week 1 - freud Flashcards
who was freud?
[week 1 - freud]
austrian scholar/psychologist known for the development of an encompassing theory of the mind
what was the significance of freud’s work?
[week 1 - freud]
his work influenced how we think about every aspect of day to day life - development of children, mental illness, religion, war
what was freud’s idea of the unconscious?
[week 1 - freud]
- there are unconscious reasons for your feelings and actions
- notion of unconscious dynamics
- you are not one entity but many - the clash of these leads to consequences like dreams, speech errors, jokes, sense of humor, etc.
what is the freudian concept of the id?
[week 1 - freud]
- present at birth
- animal part - wants to eat, drink, poop, pee, get warm, get pleasure -> pleasure principle
what is the freudian concept of the ego?
[week 1 - freud]
- has some understanding of reality and logic
- works on reality principle: tries to pragmatically satisfy your desires or suppresses it
- deals with the way the world is and how to reconcile that with what you want
- your conscious self
what is the freudian concept of the superego?
[week 1 - freud]
- part of the mind that has internalized rules of parents and society
- moral conscience - internalized moral rules
what distinguishes the id, ego, and superego?
[week 1 - freud]
- id: raging animalistic desires
- superego: moral conscience grounded on prejudices and beliefs of the society in which you’re raised
- ego: you, conscious, intellectual awareness
what are freud’s psychosexual stages? (5)
[week 1 - freud]
- oral stage
- anal stage
- phallic stage
- latency stage
- genital stage
each associated w/different parts of body, if you get into problem at a certain stage and don’t resolve, you could end up stuck there as an adult (fixation) & try to achieve pleasure in ways equivalent to the stage
name and describe the first of freud’s psychosexual stages
[week 1 - freud]
oral stage (birth - 1 year):
- mouth is associated with pleasure
- problems - e.g. weaning child incorrectly
- oral fixation - eat too much, chew gum, smoke, be dependent or needy
name and describe the second of freud’s psychosexual stages
[week 1 - freud]
anal stage (1 - 3 years):
-anus is associated with pleasure
e.g: toilet training
anal fixation - compulsive, clean, stingy
name and describe the third of freud’s psychosexual stages
[week 1 - freud]
phallic stage (3 - 5 years):
- focus of pleasure shifts to genitals
- phallic fixation - excessive masculinity in males, need for attention or domination in females
- oedipus complex within this stage
name and describe the fourth of freud’s psychosexual stages
[week 1 - freud]
latency period (5 - puberty):
- sexuality is repressed
- children participate in hobbies, school, friendships
name and describe the fifth of freud’s psychosexual stages
[week 1 - freud]
genital stage (puberty on):
- sexual feelings reemerge and are oriented toward others
- healthy adults find pleasure in love and work
- fixated adults are tied up in other stages
what is the freudian idea of the oedipus complex?
[week 1 - freud]
- boys go through seeking an external object of affection within phallic stage
- turns attention to mother
- wants father to die, hates father
- fear of castration if found out
- child gives up plans to seduce mother/kill father, instead identifies with his father
what are freud’s different defense mechanisms?
[week 1 - freud]
- displacement
- sublimation
- projection
- rationalization
- regression
- reaction formation
explain freud’s defense mechanism of displacement
[week 1 - freud]
redirect shameful thoughts to more appropriate targets
e.g. kid hates father, so he turns anger/hatred toward kicking dog or bullying other kids
explain freud’s defense mechanism of sublimation
[week 1 - freud]
take desires that are unacceptable and displace them to more valuable activities
e.g. strong sexual desires of ‘forbiddens’ devote a lot of energy to work/school instead
explain freud’s defense mechanism of projection
[week 1 - freud]
reducing anxiety by taking impulses you’re ashamed of and attributing them to somebody else
e.g. repressed same-sex attraction, believes other people of same sex are drawn to them; or dislikes someone they should like, believes the other person hates them
explain freud’s defense mechanism of rationalization
[week 1 - freud]
reason away anxiety-producing thoughts into more acceptable reasons
e.g. father gets pleasure by physically punishing children, so he rationalizes that it’s for their own good
explain freud’s defense mechanism of regression
[week 1 - freud]
under certain forms of stress or stressful desires and stressful impulses from the Id, you retreat to a mode of behavior that’s characteristic of an earlier stage
what is freud’s concept of hysteria?
[week 1 - freud]
- ways in which we fail to properly repress the impulses from the Id -> manifest ‘improper’ ways of repressing
ex: blindness/deafness without physical cause, paralysis, tremblings, panic attacks, gaps of memories, etc.
what is freud’s concept of catharsis?
[week 1 - freud]
-an explosive/emotional release of insight when repressed impulses/memories come to light
what is the notion of falsifiability?
[week 1 - freud]
what distinguishes science from non-science is that scientific predictions make strong claims about the world and run the risk of being proven false
how do we distinguish falsifiable theories from unfalsifiable ones?
[week 1 - freud]
falsifiable theories have such specificity and testability that there are ways to prove their claims wrong
how does the concept of falsifiability apply to freud’s psychodynamic theories?
[week 1 - freud]
- main accusations of Freudian theory is that it’s unfalsifiable
- based on a lot of anecdotes and descriptions of clinical events
- therapeutic environment itself has a sort of unfalsifiability to it (e.g. client either agrees w/therapist, or therapist uses resistance as evidence they’re right)
what components of freud’s theory that are still considered valuable today?
[week 1 - freud]
- developmental theories are more falsifiable
- made specific claims about the origin of sexual preference
- influence on how psychologists and non-psychologists think about the mind
- idea of a dynamic unconscious is intact
how does freud conceptualize defense mechanisms?
[week 1 - freud]
- desires are repressed via defense mechanisms
- protect ego from id’s inappropriate desires
explain freud’s defense mechanism of reaction formation
[week 1 - freud]
- replace threatening wishes and fantasies with their opposites
e. g. you hate someone, so instead you say “I love this person. This person is my favorite person.”
