The Psychodynamic Perspective Flashcards
What is conversion hysteria?
What did Freud believe the cause was?
- Physical symptoms such as paralysis and blindness appeared suddenly and with no apparent physical cause
- Freud believed it was do to repressed painful memories and feelings
- He believed conversion hysteria could be treated by allowing his patients to re-experience traumatic memories (remove from repression)
What is psychoanalysis?
- A theory of personality
- An approach to studying the mind
- A method for treating psychological disorders
Psychic energy
generated by instinctual drives, this energy powers the mind and constantly presses for either direct or indirect release
What are 3 categories of mental events?
Conscious, preconscious and unconscious
id
the primitive and unconscious part of the personality that contains the instincts •Only structure present at birth •The source of all psychic energy •No direct contact with reality •Wish fulfilment •Biological component •Pleasure principle
Pleasure Principle
the drive for instant need gratification that is characteristic of the id
Ego
the “executive” of the personality that is partly conscious and that mediates among the impulses of the id, the prohibitions of the superego, and the dictates of reality
•Operates according to reality principle
Reality Principle
the ego’s tendency to take reality into account and to act in a rational fashion in satisfying its needs
What 3 structures did Freud divide personality into?
Id, ego and superego
Superego
the moral arm of the personality that internalizes the standards and values of society and serves as the person’s conscience
•Developed by age 4 or 5
•Self control takes over
Defence mechanisms
unconscious processes by which the ego prevents the expression of anxiety-arousing impulses or allows them to appear in disguised forms
•Deny or distort reality
Repression
the basic defence mechanism that actively keeps anxiety-arousing material in the unconscious
•Developing amnesia for a certain event
•May be expressed indirectly, through dreams or slip of the tongue
Sublimation
the channelling of unacceptable impulses into socially accepted behaviours, as when aggressive drives are expressed in violent sports
•A repressed impulse is released in the form of socially acceptable behaviour
What are some examples of Defence Mechanisms?
Repression
Denial
Displacement : An
Intellectualization: Attributing negative event as Intellectually interesting “ unpredictability”
•Projection: Negative feeling repressed and the projected onto others
•Rationalization: Construction of a false by plausible explanation or excuse
•Reaction formation:
•sublimation : A repressed impulse is released in the form of socially acceptable behaviour
Reaction Formation
An anxiety- arousing impulse is repressed and its psychic energy finds release in an an exaggerated expression of the opposite behaviour
Rationalization
A person constructs a false but plausible explanation or excuse for anxiety-arousing behaviour or event that has already occurred
Projection
An unacceptable impulse is repressed and then attributed to (projected onto) other people
•ex. A woman who has desires to have an affair represses it and then accuses husband of cheating
Intellectualization
The emotion connected with an upsetting event is repressed, and the situation is death with as an intellectually interesting event.
• A person who is dumped talks in a highly rational manner about “interesting unpredictability of love relationships”
Displacement
An unacceptable or dangerous impulse is repressed and then directed at a safer substitute target
Denial
A person refuses to acknowledge anxiety-arousing aspects of the environment. May involve either the emotions connected with the event or the event itself
True or False
Suppressed thoughts are more likely to occur in dreams than no suppressed thoughts.
TRUE
Who opposes Freud? Why?
Neoanalysts
- Freud did not give social and cultural factors a sufficiently important role in development and dynamics of personality. He stress infantile sexuality too much
- Laid too much emphasis on the events of childhood as determinants of adult personality
Social interest
The desire to advance the welfare of others
Analytical Psychology
Jung’s expansion of Freud’s notion of the unconscious; Jung believed that humans possess not only a personal unconscious based on their life experiences, but also a collective unconscious that consists of memories accumulated throughout the entire history of the human race
Archetypes
in Jung’s theory, innate concepts and memories (e.g., God, the hero, the good mother); memories that reside in the collective unconscious
Object Relations
the images or mental representations that people form of themselves and other people as a result of early experience with caregivers
•Example mother as kind and father as protector
•Becomes the lenses or “working models” which later social interactions are viewed
True or False
Psychoanalytic theory is criticized for not explaining enough
FALSE
It explains too much to allow clear-cut behavioural predictions
What is the 3 core assumptions of psychoanalysis?
Psychic Determinism
Symbolic Meaning
Unconscious motivation
What are Freud’s 5 Stages of Development?
Oral Anal Phallic Latency Genital
Oral Stage
birth to 1.5
Most pleasure obtained through the mouth
Anal Stage
1.5 to 3 years
Potty training
Children learn to inhibit anal urges
Phallic Stage
3 to 6 years
Sexual awareness develops, children desire opposite sex parent and same sex is the competition
Latency Stage
Between 6 - 12 years
Sexual impulses submerged into unconsciousness
Genital Stage
Ages 12+
Sexual impulses reemerge
