Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalytic Theory

Vocabulary flashcards covering Sigmund Freud's biography, early studies on hysteria, models of the mind, psychosexual development, defense mechanisms, and psychoanalytic therapy.

Sigmund Freud

Founder of psychoanalysis born in 1856 (nicknamed "Golden Siggie") who studied fetal brain anatomy, eel testes, hysteria, and developed major theoretical models of the unconscious mind before dying in 1939.

Glove Anesthesia

A hysterical physical symptom studied by Freud and Jean-Martin Charcot where numbness occurs in the hand in a pattern inconsistent with biological nerve pathways, demonstrating that ideas can create physical symptoms.

Jean-Martin Charcot

French neurologist in Paris with whom Freud studied in 1886–1887 to examine the link between hysteria and hypnotism, observing that hysterical symptoms could be created and removed under hypnosis.

Hippolyte Bernheim

French researcher studied by Freud in 1889 who demonstrated post-hypnotic suggestion, showing that ideas outside conscious awareness can direct behavior until brought into awareness.

Josef Breuer

Viennese physician who collaborated with Freud on Studies in Hysteria (1895) and treated Anna O., highlighting how hysterics suffer from repressed pathogenic memories.

Free Association

A psychoanalytic technique created to uncover repressed pathogenic memories by having patients verbalize unedited thoughts, revealing mental resistance and conflicting agendas of the mind.

Seduction Theory of Hysteria

Freud's early premise that hysteria stemmed from actual childhood sexual abuse by fathers, which he abandoned upon concluding these memories were disguised patient desires and fantasies.

The Psychopathology of Everyday Life

Freud's 1901 work detailing how everyday slips, errors, and erroneously carried out actions (such as forgetting foreign words like "aliquis") express unconscious thoughts.

Manifest Content

The conscious, remembered narrative and surface imagery of a dream after it has been filtered by the dream censor.

Latent Content

The underlying, repressed unconscious wish or motive that triggers a dream.

Topographical Model

Freud's 1900 model of the mind divided into three distinct levels: perceptual consciousness, the preconscious, and the unconscious.

Instinct (Freud)

The mental representation of an ongoing source of bodily excitation, formulated as a combination of a biological need (bodily excitation) and a psychological wish (mental representation).

Four Aspects of an Instinct

The essential attributes of any instinct: source (bodily excitation), impetus (force amount), aim (tension reduction/pleasure seeking), and object (thing through which the aim is satisfied).

Cathexis

The investment of psychic energy in an object or mental representation that fulfills an instinct derivative.

Eros and Thanatos

Freud's dual classification of instincts comprising Eros (life/erotic instincts fueled by libido) and Thanatos (the death instinct introduced post-WWI).

Structural Model

Freud's 1923 framework proposing that human personality consists of three dynamic structures: the id, ego, and superego.

Id

The primitive pool of instinctual energy present at birth that operates on the pleasure principle using primary process cognition.

Primary Process

The nonrational, impulse-driven cognitive style of the id that seeks immediate satisfaction through direct motor discharge or fantasy.

Ego

The personality structure that develops to navigate external reality, operating on the reality principle using secondary process cognition.

Secondary Process

The logical, realistic cognitive style of the ego that mediates between instincts, external reality, and moral expectations.

Superego

The moral branch of personality consisting of two components: the conscience (which punishes wrong actions) and the ego-ideal (which rewards moral actions).

Psychosexual Stages

Freud's developmental model where libido shifts across erogenous zones in sequence: Oral (approx. 0–1.5 yrs), Anal (approx. 1.5–3 yrs), Phallic (approx. 3–6 yrs), Latency (approx. 6 yrs to puberty), and Genital (adolescence onward).

Anal Triad

Three personality traits associated with anal retentive fixation resulting from toilet training conflicts: orderliness, frugality, and stubbornness.

Oedipus Complex

A key phallic stage event involving romantic attraction to the opposite-sex parent and rival hatred toward the same-sex parent, resolved by decathectic detachment, identification, and superego development.

Castration Anxiety

The fear in boys during the phallic stage that their father will punish their forbidden desire for the mother by removing their penis, compelling Oedipal resolution.

Penis Envy

The feeling of resentment experienced by girls during the phallic stage upon concluding they lack a penis, directed initially toward their mother.

Silverman et al. (1978) Experiment

A study on subliminal activation of Oedipal conflict where tachistoscopic presentation of "Beating Dad is OK" increased male students' dart-throwing performance, while "Beating Dad is wrong" decreased performance.

Objective, Neurotic, and Moral Anxiety

Three forms of signal anxiety: objective (real external threat), neurotic (fear of id impulses overpowering ego), and moral (guilt/shame generated by superego conscience).

Repression

The primary defense mechanism that actively prevents painful or unacceptable thoughts (e.g., hate, lust) from reaching consciousness using countercathexes.

Sublimation

A defense mechanism in which unacceptable unconscious drives are transformed into socially productive or acceptable activities, such as channeling violent urges into surgical practice.

Projection

A defense mechanism where an unacceptable unconscious impulse (such as "[I hate her]") is attributed to another person, yielding the conscious belief "She hates me".

Reaction Formation

A defense mechanism in which an unacceptable unconscious feeling ("[I hate her]") is transformed into its direct polar opposite in conscious thought ("I love her").

Rorschach Inkblot Test

A projective assessment technique where individuals interpret ambiguous inkblots to uncover unconscious drives and personality dynamics.

Freud's Definition of Mental Health

The capacity "to love and to work" (lieben und arbeiten), achieved when emotional and intellectual insight leads to the outcome: "Where id was, there shall ego be."