The Psychoanalytic Perspective Flashcards
Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939)
Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst
Psychoanalytic assumptions
- Personality is dynamic - result of ever-changing set of
forces which operate either in harmony or opposition - Behaviour motivated by forces beyond conscious
awareness - Energy used for performing work of mind obtained from biologically-based instinctual drives
- Personality development powerfully influenced by early experience
- Mental health dependent upon balance of forces in one’s life – “everything in moderation”
The Conscious Level
• Contains elements about which a person is currently
aware
• Contents can be articulated verbally
• Contents can be thought about in a rational/logical manner
The Preconscious Level
• Represents elements in ordinary memory—
those outside of current attention
• Contents are easily brought to current awareness
• Examples:
• What you had for dinner last night
• Your grandmother’s first name
The Unconscious Level
• Elements of the mind that are
actively kept from consciousness
• Generally, a repository for images, feelings and ideas associated with anxiety, fear, and pain
• Contents cannot be brought to consciousness directly, but can only enter awareness in distorted form
• Even though they are outside of awareness, the contents of the unconscious can have a dynamic
influence on personality
The structural model
❖Complements the topographical model ❖Describes the three components of personality functioning • Id (Latin for “It”) • Ego (Latin for “I”) • Superego (Latin for “over I”)
The Id
• Is the original part of personality; present at birth
• Embodies inherited, instinctive, and primitive aspects of personality
• Tied to biological functions
• Operates entirely in the unconscious
• Functions as the engine of personality,
through which all psychic energy comes
• Conforms to the “Pleasure Principle”
The Ego
• Evolves out of the id because Id functions cannot deal effectively with objective reality
• Operates primarily at the conscious and preconscious, but also at the unconscious
• Operates according to the = “Reality Principle”
• No moral sense, simply wants to fulfill needs
given the constraints of reality
The Superego
- Embodiment of parental and societal values
- Arises from complex feeling resulting from relationship with parents
- love and affection—obtained by doing what parents think is right
- punishment and disapproval—obtained by avoiding what parents think is wrong
- Introjection: the process of incorporating values from an external source (i.e., mostly parents, sometimes society)
- Operates at all levels of consciousness
- interesting implication: feelings of guilt for no apparent reason H.Gaeta, 202
The Id – the pleasure principle
❖ Asserts that the true purpose of life is the immediate
satisfaction of all needs
❖ Gives no consideration to risk, environment, social
constraints or problems in satisfying needs
❖ Unmet needs result in a state of aversive tension
❖ Mechanism for discharge of tension = “Primary
Process”
The Ego – the reality principle
❖ Introduces a sense of rationality and logic into personality functioning
❖ Idea that behavior is governed by an external, objective world
❖ Focus on effectively expressing Id impulses by taking into account the external world
if risk is associated with need, fulfilling behavior is too high
• directs behavior to another way to meet need
• delays to later, safer, or more sensible time
❖ Mechanism for matching tension and producing need to a real object/activity = “Secondary Process”
Goals of Superego
❖ Inhibit any Id impulse that would cause disapproval
from parents
❖ Force ego to act morally, rather than rationally
❖ Guide person toward perfection in thought, word and
behaviour
>. Problem: While Superego exerts a civilizing effect, its
perfectionism is not realistic
The “drives” of personality
❖ Basic assumptions:
• People are complex energy systems
• Energy used in psychological work is released through biological processes
• These processes, which operate through the Id = “drives”
❖ Two elements to drives:
• Biological need state (influences motives)
• Psychological representation (press influences motives)
- Life or sexual drives (Eros)
- Concerned with survival, reproduction, and pleasure
- Examples: Hunger, pain avoidance, sex
- Energy resulting from Eros = “Libido”
- Death drives (Thanatos)
- The goal of all life is death
- Usually held back by Eros
- No label for energy resulting from Thanatos
- Physiological analog: Apoptosis (programmed cellular suicide)
- Redirected harm toward self onto others may represent the foundation of aggression
Catharsis
❖ The release of the tension resulting from an unmet
drive
❖ Implications for aggressive energy:
• overcontrolled aggression—exaggerated ego and superego processes in which there is a strong inhibition against aggression (straw that broke the camel’s back syndrome)
• mixed effects on the reduction of arousal following
aggressive acts
• mixed findings on the effects of future aggression
Anxiety!!!
Ego’s work = balance demands of internal &
external world & Id & Superego.
❖ Sometimes overwhelmed causing -
ANXIETY!!! - German “Angst”
❖ Freud saw it as warning signal to ego
❖ When ego operates optimally person experiences minimal anxiety
Types of anxiety
- Reality anxiety —fear of something real in
world - Neurotic anxiety —fear of punishment
resulting from Id impulses getting out of
control - Moral anxiety —fear of violating moral/ethical
codes arising from Superego
Defense mechanisms
Defense mechanism = theoretical concept
Describes how behaviours, feelings & ideas
are used to:
• avoid or manage some powerful or
threatening feeling, signalled by anxiety
• maintain self-esteem – strong consistent
positively valued sense of self
• protect against dis-integration & anxiety
• modify unwanted impulses
Defense mechanisms: 1-6
- Repression: Unconscious forcing something out of
consciousness - Suppression: Conscious repression
- Denial: Refusal to believe event took place or condition exists
- Projection: Ascribing unacceptable impulses, desires or qualities to someone else
- Introjection: Taking on board attitudes, feelings,
behaviours of some significant other person - Rationalisation: Finding a reason/excuse for behavior done for unacceptable reasons
Defense mechanisms: 7-12
- Intellectualisation: Thinking in cold, analytical or detached way about things that normally evoke distress
- Reaction formation: Guards against expression of unacceptable impulse by replacing it with opposite
- Regression: Giving up mature coping styles in favor of those from earlier stages of psychosexual development in which they fixated
- Dissociation: disruption in normally occurring connection between feelings & thoughts, behaviour & memories
- Displacement: Redirection of emotion, impulse or preoccupation from initial object to another
- Sublimation: e.g. painting, music
Repression & Suppression
❖ An unconscious act of forcing something out of consciousness ❖ Conscious repression = suppression • important in restraining Id impulses • also applies to painful information memories, behaviours ❖ Not always all-or-nothing act • can have partial repression
Denial
❖ Refusal to believe event took place or
condition exists
❖ Generally deals with threats that
originate outside dynamics of mind
❖ Effective at keeping anxiety at bay, but
requires constant psychic energy
❖ Because of energy cost of repression &
denial, other strategies developed to
free-up energy
Projection
❖ Ascribing unacceptable impulses, desires or qualities to someone else ❖ Serves to express Id’s desire releasing energy required to suppress it ❖ Masks expression of impulse in way that it’s not recognized by Ego or Superego
Introjection
❖ Taking on board attitudes, feelings,
behaviours of significant other person
❖ Enables development of Superego
❖ Operates as defense mechanism by
maintaining or restoring cathexis with desired or lost ‘object’.
Cathexis: process of investment of mental or
emotional energy in person, object, or idea
Rationalisation
❖ Finding reason/excuse for behaviour conducted for unacceptable reasons ❖ Rationalisation after a failure maintains self-esteem ❖ Common response to success and failure experiences
Intellectualisation
❖ Thinking in a cold, analytical or detached way about things that normally evoke distress
❖ Allows disassociation of thought from
feelings
❖ Suggests intellectual part of idea can exist in conscious mind while emotional quality remains
unconscious
Reaction formation
❖ Guards against expression of unacceptable impulse by replacing it with its opposite
❖ Clues to behaviour motivated by an opposite impulse, e.g.
• going overboard
• hints or tinges of impulse being defended against
Regression
❖ Giving up mature coping styles in favour of those from earlier stages of psychosexual development in
which they are fixated
❖ Often represents thoughts & actions permeated by concerns of earlier stage
Dissociation
❖ Dissociative amnesia = inability to recall important
personal information of a traumatic nature
❖ Dissociative identity disorder (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder) = particular form of dissociative disorder where
2 or more distinct identities concurrently take control of
individual’s behaviour accompanied by an inability to
recall personal information too extensive to be
explained by ordinary forgetting
Displacement
❖ Redirection of emotion, impulse or
preoccupation from initial object to another
❖ Shift to new object less threatening, thus
anxiety reduced e.g. punch a pillow instead of boss
Sublimation: Part 1
Is considered more adaptive than other defense mechanisms
❖ Transforms Id impulses, wishes etc. into
socially acceptable forms
❖ Expressed impulse, permits energy release
& is more acceptable, thus anxiety is reduced
❖ Considered most mature of defense
mechanism: e.g. painting, music
Sublimation: Part 2
❖ Defenses such as:
denial, withdrawal, projection, introjection
involve boundary between self & outside world & lack of appreciation of separateness & constancy of those
outside of us
❖ Other defenses involve boundaries within mind itself such as between experiencing & observing parts of self:
repression, intellectualisation, displacement, reaction formation
Limitations and strengths of Freud’s theory
of anxiety, defense & self-protection
❖Limitations
• difficult concepts to test
• defense mechanisms provide endless flexibility, making prediction difficult & any result explainable
❖Strengths
• Freud’s was first comprehensive theory of personality
• it’s centrality to the key issues of personality
• intuitive appeal of it’s major themes
Behavioural problems & change
❖ Problems arise from overuse of defenses:
• unresolved conflict resulting in fixation
• broad libidinal repression of basic needs (psychosexual development)
• repressed trauma
❖ Goal of therapy is to free-up energy by releasing need to repress through awareness and insight:
• Consequences of therapy
▪ resistance—actively fighting against awareness of repressed conflicts and impulses
▪ transference—displacements onto therapist
Dreams
❖ “Royal road to the unconscious”—Freud
❖ Two Aspects
• Manifest Content—actual sensory images
• Latent Content—the source of the manifest content; the meaning underlying the dream
Sources
▪ concurrent sensory stimulation (e.g., barking dog, ringing phone)—guardians of sleep
▪ current concerns—thoughts, feelings, concerns in life
▪ unconscious Id impulses—present in all dreams
