Psychodynamic processes

Question 1

Conscious and unconscious processes

Preconscious

Answer 1

consists of anything that could potentially be brought into the conscious mind

Question 2

Conscious mind

Answer 2

• contains all of the thoughts, memories, feelings and wishes of which we are aware at any given moment
• the aspect of our mental processing that we can think and talk about rationally

Question 3

Unconscious mind

Answer 3

• a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges and memories that are outside of our conscious awareness
• most of the contents of the unconscious are unacceptable or unpleasant, such as feelings of pain, anxiety or conflict

Question 4

Conscious MInd

The ego (‘I’)

Answer 4

• seeks to please the id’s pleasure drive in realistic ways that will benefit in the long term rather than bringing psychological harm
• the reality principle

Question 5

Unconscious MInd

The id (‘it’)

Answer 5

• contains bodily needs, wants, desires and impulses, particularly our sexual and aggressive drives
• acts accordingly to the ‘pleasure principle’
• is the first thing to develop during childhood, and it doesn’t understand rules or consequences

Question 6

Unconscious mind

The superego (‘above I’)

Answer 6

• represents the internalisation of cultural rules, mainly taught by parents applying their guidance and influence
• thought of as the moral part of the psyche and acts according to the morality principle

Question 7

Manifest and latent content of dreams

Answer 7

The desires of the id can, at times, be so distrubing and even psychologically harmful that the superego comes into play and translate the id’s distrubing content into a more acceptable symbolic form

• helps to preserve sleep and prevents you from waking up shocked
• prevents psychological damage, but means that you wake up confused

Question 8

Manifest

Answer 8

Manifest content is being what the dream appears to be about.

He believes that the manifest content usually masked or obscured the latent content.

Question 9

Latent

Answer 9

Latent content is being what the dream is actually about.

Question 10

Defense Mechanisms

Ego defense

Answer 10

• weakening of the ego
• unconscious ideas impinge on conscious
• dream work by the ego
• manifest & latent dream content

Question 11

Defense mechanisms

Displacement

Answer 11

• statisfying an impulse with a subsitute object
• when we focus emotions that we feel towards a person or thing we can’t control onto an unrelated person or thing

Question 12

Defense mechanisms

Rationalisation

Answer 12

• involves taking all symbols, objects, events and people that appear in dreams (latent) and transforming them into coherent and understandable dream content (manifest)

Question 13

Defense mechanisms

Symbolisation

Answer 13

• involves acting out the repressed urge in a symbolic act

Question 14

Defense mechanisms

Repression

Answer 14

• an unconscious mechanism employed by the ego to keep distrubing or threatening thoughts from becoming conscious.
• for example, during the Oedipus complex, aggressive thoughts about the same sex parents are repressed.

Question 15

Defense mechanisms

Denial

Answer 15

• involves blocking external events from awareness
• if some situation is just too much to handle, the person just refuses to experience it

Question 16

Defense mechanisms

Regression

Answer 16

• this is a movement back in psychological time when one is faced with stress
• for example, a child may begin to suck their thumb again or wet the bed when they need to spend some time in the hospital