Module 2 Flashcards
Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory
Biography not important to learn for midterms/exams.
Psychoanalytic theory: Highlights conflicts with our own desires, needs, interests, ideas, etc. leading to inability to thrive in society.
Sigmund Freud received prized for literature. Freud’s ideas also had a significant influence on literature, particularly in English literary analysis, where his theories of the unconscious, repression, and internal conflict were applied to understanding characters and narratives.
Freud sought recognition but faced rejection, especially from the Imperial Society of Physicians.
Failed to gain fame through early work on cocaine and male hysteria.
Formed psychoanalysis after working with Breuer on “Studies on Hysteria” (1895).
Freud’s Psychoanalysis: Key Concepts:
- Unconscious Mind
Stores repressed thoughts influencing behavior (e.g., dreams, slips of the tongue). - Personality Development
Shaped by psychosexual stages (oral, anal, phallic, latent, genital). - Early Caregiving
Early relationships influence personality and attachment.
Defense Mechanisms
Behaviors (e.g., repression) protect from anxiety and internal conflict. - Internal Conflict & Social Norms
Conflict between id, ego, and superego, shaped by societal rules. - Biological & Deterministic
Personality is shaped by biology, early life, and unconscious drives.
Freud’s Key Points (Short)
- Unconscious Mind: Drives behavior and instincts.
- Criticism: Views on evil and women are sexist.
- Psychosexual Stages: Five stages with internal conflicts.
- Methods: Hypnosis, free association, dream analysis.
- Influence: Early experiences shape personality (Bowlby influenced by Freud).
- Biology & Anxiety: Anxiety managed by defense mechanisms.
- Social Norms: Emotional conflict driven by societal rules (e.g., gender roles).
Freud saw himself as an “archeologist” of the mind, tracing childhood experiences to understand adult behavior.
Freud believed that how caregivers met a child’s needs during the oral, anal, and phallic stages of development influenced their later personality and emotional functioning.
The unconscious includes repressed childhood experiences and even inherited unconscious images passed down through generations, called phylogenetic endowment.
Freud: Early Life (Very Short)
Vienna: Lived there from age 4, left due to Nazi threats.
Family: Firstborn in a Jewish family of 8, received special treatment.
Mother: Close emotional bond.
Father: Distant, mixed feelings of love and fear.
Education: Attended medical school to focus on research, not medicine.
Freud was born in Eastern Europe, Jewish.
Had the only room with an oil lamp to read.
Focused more on his mother than father.
His feelings toward his parents shaped his theory.
- Freud was mentored by Ernst Brücke, learning 19th-century physiology.
- He researched topics like eel gonads, brain anatomy, cocaine, and aphasia.
- Due to limited academic options as a Jew, he started a medical practice.
- Trained under Theodor Meynert in nervous system disorders.
- In 1885, he studied hysteria with Jean-Martin Charcot in Paris.
- Mechanistic view: Body functions like a machine.
- It didn’t explain some neurological symptoms.
- Freud’s early cocaine research showed it as a psychoactive drug.
- Aphasia: Speech issues linked to the unconscious.
Freud & Breuer: Hysteria
- Hysteria: Neurological symptoms, no physical cause.
- Psychoanalysis: Developed with Breuer to treat hysteria.
- Cathartic Method: Emotional release by uncovering unconscious trauma.
- Treatment: Used hypnosis and insight to relieve symptoms.
Hysteria: Linked to displaced uterus, mainly in women.
Freud & Breuer: Published to challenge mechanistic view and improve treatment.
Childhood Impact: Early experiences shape personality, linked to PTSD.
Symptoms: Paralysis, hallucinations, unexplained physical issues.
Hypnosis: Used to uncover repressed memories and symptoms.
- Freud used case studies (worked with patients).
- Freud and B. worked together with Breuer on this case.
- Physicians did not think mental disorder was serious.
- Talking cure - helped others understand Freud’s theory.
- Unable to drink water, couldn’t get out of bed, some paralysis, speak different languages in strange ways. This led to diagnosis of hysteria. Through hypnosis, she’s able to reproduce the memories or recreation of what the cause could be.
example of Repression: the woman’s mental disturbances were linked to repressed experiences, like the dog drinking from her cup, which she found repulsive and unable to address at the time.
example of Symbolic Relationship: The inability to drink water became a symbolic manifestation of the underlying unresolved trauma.
example of Alleviating Symptoms: Symptoms can be alleviated when the patient connects them to their past experiences. Removing mental barriers allows individuals to understand the cause and resolve the symptoms.
Freud’s Psychoanalytic Techniques
Free Association: Speak freely without censorship.
Dream Analysis: Dreams reveal unconscious desires (manifest content - surface meaning; latent meaning unconscious wishes).
Resistance: Avoided thoughts suggest repressed memories.
Transference: Emotional attachment to therapist aids healing (unconscious projection of emotions).
Freud’s Techniques
F.A.: Speak freely; Freud looks for patterns.
D.A.: Analyze dream images with free association.
Resistance: Reluctance to share shows repressed material.
Transference: Emotional attachment to therapist.
Freud’s Unconscious
Unconscious: Mental processes beyond awareness (drives, urges).
Repression: Pushing painful experiences into the unconscious.
Phylogenetic Endowment: Inherited unconscious images.
Mental Levels
Preconscious: Can become conscious.
Conscious: Directly accessible.
Freud’s Iceberg
Conscious: Directly accessible.
- Conscious elements can originate from either the external world or from preconscious and unconscious processes.
Preconscious: Info not focused on but can become conscious.
Unconscious: Urges (survival instincts) influence behavior.
Behavior
Shaped by evolutionary drives (e.g., sexuality, aggression).
Freud on Dreams & Unconscious Wishes
Dreams: “Royal road” to the unconscious (wish fulfillment).
Interpretation of Dreams (1900): Freud’s key work based on self-analysis and patient work.
Manifest Content: The dream’s surface story.
Latent Content: The hidden, symbolic meaning (unconscious wishes).
Freudian Slips/Jokes: Expression of unconscious intentions.
Freud’s Personality Model
Id: Unconscious drives (sex, aggression), seeks instant gratification.
Ego: Balances id and reality, operates on the reality principle. Can be conscious, preconscious, or unconscious and tries to satisfy the id’s desires in realistic ways.
Superego: pre and unconscious. Moral values, inhibits instincts, conflicts with the Id.
analogy of a “rider” (ego) trying to control a “horse” (id), while the superego watches from above, imposing moral judgment
Freud’s Personality:
Known for intense ambition, intellectual curiosity, and emotional relationships.
Struggled with isolation and had ambivalent feelings toward authority figures.
Developed a dislike for America, partly due to cultural clashes.
Freud on Drives & Anxiety
Drives: Motivations from the Id, controlled by the Ego.
Libido: Sex drive, seeks pleasure. primarily sexual (Eros) ,
Thanatos: Aggressive drive, aims for self-destruction.
- Originate in ID and later in Ego.
Anxiety: Feeling of danger.
Neurotic: Fear of Id impulses.
Moral: Conflict with Superego.
Realistic: Fear of real threats.
Freud on Drives & Anxiety
Drives: Motivated by biological needs (e.g., hunger, survival).
Pleasure: Linked to dopamine, both sexual and non-sexual.
Aggression: Tied to survival instincts, can lead to self-harm or harm to others.
Anxiety: Results from conflict between Id and Ego.
Neurotic Anxiety: From uncontrolled Id impulses.
Moral Anxiety: Guilt, controls behavior.
Realistic Anxiety: Fear of external threats.
Freud on Childhood Sexuality
Libido: Sexual drive exists from birth, not just puberty.
Five Stages: Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, Genital.
Fixation: Anxiety or lack of stimulation can cause being “stuck” at a stage.
Infantile Period (4-5 years)
Sexual life in infants: Children have sexual development (pregenital), focused on autoerotic pleasure, not reproduction.
Freud on Sexuality
Controversial: Challenged repressed views.
From Birth: Sexual instincts start at birth.
Development: Sexuality evolves in stages.
Healthy Expression: Best in male-female interaction.
Fixations: Early conflicts resurface later in life.
Freud’s Stages
Oral: Pleasure from sucking; fixation leads to oral habits (e.g., smoking, nail-biting).
Anal: Pleasure from relieving waste; fixation leads to neatness obsession or bathroom humor.
Freud’s Stages (Revised)
Oral Stage (0-1): Infants find comfort in sucking (e.g., breastfeeding). Weaning causes anxiety, leading to dependency and oral habits (e.g., smoking, nail-biting, sarcasm, overreating) as coping mechanisms.
Anal Stage (1-3): Potty training creates tension between urges and societal rules. Fixation can result in obsession with neatness (anal-retentive) or bathroom humor, messy (anal-expulsive).
These behavioral patterns help manage anxiety during development, but if unresolved, they persist into adulthood.
Phallic Stage (3-6): Pleasure from exploring and stimulating genitals.
Conflict: Overt sexual behavior is not socially acceptable (especially in societies like Austria).
Oedipus Complex (could have evolutionary root): Boys desire their mother and fear their father’s retaliation (castration anxiety).
Resolution: Boys identify with their father, transforming fear into admiration.
Outcome: Boys adopt the father’s moral values and conscience.
Phallic Stage (3-6): Gender recognition, pleasure vs. societal restriction.
Oedipus Complex: Boys desire mother, fear father’s punishment (castration anxiety).
Penis Envy: Girls feel inferior to boys, leading to inadequacy.
Anxiety: Conflict between id desires and fear of same-sex parent’s punishment.
Latency: Focus on academics, friendships, and social skills; no conflict, no fixation.
Genital Stage: Sexual maturity; mature, heterosexual relationships. Freud saw non-hetero relationships as deviant. Modern view accepts diverse sexualities.
Freud proposed that from around ages 4-5 to puberty, children’s psychosexual development enters a dormant phase.
transition to latency period.
The sexual energy is now directed outward, not towards oneself (autoeroticism).
Freud highlighted the genital area takes dominance as the primary erogenous zone, although earlier zones like the mouth and anus may still hold significance.
Freud linked gender differences to biology and unconscious instincts.
“Anatomy is destiny”: Women seen as inferior due to lack of a penis.
Penis Envy: Women’s sexuality was considered less mature.
Freud believed sexual maturity in women involved shifting pleasure from clitoris to vagina.
Critics like Masters & Johnson disproved Freud’s views on female sexuality.
Freud thought men and women developed differently, and saw women’s development as more incomplete or ambiguous.
Neurotic & Moral Anxiety: Ego under threat.
Defense Mechanisms: Unconscious ways to protect ego from anxiety. Normal but excessive use can lead to neurosis.
Examples:
Repression: Burying distressing thoughts.
Projection: Attributing feelings to others.
Reaction Formation: Acting opposite of true feelings.
Sublimation: Redirecting urges into acceptable behaviors.
Western’s 5 Key Freudian Propositions:
Much of mental life is unconscious.
Mental processes often conflict and operate in parallel.
Childhood experiences shape stable personality patterns.
Self and relationship representations guide interactions and symptoms.
Personality development involves regulating urges and becoming more independent.
Contemporary Research on Freud:
Unconscious Processing: Focus on automatic mental processes.
Inhibition & Ego: Pleasure drives linked to brainstem; impulse control via frontal lobes.
Dreams: Activation-synthesis theory vs. meaningful dream content; thought suppression.
Damasio connects Freud’s ideas with modern neuroscience.
Grünbaum’s Critique of Freud:
Repression: No evidence that repressed memories are universal; people often vividly recall negative experiences.
Causal Role: Removing symptoms doesn’t prove repression causes neuroses or dreams.
Free Association: Trust-building may explain symptom relief, not just uncovering repressed memories.
Should Freud Be Considered a Scientist?
Pros:
Generated extensive research.
Created a dynamic, internally consistent theory.
Cons:
Theories are hard to test or falsify.
Lacks clear, precise framework.
Not practical for solving problems.
Online source: Freud’s theory tends to view human behavior as largely determined by unconscious drives, past experiences, and biological instincts. It’s a deterministic view, with the major qualification being that psychoanalysis can offer some degree of insight and potential for change—though the extent of that change is still influenced by deep, unconscious forces.
If a child’s needs are over or under-met at any stage, they could get “stuck” (a fixation), which could influence their adult personality or behavior.
For example, someone fixated at the oral stage might develop habits like smoking or excessive eating in adulthood.
Freud believed early experiences in the psychosexual stages, where unresolved conflicts or fixations occur, could significantly shape adult personality and behavior.
Freud initially used a highly suggestive technique, pressing on the patient’s forehead to prompt repressed childhood memories, especially regarding seduction.eventually shifted towards free association and dream analysis as his primary methods, moving away from suggestive techniques.
Freud believed that repressed childhood memories, particularly those related to sexual experiences or “seduction,” were key to understanding adult neuroses. He thought that traumatic or intense experiences during childhood—often involving unconscious desires or conflicts—could get buried in the unconscious mind and later manifest as psychological symptoms.
Freudian slips:
Freud shares an example of a young man who accidentally asks for a “sex-pack of beer” at a store
These slips are not accidents but rather important revelations of the unconscious mind.
Implicit Cognition: Over the years, neuroscience and cognitive psychology have pointed to unconscious mental processes, which aligns with Freud’s idea that most human behavior is influenced by unconscious forces.
Eric Kandel and Antonio Damasio, have seen parallels between modern research on brain function and Freud’s theories (unconscious motivation, repression, and dreams.) Neuropsychoanalysis.
ID aligns with dopamine and opioid.
Gage’s frontal lobe injury led to impulsivity, showing how damage can disrupt ego control, increasing id-like behavior.
Freud’s methods were subjective, based on case studies, not experiments.
Psychoanalysis is not widely used in modern therapy.
