Week 5 Flashcards
The idea that personality is filled with conflict brings up another theme: defense as a key aspect of human functioning. The psychoanalytic view assumes that everyone experiences threats about aspects of himself or herself. Maybe you have desires you think are shameful; maybe you’ve done things you regret; maybe you feel unworthy as a human being. Whatever most threatens you, your defensive processes keep it from overpowering you. This idea of continual defense is an important aspect of psychoanalytic thought.
conscious
refer to the part of the mind that holds what you’re now aware of
Causal Relationships between unconscious preconscious and conscious
Unconscious
A part of the mind that is not directly accessible to awareness. Source of desires and repository for urges, feelings, and ideas that are tied up with anxiety, conflict or pain. They exert a continuing influence on actions and conscious experience
Preconscious
effectively memory
Id
The id (the Latin word meaning “it”) is all the inherited, instinctive, primitive aspects of personality.
Functions entirely in the unconscious. It’s closely tied to basic biological processes, which underlie life. Freud believed that all psychic energy comes through it. Thus, the id is the “engine” of personality.
Pleasure principle
That all needs should be satisfied immediately. Unsatisfied needs create aversive tension states.
primary process
forming an unconscious mental image of an object or event that would satisfy the need. In the case of a hungry infant, the primary process might produce an image of mother’s breast or a bottle.
The experience of having such an image is called wish fulfillment.
wish fulfillment
The experience of having an image caused by the primary process
reality principle
Ego. This means taking into account external reality along with internal needs and urges. Because the ego orients you toward the world, it leads you to weigh the risks of an action before acting. If the risks seem too high, you’ll think of another way to meet the need. If there’s no safe way to do so immediately, you’ll delay it to a later, safer, or more sensible time.
Thus, a goal of the ego is to delay the discharge of the id’s tension until an appropriate object or context is found.
secondary process:
ego. matching the unconscious image of a tension-reducing object to a real object. Until such an object can be found, the ego has to hold the tension back.
The ego’s not trying to block the id’s desires permanently. The ego wants those urges to be satisfied. But it wants them satisfied at a time and in a way that’s safe—that won’t cause trouble because of some danger in the world
self-control:
the ability to hold back one behavior you want to do (at least temporarily, and sometimes for longer) in favor of some other behavior.
delay of gratification
being able to put off rewards until a later time.
Reality testing
The ego’s checking to see whether plans will work before they are put into action.
The ego ideal
comprises rules for good behavior or standards of excellence
Conscience
The part of the superego that punishes violations of moral standards.
Superego
superego (a joining of two Latin words meaning “over I”). Freud held that the superego develops while the person resolves a particular conflict during development (discussed later in the chapter). Embodies parental and societal values.
Made up of the conscience and ego-ideal
introjection
The process of “taking in,” or incorporating, the values of the parents (and wider society) is called
three interrelated goals of the superego
First, it tries to prevent (not just postpone) any id (it) impulse that would be frowned on by one’s parents.
Second, it tries to force the ego (I) to act morally, rather than rationally.
Third, it tries to guide the person toward perfection in thought, word, and deed. The superego exerts a “civilizing” influence on the person, but its perfectionism is quite removed from reality.
Ego strength
The ego’s ability to be effective despite conflicting (Barron, 1953). With little ego strength, the person is torn among competing pressures. With more ego strength, the person can manage the pressures.
Drive
A drive has two related elements: a biological need and its psychological representation. For example, a lack of sufficient water in the body’s cells is a need that creates a psychological state of thirst, a desire for water. These elements combine to form a drive to drink water.
“hydraulic” model of drives
If a drive isn’t expressed, its pressure continues to build.
Eros
a set of drives that deal with survival, reproduction, and pleasure.
2 classes of drives
life or sexual instincts (eros)
death instincts (also termed Thanatos).
Collectively, the energy of these life instincts is known
libido
The term catharsis is used to refer to
the release of emotional tension in a moment were build-up is relieved.
reality anxiety
arises from a danger in the world.
neurotic anxiety
Is an unconscious fear that your id impulses will get out of control and make you do something that will get you punished.
moral anxiety
This is the fear people have when they have violated (or are about to violate) their moral code. If your moral sense forbids cheating and you’re tempted to cheat, you feel moral anxiety.
When anxiety arises, the ego responds in two ways.
First, it increases problem-oriented coping efforts. It tries to deal (consciously) with the source of the threat.
Second, the ego engages defense mechanisms: tactics it develops to help avoid the other kinds of anxiety.
Defense mechanisms share two characteristics:
First, they all can operate unconsciously.
Second, they all distort or transform reality in one way or another
Denial
A refusal to believe that some real condition exists.
Denial prevents us from becoming aware of unpleasant things in our lives.
Difference between repression and denial
Repression deals with threats that originate within the dynamics of the mind. Denial deals with threats from other sources.
projection
When you reduce anxiety by linking your own unacceptable qualities to someone else. You project traits, impulses, desires, or even goals onto another person
rationalization
In rationalization, you reduce anxiety by finding a rational explanation (or excuse) for some behavior you really did for unacceptable reasons.
For example, a man who cheats on his income tax may rationalize his behavior as reducing the amount of money spent on weapons in the world.
Displacement
shifting an impulse from one target to another. This often happens when the intended target is threatening. Displacement is a defense in such cases because substituting a less threatening target reduces anxiety.
Sublimation
lets impulses be expressed, by transforming them to an acceptable form. For example, sexual impulses may be expressed as artistic creation.
Fixation can occur for two reasons:
A person who’s overindulged in a stage may be reluctant to leave it and move on, and
a person whose needs are deeply frustrated in a stage can’t move on until the needs are met.
The oral stage of development begins…
from birth to roughly 18 months.
2 sub-stages of the oral stage
this part is called the oral incorporative phase, because they are more or less limited to taking things in (food and other experiences)
The second part of the oral stage starts with teething. It’s called the oral sadistic phase. Sexual pleasure now comes from biting and chewing (and even inflicting pain—thus sadistic)
The anal stage of development begins…
begins at about 18 months and continues into the third year.
The phallic stage of development begins…
begins during the third year and continues through the fifth year
At first, the awakening sexual desires are completely autoerotic; self-stimulation. Gradually, however, the libido shifts toward the opposite-sex parent, as boys develop an interest in their mothers and girls develop an interest in their fathers.
In traditional psychoanalytic theory, the boy’s fear is quite specific: He fears that his father will castrate him to eliminate the source of his lust. Freud termed this castration anxiety.
Latency period
from about age 6 to the early teens, is a time when sexual and aggressive drives are less active. The lessening of these urges results partly from the emergence of ego and superego. During this period, children turn their attention to other pursuits, often intellectual or social in nature.
genital stage
later adolescence and adulthood
If earlier stages have been negotiated well, the person enters this stage with libido still organized around the genitals, and it remains focused there throughout life
Sex now revolves around mutual gratification (not just narcissistic)
Not necessarily fully achieved
Psychopathology of everyday life
when we forget things, get our words jumbled and have accidents
parapraxes
memory lapses, slips of speech, and accidents that provide insights into a person’s true desires
Manifest content
is the images—what most of us think of as “the dream.”
latent content
the unconscious thoughts, feelings, and wishes behind the manifest content. Latent content tells why a dream takes the form it does.
Sourced in sensory stimulation, current concerns and unconscious impulses
Projective techniques
Ways of assessing unconscious processes (e.g. Thematic Apperception Test, Rorschach inkblot test)
Source of problems according to psychoanalysis
Childhood experiences (fixation, robbing later cognition)
Repression of basic needs and urges (overly punitive superego or a harsh environment causes too many urges to be buried, and the person’s basic nature will be distorted)
Buried trauma
Seduction theory
Abandonded theory that Freud’s patients had mostly been seduced (abused) by their parents
free association
the person was simply to say aloud whatever came to mind
Resistance
When people in therapy sometimes actively fight against becoming aware of repressed conflicts and impulses
transference
Transference is a set of displacements. Specifically, feelings toward other people in the patient’s life are displaced (transferred) onto the therapist.
The goal of psychoanalytic psychology is
This term doesn’t mean an intellectual understanding. Instead, it implies the re-experiencing of the emotional reality of repressed conflicts, memories, or urges, previously unconscious parts of one’s personality
Solutions to the three problems:
Fixation - Relive prior conflict to work through
Repressed trauma - Relive experience for catharsis of feelings
Repressed basic needs - Gain emotional insight into the needs and their acceptability
Topographical model
Conscious, preconscious and unconscious
Structural model
id, ego, superego