psychoanalysis terms Flashcards
Unconscious
A part of the mind that contains thoughts, memories, and desires that are not accessible to conscious awareness.
Repression
The psychological mechanism of excluding distressing thoughts and memories from consciousness.
Transference
The redirection of feelings and desires, especially those unconsciously retained from childhood, onto a therapist.
Psychosexual stages
Freud’s theory that personality develops through a series of childhood stages, each characterized by different erogenous zones.
Drive theory
Freud’s concept that human behavior is motivated by basic drives, such as sexual and aggressive instincts.
Object relations
A theory in psychoanalysis that emphasizes the importance of internalized relationships with significant others.
Ambivalence
The coexistence of opposing feelings towards a person or object, often seen in relationships.
Self-identity
The perception and understanding of oneself, shaped by experiences and relationships.
Manifest content
The actual literal content and storyline of a dream.
Latent content
The hidden psychological meaning of a dream.
Condensation
A mechanism in dream analysis where multiple ideas or images are combined into a single image.
Displacement
A defense mechanism where emotional impulses are redirected from a threatening target to a safer one.
Wish fulfillment
The concept that dreams represent the fulfillment of desires or wishes.
Hysteria
A psychological condition characterized by physical symptoms without a medical cause, often linked to repressed emotions.
Free association
A therapeutic technique where patients speak freely to reveal unconscious thoughts and feelings.
Catharsis
The process of releasing and thereby providing relief from strong or repressed emotions.
Infantile sexuality
Freud’s concept that children experience sexual feelings and desires from a young age.
Polymorphous perversity
Freud’s idea that human beings are capable of deriving sexual pleasure from a variety of sources.
Libido
The energy of the sexual drive as a component of the life instinct.
Castration anxiety
A child’s fear of losing their genitals, often linked to the Oedipus complex.
Ego defenses
Psychological strategies used by the ego to protect itself from anxiety.
Projection
A defense mechanism where individuals attribute their own unacceptable thoughts or feelings to others.
Sublimation
A defense mechanism where socially unacceptable impulses are transformed into socially acceptable actions.
Psychosocial stages
Erikson’s theory that personality develops in a series of eight stages, each characterized by a psychosocial crisis.
Mourning
The process of grieving the loss of a loved one, involving emotional and psychological adjustments.
Melancholia
A pathological form of grief characterized by deep sadness and self-reproach. Ego identifies with lost object
Narcissism
Excessive self-focus and self-importance, often at the expense of relationships with others.
Transitional objects
Items that provide comfort to children during times of separation from their primary caregivers.
True self
The authentic self that emerges when an individual is free from external pressures.
False self
A defensive façade that individuals develop in response to environmental failures.
Id
The part of the psyche that contains our primal instincts and desires, operating on the pleasure principle.
Ego
The rational part of the psyche that mediates between the desires of the id and the realities of the external world.
Superego
The moral component of the psyche that internalizes societal norms and values.
Repression (in Civilization and Its Discontents)
The process by which civilization suppresses instinctual drives, leading to feelings of guilt and discontent.
Guilt
A superego mechanism punishing the ego for transgressions
Not-Me Object
Neither fully self nor other, facilitating emotional development. A child’s first “not-me” possession is a material object, like a blanket or teddy bear, that represents experiences outside of the child and their mother
Bad Objects
Objects that are frustrating, unfulfilling, or painful and often experienced as persecuting and attacking. Internalized representations of rejecting caregivers.
Eros and Thanatos
Life and death drives underlying cultural achievements and destruction.
psychosexual stages
the childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, the id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones
psychosocial stages
In Erikson’s theory, the developmental stages refer to eight major challenges that appear successively across the lifespan, which require an individual to rethink his or her goals and relationships with others.
oedipus complex
according to Freud, a boy’s sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father
Fixation
Failure to resolve conflicts at any stage can result in neuroses or personality traits linked to that stage.
Primal Scene
The witnessing (real or imagined) of parental sexual activity, which becomes a source of unconscious conflict.
Deferred Action (Nachträglichkeit)
The reinterpretation of past events in light of later experiences.
Reality Principle
seeks to delay gratification of the id’s urges until appropriate outlets and situations can be found
Splitting
Separating objects into idealized and devalued parts to manage ambivalence
Depressive Position
A stage of emotional development where the child reconciles good and bad aspects of objects, fostering empathy. Children wish to worship and protect the good part because they fear losing it
Projective Identification
A defense mechanism that operates unconsciously, whereby unwanted aspects of the self are attributed to another person and that person is induced to behave in accordance with these projected attitudes and feelings.
Paranoid-Schizoid Position
A developmental phase where good and bad objects are split to manage anxiety.
Primary vs. Secondary Narcissism
Primary narcissism involves self-focus in infancy, while secondary narcissism represents a regressive withdrawal of libido from objects back to the self.
