosexual development
- over investment of energy in a fixation
- repression of basic drives and urges
- buried trauma (abuse)
Behavioural change
•Free association: symbolic access to the problem
•can result in resistance: fighting against repressed conflicts and impulses consciously or uncocniously
•or transference: feelings towards other people in the patients life are transferred onto the therapist (good or bad) as a defence
Goal of psychodynamic therapy: insight
•re-experiencing of the emotional reality of repressed conflicts, memories, or urges
