Understanding Stress and Psychosexual Development

Stress

Psychological or emotional strain caused by external or internal factors.

Stressors

Specific events or conditions that cause stress.

Approach-Approach Conflict

A conflict arising from having to choose between two desirable options.

Approach-Avoidance Conflict

A conflict arising from having to decide whether to pursue a single goal with both positive and negative aspects.

Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict

A conflict arising from having to choose between two undesirable options.

General Adaptation Syndrome

The body's response to stress, consisting of alarm, resistance, and exhaustion stages.

Richard Lazarus's appraisal theory

Theory proposing that the experience of stress depends on the individual's perception and evaluation of a situation.

Awfulization and Globalization

Cognitive distortions involving the exaggeration of negative aspects and the application of those aspects to unrelated situations.

Unconscious

Part of the mind containing thoughts, memories, and desires that are not consciously recognized.

Ego

The part of the psyche that mediates between the conscious mind and the unconscious, responsible for reality testing and decision making.

Id

The primitive and instinctual part of the mind, housing the basic drives and desires.

Super Ego

The part of the mind that acts as a moral conscience, striving for perfection and suppressing the desires of the id.

Defense Mechanisms

Psychological strategies used to cope with anxiety and protect the ego.

Psychosexual Development

Freud's theory of the stages of personality development, focusing on the role of erogenous zones.

Fixated

Stuck or arrested at a particular stage of psychosexual development, leading to psychological issues.

Oral Stage

The first stage of psychosexual development, centered on pleasure from oral activities.

Anal Stage

The second stage of psychosexual development, focused on pleasure from bowel and bladder elimination.

Phallic Stage

The third stage of psychosexual development, characterized by the Oedipus and Electra complexes.

Oedipus Complex-Castration Anxiety

In psychoanalysis, a boy's desire for his mother and his fear of castration by his father.

Electra Complex-Penis Envy

In psychoanalysis, a girl's desire for her father and resentment towards her mother due to lack of a penis.

Genital Stage

The final stage of psychosexual development, marked by mature sexual interests.

Latency Stage

The stage of psychosexual development during which sexual desires are repressed.

Neo-Freudians

Psychologists who were influenced by Freud's theories but developed their own ideas.

Collective Unconscious

In Jungian psychology, the part of the unconscious that contains memories and symbols inherited from ancestral experience.

Archetypes

Universal symbols and themes that appear in the myths, stories, and dreams of people across cultures.

Compensation

In Adlerian psychology, the process of counteracting feelings of inferiority by emphasizing strengths or seeking superiority in other areas.

Inferiority Complex

A persistent feeling of inadequacy stemming from actual or perceived inferiority in one or more areas of life.

Anxiety

A feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, often about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.

Neurotic Trends

Patterns of behavior and thinking that are driven by fears, anxieties, and defenses against them, often leading to maladaptive coping mechanisms.

Carl Jung

neo-Freudian who created concept of "collective unconscious" and wrote books on dream interpretation

Alfred Adler

Neo-Freudian; introduced concept of "inferiority complex" and stressed the importance of birth order

Karen Horney

Neo-Freudian; offered feminist critique of Freud's theory