Psychoanalytic Flashcards
Repression
The forgetting or ignoring of unresolved conflicts, unadmitted desires or traumatic past events so that they are forced out of the conscious awareness into the realm of the unconscious
Unconscious
Part of the mind beyond consciousness which nevertheless has a strong influence upon our actions
Sublimation
The repressed material is promoted into something grander or is disguised as something noble
Ego, super-ego, I’d
Three levels of personality - the consciousness, the conscience, and the unconscious
Infantile sexuality
Notion that sexuality begins not at puberty, with physical maturing, but in infancy, especially through the infant’s relationship with the mother
Oedipus complex
Male infant conceives the desire to eliminate the father and become the sexual partner of the mother
Libido
Energy drive associated with sexual desire; three stages of focus - oral, anal, phallic
Eros
Greek for love - Freud roughly means the life instinct
Thanatos
Death instinct
Transference
The phenomenon whereby the patient under analysis redirects the emotions recalled in analysis towards the psychoanalyst
Projection
When aspects of ourselves - usually negative ones - are not recognized as part of ourselves but are perceived in or attributed to another
Defence mechanisms
Psychic procedures for avoiding painful admissions or recognitions
Screen memory
Trivial or inconsequential memory whose function is to obliterate a more significant one
Freudian slip
“Parapraxis” - repressed material in the unconscious finds an outlet through such everyday phenomena as slips of the tongue, slips of the pen, or unintended actions
Dream work
The process by which real events or desires are transformed into dream images
Displacement
In dream work, one person or event is represented by another which is in some way linked or associated with it
Condensation
In dream work, number of people, events, or meanings are combined and represented by a single image in the dream
Family in psychoanalysis
We are a product of the role we are given in the family complex; birth of the unconscious lies in way we perceive our place in the family and how we react to this self definition
Defenses
Processes by which the contents of our unconscious are kept in the unconscious - selective perception and selective memory
Regression
Temporary return to a former psychological state, which is not just imagined but relived
Active reversal
In regression typically - acknowledgement and working through of repressed experiences and emotions
Latent content
Message our unconscious expresses in our dreams, which is the dream’s underlying meaning
Displacement **
Use a safe person, place, or event or object as a stand in to represent more threatening person, event, or object
Primary revision
Collectively the processes of displacement and condensation which occur while we dream
Manifest content
What we actually dream after the unconscious message (latent content) is disguised
Secondary revision
Process when we are awake and we forget certain parts of a dream or remember them differently from how the occurred
