Prelim 1 Flashcards
Why does Freud think slips of the tongue are worthy of study?
They are common experiences, we tend to dismiss them as mental errors, but almost none are random or incomprehensible, they make sense and convey an idea somehow relevant to the sentence
Types of slips
1- speaker slips but not surprised by it, conscious of what he wanted to say
2- speaker slips and surprised by it, but knows why he slipped (confused about difference COME BACK)
3- speaker slips but doesn’t know why
Main point of parapraxes (slips)
Result of conflict between competing ideas- intended sentence (disturbed content) replaced by slip (disturbing content)- usually intended content is reversed by the slip, but always connected by thought underlying speaker’s ideas
Why don’t we think these slips have meaning?
Built-in resistance to this, unconsciously motivated to dismiss these as random errors
What are dreams?
Asleep during them, consciousness qualitatively different, incorporate internal and external stimuli, variety unlimited
How do you find out what a dream really means?
Ask the dreamer
Freud’s rules on associating to dreams
- Don’t worry about what the dream appears to tell us, not unconscious element we are searching for
- Associate to element of the dream without judging the associations
- Keep associating until the connections between the dream material and the underlying thoughts emerge
How does a dreamer interpret own dream?
First says he doesn’t know what it means, ask how he arrived at the dream, first remark is an explanation, encourage free association, ask dreamer to keep dream in mind, works because all thoughts arise from earlier thoughts, dream element often leads to a thought indirectly connected to it
Psychic continuity
All thoughts arise from other thoughts
Dream thoughts
Thoughts that occur to dreamer during dream states, Freud thought always wishes, make up latent content of dream
Dream work
Expresses dream thoughts in hallucinatory images that disguise and distort the dream thoughts (AND SOMETHING ELSE?)
Dream purpose
To keep you asleep
Condensation
Compressing latent dream thoughts into images that omit, combine, or reverse their meanings
Displacement
A latent thought is replaced by a part of itself, a symbol of itself, an allusion to it
Transformation into visual images
Dream thoughts turned into visual hallucinations (I THINK)
Language often reversed or doubled
Ambiguous meaning of primal words exploited in dreams, Freud argues dreams represent both sides of wish or fear (???)
Hysterical symptoms as physical symbols
Freud thinks these symptoms are associations
Patient suffers a trauma- disturbing event- doesn’t fully process it, instead represses it, another event triggers associations to earlier trauma, mind created physical symptoms that are linked to these psychologically (???), hysterical symptoms symbolize the trauma, once patient associates to earlier trauma, the hysterical symptoms begin to disappear
What are the essential resistances to psychoanalysis?
We are biased to value what we can see over what we can’t, we are biased against focus on psychical life (??), psychiatry restricted to observed phenomena, psychoanalysis meant to provide a model for understanding mental experience?
Two provocative hypotheses of psychoanalysis
1- what we experience as consciousness is only a part of mental life, there are mental processes that influence us greatly but remain unconscious
2- sexual impulses play an important role in nervous disorders and that sexual energy when channeled psychologically fuels creativity, rationality, achievement, and the emergence of culture and civilization
Id
Basic, animal part of you, expresses urges of erotic and aggressive drives, seeks to discharge energy through pleasurable acts
Ego
Conscious part of you, strives to control urges, acts according to reality principle, rationally