Psychodynamic Approaches

Question 1

Describe Freud’s topographic theory of personality

Answer 1

unconscious conflict among
sexual and aggressive impulses, societal rules aimed at controlling those
impulses, and the individual’s defense mechanisms controlling the impulses
in such a way as to keep guilt and anxiety to a minimum while allowing
some safe, indirect gratification

Question 2

Define and describe the role of Eros and Thanatos

Answer 2

Eros = life and sex
Thanatos = aggression and death
These are instincts that are expressed in thoughts, feelings and actions and demand gratification. The demand for immediate gratification leads to inevitable conflicts with societal rules that insist on having control over these desires if family/society is to remain stable and orderly.

Question 3

Describe the role of defense mechanisms

Answer 3

Defense mechanisms keep individuals from becoming conscious of basic
inner desires to rape/ravage. The assumption here is that if individuals
are unaware of such desires, they cannot act on them, at least not directly. They control these impulses in such a way that guilt and anxiety are kept minimal.

Question 4

Name 5 defense mechanisms

Answer 4

Denial, projection, reaction formation, repression, sublimation

Question 5

Describe transference and countertransference

Answer 5

Transference is the patient’s neurotic and unrealistic feelings towards the analyst that actually apply to feelings towards significant people in childhood.

Countertransference is the analyst’s desires to make objects out of the client to satisfy infantile impulses. Example - analyst may be withholding empathy/warmth from client if the client reminds them of their sibling.

Question 6

Describe the role of the id, ego, and superego.

Answer 6

The id, or the pleasure principle, represents the primitive, biological desires for aggression and sex.

The ego, sometimes referred to as the reality principle, represents the rationale of our personality and balances the desires of the id with the demands of the superego.

The superego, the moral principle, represents the internalized moral, familial, and societal ideals; this is also where Freud believed the conscience resided.

Question 7

Name some evidence that Freud postulated for the unconscious.

Answer 7

• slips of the tongue
• dreams
• material derived from free association
• material derived from projective techniques (transference)

Question 8

Role of therapist

Answer 8

Remain neutral/non-judgmental, decide when to make appropriate interpretations of client’s problems so that they can achieve insight, and foster a transference relationship with client.

Question 9

Psychoanalytic techniques

Answer 9

• free association
• interpretation (therapist points out, explains, and teaches the meaning of what client reveals)
• dream analysis (brings unconscious to light)
• analysis of resistance (therapist helps clients become aware of reasons for their resistance so they can deal with them)