Works of Freud & Jung Flashcards
What is the psyche?
- The totality of the human mind, conscious, and unconscious
- Has fixed amount of energy that can be depleted throughout the day
Sigmund Freud
- Austrian neurologist and professor, later a psychotherapist
- Used hypnosis for symptom relief
- Father of psychoanalysis
- Focused on unconscious processes, libido, and anxiety/defence mechanisms
Carl Jung
- Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist; worked with Freud in the early 1900s
- Founded analytical psychology
- Focused on collective unconscious, archetypes, etc.
Early Problems and Questions (what did Freud and Jung want to know?)
- What aspects of the psyche determine human behaviour?
- How are the mind and psyche organized?
- How does the psyche manage threats and anxiety?
- What are the main factors in personality development?
Question 1: What aspects of the psyche determine human behaviour
- Freud: psychic determinism and basic instincts
- Jung: free will
psychic determinism
- Freud
- Nothing happens by chance (human behaviour isn’t completely random)
- Freud argued that nothing happens by accident – there is a reason behind every act, thought, and feeling -> everything we do, say, think, feel is an expression of our mind (either conscious or unconscious)
- Reasons can be discovered by examining the contents of the unconscious mind (clinical intervention of psychoanalysis helped with discovering the unconscious)
basic instincts
- Freud
- Instincts: strong innate forces or drives that provide all of the energy in the psychic system; primary motives of human behaviour
- Libido: life/survival instinct/drive
- Thanatos: death instinct/drive (more destructive – ex. Self-sabotaging behaviour)
- Today, we know these instincts as love/sex (libido) and aggression (thanatos)
- Suggested these instricts could intertwine – ex. Eating (self-fulfilling but also destructive)
free will
- Jung
- Argued that free will and goal directedness largely explain human behaviour, not unconscious processes
- De-emphasized the role of the unconscious mind and negative drives
- Referred to psychic “energy” more generally (vs. Instincts)
Question 2: how are the mind and psyche organized?
- Freud: organization of the mind
- Freud: structure of personality
- Jung: organization of the mind
Organization of the mind according to Freud
- Conscious: contains thoughts, feelings, and images you are presently thinking about (ie. these flashcards)
- Preconscious: contains information you are not presently thinking about, but that can be easily retrieved (ie. the name of your childhood best friend)
- Unconscious: part of the mind holding instincts, urges, and thoughts/memories of which the person is unaware (ie. unacceptable sexual urges)
structure of personality
- Freud
- personality is comprised of the Id, Ego, and Superego
Iceberg Metaphor for structure of personality
- Most of the mind (and all of the id) is in the unconscious mind (“underneath the water”)
- Unconscious part of the mind is “motivated” -> instincts are driving us to do certain things
- Ego and superego found both in the conscious and unconscious mind (“above and below the water”)
organization of the mind according to Jung
- Ego: the conscious part of the mind (note that on tests, “ego” refers to Freud’s conception of it)
- Personal unconscious: includes anything that is not currently conscious, but is capable of becoming conscious under certain conditions; similar to Freud’s concept of the unconscious
- Includes repressed memories, forgotten experiences, etc.
- Collective unconscious
2 interpretations of the collective unconscious (within Jung’s organization of the mind
- Minimal interpretation: certain structures and predispositions of the unconscious are common to us all; inherited and species-specific; genetic basis (analogous to the pattern of bones we all share)
- Maximal interpretation: the archetypes afford evidence of a communion with some kind of divine or “world” mind (ie. Linking something that extends beyond the individual psyche)
Question 3: how does the psyche manage threats and anxiety?
- Freud: anxiety
- Freud: defense mechanisms
- Jung: meaning and mysticism
- Jung: synchronicity
Anxiety according to Freud
- an unpleasant state that signals that things are not right and something must be done -> ego is being threatened
- 3 specific types of anxiety
- In all 3 types, the function of the ego is to cope with threats and reduce anxiety (tension reduction) -> defense mechanisms
3 types of anxiety according to Freud
- Objective anxiety: occurs in response to real, external threat to a person (ex. seeing a man with a chainsaw)
- Neurotic anxiety: occurs when there is a direct conflict between id and ego (ex. worrying you might blurt out an unacceptable thought in public)
- Moral anxiety: caused by conflict between ego and superego (ex. feeling like you haven’t lived up to the standards you’ve set for yourself)
Freud: what are defense mechanisms/what do they do?
- Ways for ego to cope with anxiety and protect itself
- Can operate unconsciously
- Distort, transform, or falsify reality in some way
Freud: types of defense mechanisms
- rationalization
- intellectualization
- denial
- repression
- displacement
- projection
- reaction formation
- regression
- sublimation
rationalization
- reasoning, making excuses (not intellectual)
- Ex. “I failed the exam because the bus was late and I was stressed out”
intellectualization
- offering fact-based explanations, using information
- Ex. “I always fight with my friends because I’m high in neuroticism”
denial
- information pushed out of consciousness, but retrievable
- ex. refusing to believe you have a terminal illness or accept critical feedback (perhaps due to FAE)
repression
- memories/information pushed into the unconscious
- ex. having no memory of childhood trauma you endured
displacement
- threatening impulse/desire redirected to other target
- ex. Being frustrated because of your boss, then turning that frustration towards a friend
projection
- projecting own negative qualities onto others (distracts/takes your mind off what’s really going on within you)
- ex. a man who has desire to cheat on his wife begins to be suspicious that his wife is cheating on him
reaction formation
- display of opposite behaviours; often exaggerated
- ex. being overly nice to your SO even though you’re really mad at them
regression
- returning to earlier and less demanding physical/mental state
- ex. having excessive crying fits when things don’t go your way
sublimation
- converting unacceptable desires and anxiety into acceptable behaviours (the only healthy mechanism, but only if the tension is actually reduced)
- ex. taking a kickboxing class instead of actually beating someone up
Jung: meaning and mysticism
- Anxiety propels us to make meaning of our world (ex. What is my purpose in life? Why am I here?)
- Meaning helps us manage anxiety; religion, spirituality, and symbolism are important sources of meaning
Jung: synchronicity
- The experience of 2 or more events as meaningfully related, where they are unlikely to be causally related
- An important source of meaning and a marker of personal growth (“individuation”, self-awareness)
- Ex. Picture of wife as a kid at Disneyland, with husband as a kid in the background
- Explanations:
- Confirmation bias: confirming beliefs/expectations
- Apophenia: detecting pattern in meaningless data
what are the main factors in personality development?
- Freud: psychosexual development
- Jung: individuation
Freud: psychosexual development
- People pass through a series of stages in development
- At each of the first 3 stages, young children must face and resolve specific conflicts; failure results in fixation at stage; method of gratification defines adult personality
- Each stage focuses on a method of sexual gratification (satisfying libido)
- 3 main stages (oral, anal, phallic) and 2 others (latency, genital)
Oral Stage
- Birth to 18 months
- Main source of pleasure and tension reduction are the mouth, lips, and tongue
- Key conflict is weaning from breast or bottle -> developing independence while still trusting parent
- Fixations:
- Neglectful parents -> “oral aggressive personality” (hostile, aggressive, sadistic)
- Over-protective -> “oral receptive personality” (needy, co-dependent, masochistic)
- Continuing to obtain pleasure from mouth (ex. from smoking, overeating)
Anal Stage
- 18 months to 3 years
- Child obtains pleasure from first expelling feces and then retaining feces during potty training
- Key conflict is child’s ability to achieve self-control
- Fixations:
- Strict parents -> “anal retentive personality” (stubborn, obsessive, overly tidy)
- Liberal parents -> “anal expulsive personality” (emotional, rebellious, messy)
Phallic Stage
- 3-5 years
- Child discovers he has (or she doesn’t have) a penis
- Sexual desire directed toward the parent of the opposite sex
- Produces Oedipal/Oedipus or Electra conflicts
- Fixation: Phallic personality -> self-assured, vain, impulsive with Oedipal or Electra complex
Oedipal/Electra complex
- unconscious wish to have opposite-sex parent all to self by eliminating the same-sex parent
- Oedipal: eliminating father through aggression/competition, but then castration anxiety motivates them to finally identify with father (“identification”)
- Electra: penis envy -> jealous of father’s penis; resenting mother for not giving them a penis; suggested women would never get over it and have inferior superego as a result (sexist theory)
Latency Stage
- 6 years to puberty
- Little psychological development occurs
- Focus of child is on learning skills/abilities necessary to succeed as an adult
Genital Stage
- Puberty through adult life
- Libido is focused on genitals, but not in a manner of self-manipulation associated with the phallic stage
- People reach this stage only if previous conflicts are resolved
- Genital personality: well-adjusted, mature, able to love/be loved
Jung: individuation
- Focused on personality development in second half of life (rather than during childhood)
- Individuation: the psychological process of integrating the conscious and unconscious while maintaining their autonomy; personal and collective unconscious assimilated into whole personality
- Necessary for complete physical/mental health; good moral grounding
- Formed the basis of analytical psychology
Trump Case Study: Big 5/HEXACO
- Extraversion: high (comfortable in front of people)
- Conscientiousness: moderate (fairly disorganized yet committed to his businesses)
- Openness: low (political ideologies restrict freedoms of others)
- Agreeableness: low (deceptive in business, not modest)
- Neuroticism: high (not emotionally stable, high reactivity – ie. Tweets)
- Honesty-humility: low (egocentric, not humble/modest, etc.)
Trump Case Study: Instincts
Driven more by thanatos (aggression), even when expressing feelings/thoughts related to libido (love/sex) - ie. Views surrounding women
Trump Case Study: Id, Ego, Superego
- Active/dominant id
- Less active superego
- Ego cannot maintain control of id
intrapsychic domain
- concerns features in the mind that influence behaviour, thoughts, and feelings
- assumptions: some areas of the mind are outside our awareness, and few things actually happen by chance
psychic energy
- Freud believed this motivated all human activity
- remains constant throughout lifetime
- instincts are source of this energy
blindsight
- blindness post-stroke where eyes can still bring sensory info to brain, but brain fails to process it -> can make judgments about objects they can’t see (ex. pointing to a red ball)
- evidence of the unconscious
deliberation-without-attention
- the ability of a person to come to a decision by putting it out of their conscious mind for sometime (ie. by “sleeping on it”) -> unconscious mind is still processing it during this time
- ex. car study -> when decision was more complex, people in “unconscious” condition made better choices
- evidence of the unconscious
Id
- most primitive part of the mind, source of all drives and urges
- seeks immediate gratification (“pleasure principle”)
- includes basic instincts (libido and thanatos)
- operates with “primary process thinking”: thinking without an anchor in reality
- related to “wish fulfillment” (temporarily keeping Id in check by conjuring up an image/fantasy of an Id urge)
Ego
- executive of personality
- constrains id to reality -> operates on “reality principle”
- understands that urges of id are often in conflict with social and physical reality (maintains balance between id and superego)
- operates with “secondary process thinking”: developing problem-solving strategies grounded in reality to obtain satisfaction (ie. teasing your sister instead of punching her in the face)
Superego
- internalizes ideals, values, and morals of society
- “conscience”; manifests as feelings of guilt if we do something wrong, and feelings of pride if we do something right
- develops largely due to relationship with parents
ego-depletion
- idea that the more energy is used for one self-control activity, the less energy there is remaining for others
- ex. having less self-control leftover to do a puzzle after having used a lot of it to resist fresh-baked cookies
- self-control is like a muscle: can be tired out, but can also be trained through practice
false concensus effect
- believing many others are similar to you and share your thoughts, motivations, and traits
- ex. thinking many people are introverted if you’re introverted
Psychoanalysis methods
- free association: letting your mind wander and saying what comes to mind
- dream analysis: distinguishing between manifest content and latent content; may include symbols
- projective techniques: ex. inkblot test
- all of these lead to “insight”: an intense emotional experience accompanying release of repressed material
- may be preceded by “resistence” (avoiding, insulting therapist, wasting time, etc.) or “transference” (ex. feeling/action towards the therapist as you do your mother)
Storytelling Method of Dream Interpretation
- way to facilitate independent dream analysis
- write down a dream and circle important words (manifest content), then engage in a word association activity with those important words (finding latent content), then create a story using those new words
- has shown increased insight into dreams vs. control groups -> “discovery”
2 pursuits Freud said were hallmarks of healthy adult development
gaining pleasure from LOVE and WORK
Do we all have similar superegos?
- Evidence for universal morals
- Studies show normal people and psychopaths can make similar moral judgments -> we all share awareness of what society expects (psychopaths just don’t care)
Trump Case Study: anxiety
- Shows objective anxiety (running for president)
- Shows moral anxiety (wants to be the best)
- Shows neurotic anxiety (due to id dominating personality)
Trump Case Study: defence mechanisms
- Denial: denying he said not paying taxes was smart
- Reaction formation: making exaggerated claims about his good temperament
- Rationalization: making excuses about his mic at the debate
- Displacement: attacking Alicia Machado when the real threat is Hillary
- Projection: spreading false info while accusing media of spreading “fake news”
- Intellectualization: using/manipulating facts to support his opinion/reduce anxiety
- Regression: reverting to bully-like behaviours
- Sublimation: going golfing to reduce anxiety
Trump Case Study: psychosexual development
Perhaps at the phallic stage (self-assured, impulsive, and potential Oedipus complex – conflict with father, underdeveloped superego)
Trump Case Study: hierarchy of defense mechanisms
Trump is mostly at Level 3 (neurotic/intermediate defences)
Additional Defence Mechanisms (don’t need to focus on these as much)
- Acting out: attacking someone, becoming physically aggressive, name-calling (ex. Trump bullying reporter)
- Intimidation: ex. Trump’s handshake as an intimidation tactic
- Narcissism: individual deals with anxiety by seeing themselves in exaggerated way and/or putting down others