Sleep & Dreams: Psychodynamic Approach

Question 1

Conscious and unconscious processes (2)

Answer 1

• Components of personality: id (unconscious - pleasure principle), ego (conscious - reality principle, has defence mechanisms to protect itself), and superego (unconscious - morality principle
• Conflict takes place between id and superego

Question 2

Manifest and latent content of dreams (2)

Answer 2

• Manifest - their apparent meaning
• Latent - their hidden, real meaning

Question 3

Defence mechanisms (3)

Answer 3

• Repression: exclusion of distressing memories, thoughts or feelings from conscious mind, e.g. memories of childhood trauma are pushed into the unconscious
• Displacement: redirection of an impulse, usually aggression, onto a powerless substitute target, e.g. being shouted at by boss at work then going home and shouting at family
• Regression: dealing with stress / anxiety / unacceptable impulses by behaving in an immature / younger / age-inappropriate way, e.g. going back to sucking your thumb due to exam stress as a young adult

Question 4

Unconscious drives (2)

Answer 4

• Thanatos (aggression)
• Eros (sex)

Question 5

Stages of psychosexual development

Answer 5

1. Oral
2. Anal
3. Phallic
4. Latent
5. Genital

Question 6

Treatments (4)

Answer 6

• Hypnosis
• Free association
• Parapraxis (Freudian slips)
• Dream analysis

Question 7

Wish fulfilment theory (8)

Answer 7

• 1990
• Unconscious expresses drives freely in dreams
• Unconscious lets you experience wish fulfilment and dreams are indispensable to understanding personality
• Eros and thanatos impulses can be satisfied
• Superego doesn’t need to deny the behaviour
• Real desire can still be disguised in the dream
• Need to find the associations between the experienced (manifest) content, which is different for each individual
• Dreams appear real at the time but are fleeting