Psychoanalytic Perspective

Personality Psychology

The scientific study of the __whole person__

* Defined as an individual’s unique, relatively consistent pattern of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

Sigmund Freud

The father of psychoanalysis

* One of the most influential and controversial minds of the 20th century

Psychoanalytic Theories

Sigmund Freud developed theory of personality development, human behavior and experience are determined by forces out of our control that we are not aware of

* The iceberg 

Unconscious

A reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, and memories

• Our biological drives, instincts, and urges

• Some of these we temporarily store in a precocious area to conscious awareness

ID

Part of the human personality that is made up of all our inborn biological urges that seeks out immediate gratification

• Exists at birth and contains our instincts and energy

• Operates on the pleasure principle

Pleasure principle

The need to act for instant gratification

Ego

The largely conscious, “executive” part of the personality that mediates between the id, superego, and reality

• Operates on the reality principle

• Contains our partially conscious thoughts

Reality principle

The need to satisfy the id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain

Super-ego

The part of the personality that represents internalized ideals and is our conscience + standards for future aspirations

• Operates on the morality principle

• Appears around age 4-5

Morality principle

Our need to comply with parental and other authority figures

Psychosexual Stages

The childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) where the Id’s pleasure seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones

• Freud believed that personality formed in the first few years of life

• Sexuality meant anything that brought pleasire

Oedipus Complex

Freud -- A boy’s sexual desire towards his mother and feelings of jealously and hatred for the rival father

• Comes from the phallic stage

• Children will eventually cope w/ these feelings by repressing them and becoming like the rival father (identification)

Identification

Freud -- The process children incorporate their same sex parents’ values into their developing superegos

* The baseline for what we know as __gender identity__ now

Fixation

Freud -- A lingering focus on pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, where conflicts were unresolved

• Makes the energy occur to adulthood

• Can also result from trauma

Psychoanalysis

Freud’s techniques in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions

Free Association

In psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which where the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind

Freudian Slip

When we say the wrong association out loud, and to Freud, it’s the truth resurfacing

Interpretation of Dreams

Freud analyzed dreams, and viewed dreams as significant hidden material

• The manifest content is what we remember in a dream

• Latent content is what we don’t remember in a dream, and what Freud was interested in

Defense Mechanisms

Freud -- Proposed that the ego protects itself w/ tactics to reduce or redirect anxiety by distorting reality

* Thought to safeguard the mind against feelings and thoughts to difficult to cope with

Repression

Acts to keep information out of conscious awareness

* Thought these memories, feeling, or desires come out through dreams and Freudian slips

Displacement

Involves taking out our frustration, feelings, and impulses on other people and objects that are less threatening

* Involves letting out our feelings and moving it to another entity

Projection

Involves taking our own unacceptable qualities or feelings and ascribing the to other people

* Allowing the expression of the desire/impulse, but in the way the ego does not recognize, therefore reducing anxiety

Regression

When confronted by stressful events, people sometimes abandon coping strategies and revert to patterns from childhood / earlier years

* Act out the behaviors of the stage they’re fixated in

Denial

Functions to protect the ego from things with which the individual cannot cope

* Outright refusal to admit or recognize something

Rationalization

Involves explaining / justifying an unacceptable behavior or feeling in a rational manner, avoiding the true reasons for the behavior

* Protects anxiety, self-esteem, and self-concept

Reaction-Formation

Reduces anxiety by taking up the opposite feeling, impulse, or behavior

* Hiding true feelings by overcompensating in the opposite direction