Psychoanalytic Approach to Personality

Question 1

Aspects of psychoanalysis

Answer 1

proposed therapy to cure mental problems, investigative method to make discoveries about the mind, a diverse body of theory and findings, major cultural phenomenon, residual set of sticky memes (the unconscious, id, childhood determinism)

Question 2

Why are we interested in psychoanalytic approach?

Answer 2

features final theory of childhood sexuality, Freud theory is universal, not nomothetic, cautionary tale (little scientific evidence), talks about sex

Question 3

Levels of consciousness

Answer 3

conscious thought
Pre conscious mind
Unconscious mind
Repression
Manifest content of dreams
Latent content of dreams
Primary process thinking
The pleasure principle
Secondary process thinking
The reality principle

Manifest content of dreams could be interpreted by the psychoanalyst to reveal the latent content through defensive devices such as symbolisation

Question 4

Human nature and human motivation

Answer 4

libido: the sex drive - man is a part of the animal kingdom and less civilized as commonly assumed.

Libido was active at all life stages including infants - not only adults are sexual.

Freud also hypothesized the existence of a death instinct

Life and death were later called Eros and Thanatos after figures in Greek mythology

Question 5

Structure of personality

Answer 5

Id - seeks instant gratification for the pleasure principle, in the unconscious

Ego - delays gratification and is the reality principle. As we grow, libido goes to the ego and is partly conscious

Superego - like a conscience and assists the ego. Internalising what our parents tell us we should be doing. Still a little but unconscious

Three parts of the mind can come into conflict. This create anxiety and other forms of mental disturbance

Ego was mostly conscious, the superego somewhat conscious

Question 6

psychosexual development

Answer 6

As children develop,m libido moves around the body. Where it is in thr body indicates where it gets pleasure from.

Libido starts off diffuse, the infant polymorphously perverse. It’s gets pleasure from any part of the body being stimulated

oral stage - birth-1yr
- where an infant is getting all it’s sustenance from. Whether the infant gets too little or too much breastfeeding, it may seek compensation in later life (oral receptive - smoking) or oral aggressive (sadistic)

Anal stage - 18mths-3yrs
Starting to decide when to poo. Toddlers enjoy doing number 2 according to Freud buy either holding it or pushing it out. Anal retentive - stingy, stubborn and hyper-organised. Anal-exclusive- messy

Phallic stage - 3yrs-5yrs
Young boys drive pleasure from stimulating their own phallus, girls notice that boys have a phallus that they lack and develop penis envy opedius complex and electra complex occur here

Latency stage - 5yrs-12yrs
Sexual desire goes into hibernation due to repression to stave off the anxiety around the oepdial/electra complex

Genital stage - 12yrs-18yrs+
- libido cathects and normal sexuality develops

Question 7

Defence mechanisms

Answer 7

at the Oedipal/electra stage, repression first occurs (type of defence mechanism)

Ego has to be protected from knowledge of the uncivilised sexual and aggressive id from anxiety

Anna Freud (daughter) added sublimation

Repression- conscious suppression
Denial - refusing to face reality
Projection - bad feelings and attributing to someone else
Reaction formation- behavioural extremes to hide something from yourself
Rationalisation- when you make a judgement or decision first, and then come up for reasons for it afterwards
Conversion reaction - a psychological disorder converted to a physical one. Catharsis

Phobic avoidance - normal fears become exaggerated. Someone who fears a member of the opposite sex will dislike them if they say hello and may avoid the opposite sex.

Displacement - displace thoughts onto another object or person.

Regression- people can’t deal with the responsibility of being an adult regression to an earlier stage of development

Isolation/intellectualisation - an idea is too disturbing to face reality so put it in a mental box

Undoing - where one performs ritual that helps

Sublimation - where an unacceptable instinctual desire is turned into an acceptable one, which is like it but not exactly

Question 8

Clinical application of Freud

Answer 8

repressed memories of trauma caused all neurosis

Catharsis remembering the original cause of the trauma led to abreaction - a type of emotional release

Too difficult to deal with - originally repressed as a coping mechanism - hysteria by emotionally venting, however the repression was reversed

Physical symptoms relieved too

Methodology to get at unconscious materials in patients,

Complicating the therapy the fact that the patient may project libidinous feelings from childhood on to the therapist, complicating therapy - transference

Therapists may do same to patient - counter-transference

Question 9

Evaluation of Freud’s theory:

Answer 9

unconscious and psychosexual stages - weakly supported

Theories of dream is poorly supported, REM sleep is not a defence against waking

Grand theory - very comprehensive, tries to explain a lot about human nature, neurosis, dreams, slip of the tongue, personality

Not parsimonious, has a lot of theory but it is difficult to translate into testable hypotheses

Heuristic value - good springboard for new hypotheses

Does psychoanalysis work - not that well.