Psychodynamic Flashcards
1
Q
A theory of dream formation introduced by Hobson and McCarley in which the brain constructs a dream by syn random sensorimotor information from the pons with information stored in memory.
A
Activation-synthesis hypothesis
2
Q
The individual’s ability to make changes and/or compromises so as to become better suited to his or her external environment.
A
Adaptation
3
Q
In the psychoanalytical model of the mind, the effort to understand aspects of behaviors and mental life that serve the purpose of coping with the external world.
A
Adaptational perspective
4
Q
An instrument developed by Main to investigate patterns in adult recollections of early childhood experience related to attachment.
A
Adult Attachment Interview
5
Q
The complex emotional/physical states—both pleasurable and painful—produced by and in the body as part of its system of evaluating the self in relationship to the environment for the purpose of survival. Commonly called feelings.
A
Affect(s)
6
Q
The process by which the mother empathically reads and reflects back to the child his or her feeling states, thereby helping the child gain confidence in managing intense affects and learn to differentiate between self and other, and reality and fantasy. This lays the groundwork for the child’s development of mentalization.
A
Affect mirroring
7
Q
The ability to experience affect states without having to ward them off through defense.
A
Affect tolerance
8
Q
The wish to subjugate, prevail over, harm, or destroy others, and the expression of such a wish in thought, action, words, or fantasy.
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Aggression
9
Q
In Freud’s topographic model, the source of psychic energy deriving from the organism’s aggressive wishes.
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Aggressive drive
10
Q
In Fonagy’s theory, an inauthentic sense of self that can develop when the mother’s affect mirroring is mistuned, insensitive, or otherwise defective.
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Alien self
11
Q
A defense in which an individual shows concern for the well-being of others in order to avoid painful feelings such as anxiety about her or her own well-being.
A
Altruism
12
Q
A defense in which an individual can only achieve gratification of unacceptable wishes vicariously through extreme, selfless devotion to a proxy.
A
Altruistic surrender
13
Q
The simultaneous existence of opposite feelings, attitudes, or tendencies toward another person, thing, or situation.
A
Ambivalence
14
Q
A personality style characterized by marked orderliness, stubbornness, and obstinacy, thought to be related to the predominant influence of libido arising from the anal erotogenic zone.
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Anal character
15
Q
The second phase of psychosexual development (extending from 18 months to 3 years), during which libido deriving from the anal erotogenic zone dominates the organization of psychic life.
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Anal phase
16
Q
An affect characterized by a painful experience of apprehension and anticipation of danger.
A
Anxiety
17
Q
The biologically based bond between infant and caregiver.
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Attachment
18
Q
A component of attachment theory that includes inborn features of behavior in infant and caregivers that ensure the establishment of attachment.
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Attachment behavioral system
19
Q
A view of attachment proposed by Bowlby that includes development, patterns in children and adults, and sequelae over the course of the life cycle.
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Attachment theory
20
Q
Libidinal aims directed toward the child’s own body, as opposed to those directed toward another person.
A
Autoerotic
21
Q
Unconscious mentation in cognitive psychology or in cognitive-behavioral therapy.
A
Automatic thoughts
22
Q
Inborn capacities of the mind that develop independently from conflict and that include thought, memory, perception, cognition, and motility.
A
Autonomous ego functions
23
Q
The caregiving situation within which an infant’s capacities can develop in a predictable and progressive manner.
A
Average expectable environment
24
Q
A branch of psychology that seeks to explain human (and animal) activity as a chain of stimulus-response connections, linked together by reinforcement.
A
Behaviorism
25
A psychoanalytic diagnosis introduced by Kernberg marked by ego weakness and disturbances in object relations, including poorly integrated self and object representations.
Borderline personality organization
26
The fear that unacceptable wishes will lead to punishment in the form of loss of or injury to one's genitals or one's body.
Castration anxiety
27
Breuer's technique of treating patients with hysteria, consisting of hypnosis and the expression of affects associated with sequestered ideas.
Cathartic method
28
In Freud's topographic model, an agent of repression whose function is to keep from consciousness mental content judged to be unacceptable.
Censor
29
In Freud's topographic model, the system by which wishes are appraised as unacceptable to consciousness and then repressed.
Censorship
30
An individual's stable and enduring traits, attitudes, cognitive styles, and moods.
Character
31
A disturbance in the structure of an individual's personality in which there are rigidly held patterns of behavior that get the individual in trouble or lead to the defeat of his or her own aims but that cause him or her little subjective distress.
Character disorder
32
A process that integrates the subjective experiences of two people in a relationship into a single experience.
Co-created experience
33
A branch of psychology that focuses on the study of how people know things. It posits the existence of stable, autonomous structures or representations operating within an organism that account for its behavior (or output).
Cognitive psychology
34
Mentation that is not within awareness that mostly includes phenomena related to information processing.
Cognitive unconscious
35
A set of unconscious associated feelings and ideas that form a network or template in the mind.
Complex
36
A mental product that reflects the ego's solution to a problem presented by the competing demands of id, superego, and external reality.
Compromise formation
37
The view that the human mind is an information processing system, in the sense of a symbol manipulator that follows step-by-step functions to compute input and output.
Computational model of the mind
38
A mental process by which a single idea is capable of representing many related ideas, linked by private associations.
Condensation
39
A struggle within the mind between thoughts, feelings, or structures with opposing aims.
Conflict
40
A theory about how the ego manages the competing aims of id, superego, and external reality by forging compromise.
Conflict theory
41
A therapeutic intervention that directs attention to aspects of conscious experience that are observable but that are avoided or disavowed.
Confrontation
42
In Freud's topographic model, that part of the mind that is accessible to awareness.
Conscious
43
A mental state characterized by awareness and self-awareness.
Consciousness
44
In Bion's theory, caretaking acts, including soothing and verbalizing, that serve to transform the infant's chaotic experience into something more tolerable.
Container/contained
45
The symbolic transformation of unacceptable wishes into physical symptoms.
Conversion
46
The second stage in the development of the self---from 2 to 6 months---in Stern's theory about how the sense of self develops in interaction with the mother/caregiver.
Core sense of self
47
In the theory of Alexander and French, therapeutic change that results from the therapist's specific efforts to be different from the patient's parents.
Corrective emotional experience
48
The therapist's responses to the patient, conscious and unconscious, including responses that are mainly a reaction to the therapist's own inner life and those that are mainly a reaction to the patient.
Countertransference
49
Circumstances that trigger anxiety in all human beings, including loss of an important object, loss of an object's love, castration anxiety, and superego disapproval (or guilt).
Danger situations
50
An event from the waking life in the day before the dream that appears in the dream as a symbol.
Day residue
51
Any unconscious psychological maneuver used to avoid the experience of a painful state of mind.
Defense
52
A specific and well-delineated act of defense, such as repression, reaction formation, or sublimation.
Defense mechanism
53
An individual's characteristic mode of defense, a major constituent of character.
Defensive style
54
A weakness in psychic structure caused by early deprivation.
Deficit
55
A defense by which an individual repudiates aspects of external reality, thereby diminishing painful feelings. Also called disavowal.
Denial
56
A fear that one's own angry feelings may threaten or harm a needed and loved object.
Depressive anxiety
57
In Klein's theory, a stage of development marked by attainment of the ability to integrate good and bad aspects of the experience with an object.
Depressive position
58
Mentation that is not within awareness at any given moment but can easily be brought to awareness if attention is applied to it.
Descriptive unconscious
59
Distinct developmental sequences of function and behavior, including wishes, fears, self-regulation, morality, self and object representations, and narcissistic strivings.
Developmental lines
60
An approach to understanding behavior and mental life as part of a meaningful progression from infancy to adulthood.
Developmental point of view
61
In Mahler's theory, a subphase of the separation-individuation process in which the infant begins to show interest in the external world.
Differentiation
62
In self psychology, a type of psychopathology that is characterized by weakness in the self.
Disorder of the self
63
A process whereby the interest or intensity attached to one idea is redirected onto another associated idea; often used as a defense.
Displacement
64
A disruption in the continuity of mental experience for the purpose of defense.
Dissociation
65
A mental event occurring during sleep that consists of a collection of images, ideas, and emotions.
Dream
66
The process of transforming the latent dream thoughts into the manifest dream.
Dream work
67
A psychological representation of a motivational force that emerges from the body as a result of an individual's biological needs.
Drive
68
A state of continuous interplay of multiple psychological forces or motivations.
Dynamic
69
Mentation that is actively denied access to consciousness by the force of repression.
Dynamic unconscious
70
In Freud's structural model, the executive agency of the mind, responsible for mediating among the demands of the drives (the id), the external world, and the superego.
Ego
71
Behaviors that are experienced by the individual as incompatible with the dominant view of the self.
Ego dystonic
72
Specific capacities of the ego employed in the service of self-regulation and/or adaptation, such as cognition, perception, memory, motility, affect, thinking, language, symbolization, reality testing, evaluation, judgment, censorship, impulse control, affect tolerance, defense, and conflict mediation.
Ego function(s)
73
A repository of standard, values, and images of perfection by which an individual measures him- or herself.
Ego ideal
74
In Erikson's theory, the consolidation of a stable sense of oneself as a unique individual in society.
Ego identity
75
The branch of psychoanalysis, roughly equivalent to the structural model, that emphasizes the concept of the ego and its role in the psychological functioning.
Ego psychology
76
In the structural model, a state of psychological health characterized by the ability to efficiently fulfill ego functions required for self-regulation and/or adaptation, including reality testing and social judgment, abstract thinking, affect tolerance, impulse control, and the flexible utilization of appropriate defense mechanisms.
Ego strength
77
Behaviors that are experienced by the individual as compatible with his or her dominant view of the self.
Ego syntonic
78
In the structural model, a state of psychopathology characterized by the inability to fulfill ego functions required for self-regulation and/or adaptation.
Ego weakness
79
The idea that the mind is intrinsically shaped by its connection to the body.
Embodiment
80
A property of any system that is dependent on another system but that cannot be described in terms appropriate to that system, so that the new property must be described in new terms.
Emergent property
81
The first stage in the development of the self---from birth to 2 months---in Stern's theory about how the sense of self develops in interaction with the mother/caregiver.
Emergent sense of self
82
The capacity to feel, imagine, or sense the experience of another person.
Empathy
83
The belief that the only source of true knowledge about the universe comes from the evidence of the senses.
Empiricism
84
A feeling of wishing to have something that another person has, often accompanied by destructive feelings toward that person.
Envy
85
The view that development proceeds in a series of successive transactions between the individual and the environment, with the outcome of each phase dependent upon the outcomes of all previous phases.
Epigenesis
86
A body part that serves as a source of libidinous excitement or gratification.
Erotogenic zone
87
In Winnicott's theory, the self experience that emerges in response to another person's needs, expectations, and demands.
False self
88
An imagined scenario in narrative form in which the imagining person is featured in a major role and often in an emotionally charged situation.
Fantasy
89
The persistent and overwhelming influence of a particular stage of development on adult functioning.
Fixation
90
A technique of psychodynamic psychotherapy in which a patient suspends conscious control over his or her thought processes, thereby revealing unconscious influences on the patient's subjective experience.
Free association
91
A branch of psychology that explores the function, or purpose, of mental life.
Functionalism
92
A request made by the therapist to the patient to report whatever comes to mind, speaking with as little censorship as possible.
Fundamental rule
93
In the psychoanalytic model of the mind, the effort to understand the adult patient's report of his or her development as an important determinant of experience.
Genetic perspective
94
The fourth phase of psychosexual development, following the oral, anal, and phallic phases. This phase is sometimes combined with the oedipal stage.
Genital phase
95
In Winnicott's theory, a mother who provides nurturing, optimal responsiveness, and safety so that the infant can thrive.
Good-enough mother
96
In self psychology, a component of the self that represents the earliest expression of inborn narcissistic strivings to be omnipotent and special.
Grandiose self
97
A feeling of badness and anxiety linked to thoughts of moral transgression.
Guilt
98
A principle from general psychology that asserts that behavior and mental activity always seek to maximize feelings of pleasure and minimize feelings of pain.
Hedonic principle
99
In Winnicott's theory, a situation created by a good-enough mother.
Holding environment
100
A state of stable intrapsychic equilibrium or self-regulation.
Homeostasis
101
A defense in which an individual treats a painful subject with a comic attitude, thereby diminishing the pain.
Humor
102
A state of altered consciousness induced by special techniques and often used for the purpose of treatment.
Hypnosis
103
A type of psychopathology characterized by somatic symptoms that are unrelated to demonstrable anatomical or physiological pathology.
Hysteria
104
In Freud's structural model, the seat of the drives, including sexual and aggressive urges. Its content is always unconscious.
Id
105
The attribution of exalted qualities to someone or something. A defense in which one individual sees another individual in an exaggeratedly positive light, so as to ward off disappointment or to enhance his or her own experience of self.
Idealization
106
In self psychology, a component of the self that represents the inborn need for perfection in the primary caregivers.
Idealized parental imago
107
In self psychology, a caregiver who can be experienced as perfect.
Idealized selfobject
108
In self psychology, a patient's exalted view of the therapist, which represents a revival of the idealized parental imago in the person of the therapist.
Idealizing transference
109
A process in which the individual's self representation is modified to resemble an object representation.
Identification
110
A defense in which an individual takes on the characteristics or role of someone who had formerly tormented or abused him or her so as to avoid painful feelings of passivity and shame.
Identification with the aggressor
111
The stable sense of oneself as a unique individual in society.
Identity
112
Lack of coherence in self representation, resulting from failure to integrate all aspects of the self.
Identity diffusion
113
According to Lorenz's theory, the act by which a newborn animal recognizes another animal as a parent.
Imprinting
114
In Mahler's theory, the process by which children develop the feeling of autonomy and uniqueness.
Individuation
115
Sexual and/or romantic feelings in children, especially as expressed in the psychosexual phases.
Infantile sexuality
116
Knowledge about the unconscious, often gained through interpretation.
Insight
117
In general biology, a species-specific, inherited pattern of behavior that does not have to be learned.
Instinct
118
A defensive process in which an individual uses excessive cognitive activity to control and ward off unacceptable feelings.
Intellectualization
119
A group of processes whereby an individual takes aspects of the external world into the psyche.
Internalization
120
A process whereby a homosexual individual responds to homophobia in the surrounding culture by treating him- or herself in a homophobic way or by identifying with the aggressor.
Internalized homophobia
121
In Bowlby's theory, psychological representations that include a representation self, object, and the interaction between them, pertaining to attachment.
Internal working models of attachment
122
An explicit reference made by the therapist to the patient about the workings or the contents of the unconscious mind.
Interpretation
123
Struggle in the mind between opposing wishes, thoughts, or feelings in different regions of the mind, as between id and superego.
Intersystemic conflict
124
Struggle in the mind between opposing wishes, thoughts, or feelings in the same system, as within the id.
Intrasystemic conflict
125
A defense in which an individual internalizes an aspect of the external world, usually an object, so as to avoid a painful feeling, such as loss or disappointment.
Introjection
126
A defense in which an individual separates events, thoughts, or parts of mental experience from one another in order to lessen their emotional impact.
Isolation
127
The most commonly used form of isolation, in which an individual separates an idea, experience, or memory from the feelings connected with it in order to lessen its emotional impact.
Isolation of affect
128
A developmental phase of childhood (roughly between 5-12 years old) originally identified by Freud as the stage between the oedipal stage and puberty, that is characterized by a lull in active libidinal and aggressive drives and an apparent relative reduction in sexual interest.
Latency
129
The underlying content of the dream, made up of unacceptable thoughts and feelings.
Latent dream thoughts
130
The source of psychic energy deriving from the organism's sexual wishes.
Libido
131
The dream as recalled and narrated by the dreamer upon awakening.
Manifest dream
132
The ability to understand the behavior of others in terms of mental states such as beliefs, desires, feelings, and memories; the ability to reflect upon one's own mental states; and the ability to understand that one's own states of mind may influence the behaviors of others. Also called reflective function.
Mentalization
133
A therapy developed by Bateman and Fonagy that aims to treat severe personality disorders through efforts to increase mentalization.
Mentalization-Base Treatment
134
The process of thinking about one's own thinking.
Metacognition.
135
A turning point in an individual's life, occurring in middle age, accompanied by emotional turmoil.
Midlife crisis
136
In self psychology, a caregiver who offers recognition, validation, and enjoyment of the child's grandiose self, so that it can develop and mature properly.
Mirroring selfobject
137
In self psychology, a situation in psychotherapy in which the grandiose self is revived, so that the patient needs the therapist to respond to him or her with recognition and validation.
Mirror transference
138
In the psychoanalytic model of the mind, the effort to understand the interplay of psychological forces, or aims and strivings.
Motivational point of view
139
An individual's investment in him- or herself or an aspect of the self.
Narcissism
140
In Kohut's theory, an extreme affective state---ranging from irritability to fury and accompanied by feelings of shame, humiliation, and/or disappointment---triggered by a perceived threat to the self.
Narcissistic rage
141
The fifth stage in the development of the self---beginning in the 3rd or 4th year---in Stern's theory about how the sense of self develops in interaction with the mother/caregiver.
Narrative sense of self.
142
In the psychoanalytic model of the mind, the understanding that mental life is shaped by stories.
Narrative structure of the mind
143
The infant's initial experience of the maternal object, in which the object is experienced as only existing to meet the infant's needs.
Need-satisfying object
144
An oedipal interaction between child and parents in which the child takes the same-sex parent as the love object and the opposite-sex parent as the rival.
Negative oedipus complex
145
A type of psychopathology characterized by inflexible, maladaptive behavior that represents a solution to unconscious conflict.
Neurosis
146
A person who is the focus of one's wishes and needs.
Object
147
The ability to maintain a positively tinged feeling toward the mother (or anyone else) in the face of feelings of frustration, anger, or disappointment.
Object constancy
148
The cognitive ability to know that an object exists even when it cannot be perceived
Object permanence
149
A psychological configuration consisting of three parts, a self representation, an object representation, and a representation of an affectively charged interaction between the two.
Object relations
150
The individual's mental image of an object in her or her life. Contains aspects of the actual external object but is also colored by the individual's fantasies about the object.
Object representation
151
Libidinal aims that are directed toward another person, as opposed to those directed toward the child's own body
Object seeking
152
The part of the conscious mind that is capable of self-reflection and is activated in treatment.
Observing ego
153
The period (between ages 3-6) in which the Oedipus complex emerges.
Oedipal period
154
A child's experience of having triumphed over one parent in obtaining the other parent's special affection.
Oedipal victor
155
A set of feelings and thoughts about the role of the individual as a child in relation to his or her two parents which includes a wish for romantic union with one parent, along with a wish to be rid of the other, competing parent.
Oedipus complex
156
In Mahler's theory, the final stage of separation-individuation in which the child learns to integrate positive and negative feelings/thoughts about the mother.
On the way to object constancy
157
A personality style characterized by greed, dependency, demandingness, and impatience, thought to be related to the predominant influence of libido arising from the oral erotogenic zone.
Oral character
158
The first phase of psychosexual development (first 18 months) during which libido deriving from the oral erotogenic zone dominates the organization of psychic life.
Oral phase
159
The observations that any given manifestation of mental life can be given multiple psychological explanations.
Overdetermination
160
In Klein's theory, the earliest organization of the psyche, characterized by active splitting of good and bad aspects of experience, accompanied by projection (later, projective identification) of the bad aspects of experience onto the object.
Paranoid position
161
A symptomatic act, is one of a number of cognitive or functional errors such as slips of the tongue, forgetting of names or words, slips of the pen, or bungled actions.
Parapraxis
162
In Klein's theory, the experience of only one aspect or attribute of an object, such as an all-good object or an all-bad object.
Part object
163
In Kernberg's theory of narcissistic personality disorder, an organization of the self that serves the defensive need to to avoid dependency.
Pathological grandiose self
164
According to Freud, a girl's or woman's feeling of discontent with her genitals, accompanied by a longing to have the genitals of a male.
Penis envy
165
In Klein's theory, an individual's fear that he or she is in danger of being destroyed by the bad object, who has become the repository for all of his or her own projected aggression.
Persecutory anxiety
166
A personality style characterized by exhibitionism and extreme gender role behavior, thought to be related to the predominant influence of libido arising from the phallic erotogenic zone.
Phallic narcissistic character
167
The third phase of psychosexual development (beginning at 2 yo) during which the libido deriving from the phallus (penis or clitoris) dominates the organization of psychic life. Sometimes called the early genital phase.
Phallic phase
168
A principle that asserts that behavior and mental activity always seek to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.
Pleasure/unpleasure principle
169
In Klein's theory, a stable configuration of self and object representations resulting from the combined influence of wishes, thoughts, and feelings as well as interactions with caregivers.
Position
170
An oedipal interaction between child and parents in which the child takes the opposite-sex parent as the love object and the same-sex parent as the rival.
Positive Oedipus complex
171
In Mahler's theory, a subphase of the separation-individuation process in which the child experiments with distance by moving away from the mother, enjoying his or her newly developed capacities for crawling and walking.
Practicing
172
In Freud's topographic model, one of the three components of the mental apparatus. Elements of this are easily brought into conscious awareness through focusing attention on them.
Preconscious
173
The period of development from birth to the onset of the oedipal stage. (3-6 years).
Preoedipal stage
174
The childhood perception of parental sexual intercourse, whether actually observed, actually overheard, or only imagined, and the meaning the child attaches to it.
Primal scene
175
A view of female development that asserts that the earliest sense of being female is not based on conflict or is not a response to feeling inferior.
Primary femininity
176
A primitive form of thinking linked with the pleasure principle and characterized by reliance on symbolization, displacement, and condensation, as well as by a disregard for logical connections, for contradictions, and for the realities of time. The content of this is dominated by wishes, affects, conflict and/or unconscious fantasy.
Primary process
177
A defense in which an individual splits apart exalted and devalued aspects of another individual, experiencing only the exalted aspect, so as to ward off feelings associated with the devalued aspect or to enhance his or her own experience of self.
Primitive idealization
178
A defense in which an individual attributes an unacceptable or intolerable idea, impulse, or feeling to another individual.
Projection
179
An interpersonal defense in which an individual transfers parts of the self onto the object in order to rid him- or herself of those parts and to control the object from the inside.
Projective identification
180
The belief that psychological events are caused by other psychological events, transformed according to natural laws, or that psychological life is lawfully determined.
Psychic determinism
181
The phases of development introduced as part of libido theory, which posits a series of sequential, overlapping phases in the developing infant and child---oral, anal, phallic, and genital---each representing predominant sensual investment in a different erotogenic zone.
Psychosexual phases
182
In Mahler's theory of separation-individuation, a subphase marked by conflicting feelings of dependence and outrage, brought on by new awareness of separation from the mother.
Rapprochement
183
In Mahler's theory of separation-individuation, the conflict felt by the child during the subphase of rapprochement between wishes to depend upon the mother and wishes for autonomy, often accompanied by feelings of anger and wide fluctuations in mood.
Rapprochement crisis
184
A defense in which an individual resorts to seemingly reasonable explanations to account for feelings or actions, thereby avoiding recognition of more painful feelings and/or motivations.
Rationalization
185
A defense in which an individual transforms a forbidden wish into its opposite.
Reaction formation
186
A principle that asserts that behavior and mental activity will take the constraints of the external world into account, even when seeking pleasure.
Reality principle
187
The capacity to understand aspects of external reality, beginning with the capacity to differentiate between reality and fantasy.
Reality testing
