Sigmund Freud Flashcards
The combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual’s distinctive character.
Personality
The part of the mind that’s inaccessible to the conciliatory mind but affects behaviour and emotions.
Unconscious
Information that is not currently conscious, but is retrievable into conscious awareness.
Preconscious
A method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing.
Free Association
The process by which (according to Freud) incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos.
Identification
Emphasizes environmental influences on observable behaviours.
Behavioural Persepctive
The technique of treating disorders by analyzing unconscious.
Psychoanalysis
The instinctual drives that (according to Freud) supply psychic energy to personality. (Pleasure)
ID
The ID’s demand for immediate gratification.
Pleasure Principle
The largely conscious “executive” part of personality that (according to Freud) meditates between the demands of the demands of the ID and Superego and reality.
Ego
A lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage.
Fixation
Builds on Freud’s ideas that behaviour arises from unconscious drives and conflicts, many of which may stem from childhood experiences.
Psychoanalytic Perspective
The Ego’s tendency to satisfy the ID’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain.
Reality Principle
The part of personality (according to Freud) that represents internalized ideas, thus providing standards for judgement (conscience) and for future aspirations. The “moral” thing to do.
Superego
The developmental stages (oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital) during which (according to Freud), the ID’s pleasure-seeking energies are focus on different erogenous zones.
Psychosexual Stages
The 3-5 or 6 year old child’s sexual desires toward the parent of the other sex and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival parent of the same sex.
Oedipus Complex
In psychoanalytical theory, the Ego’s methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.
Defence Mechanisms
Protecting oneself from an unpleasant reality by refusing to perceive it. Ex: bad test, death, etc.
Denial
Unconsciously preventing painful thoughts or dangerous thoughts from entering awareness. Ex: actually forgetting an event.
Repression
Substituting a different target for impulses when the original would be dangerous or unacceptable. Ex: when someone is angry at another word on but takes it out on you.
Displacement
Attributing one’s own feelings, short comings, or unacceptable impulses on others. Ex: your crush gives you and your whole class valentines, but you think they really like you back because of that. They don’t though.
Projection
Preventing dangerous impulses from being expressed in behaviour by exaggerating opposite behaviour. Ex: friend cancels plans and you’re angry but decide to say it’s okay and that you didn’t want to anyways.
Reaction Formation
Retreating to an earlier level of development or to earlier, less demanding habits or situations. Ex: storming up to room after feud.
Regression
Justifying your behaviour by giving reasonable and “rational,” but false, reasons for it.
Rationalization
Working off desires, or unacceptable impulses, in activities that are constructive.
Sublimation
Counteracting real or imagined weaknesses by emphasizing desirable trait or seeking to excel in the weakness or other areas. Ex: you suck at math but give it 110% just to be good at it and pass your test.
Compensation
All Stages of Psychosexual Development
Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latent, and Genital
