Freud's Psychoanalytic theory

What age did Freud think an individual’s personality is largely fixed?

5-6

Why did Freud not think people have free will?

He believed that behavior is determined by innate drives that have to do with sex and aggression or life and death

What did Freud believe that humans are driven by?

life (sexual) instincts and death (aggression instincts)

instincts

the driving forces in personality, govern behavior, and motivate to seek gratification and homeostasis

life instinct

instinctive urges to preserve life, includes basic needs. Primarily our sexual drives or instincts

libido

originally sexual instincts, later revised to psychic and pleasurable gratification of life instincts

death instincts

instincts to return to a state of balance, free of painful struggles before death; as a result, comes aggression

What did Freud say about death instincts?

people have the unconscious desire to die, but this is leveled by the life instincts; resembles self-destructive behavior

What was the core of Freud’s work?

nothing is accidental

unconscious (Freud)

the depository of hidden wishes, needs, and conflicts of which the person is unaware and filled with sexual and aggressive impulses, and unresolved issues

3 parts of the mental consciousness

1. conscious

2. preconscious

3. unonscious

conscious

the ideas and sensations which we are aware

preconscious

contains the experiences that are unconscious but that could be conscious easily

unconscious

contains the experiences and memories of which we are not aware

3 systems of the mind

1. id

2. ego

3. superego

id

pleasure principle; original aspect of personality, rooted biologically, consisting of unconscious; immediate gratification

ego

the executive functioning of personality; aims to balance the needs of the id and the extremes of the superego in appropriate and realistic ways

superego

strives for perfectionism; internalization of societal values instilled primarily by parents to teach right and wrong responses in given situation; where our consciousness comes from

What does an overly active superego cause?

an individual who suffers from strong feelings of guilt and inferiority

3 kinds anxieties that strong superego results in

realistic, neurotic, and moral

realistic anxiety

fear of danger from the external world, and the degree of anxiety must be in keeping to the degree of harm

neurotic anxiety

takes place when individuals fear that their instincts or the desires of their id will get out of control and cause them to do something that they will regret

moral anxiety

takes place when one does something against one’s own conscience or when one fears excessively criticism and demands from one’s parents or society

Freud’s Psychosexual 5 phases of development

1. oral

2. anal

3. phallic

4. latency

5. genital

fixation

defensive attachment to an earlier stage as a result of a traumatic experience in a particular stage; he considered fixation to be a defense again anxiety

Fixation during oral phase

• cause: deprivation or overindulgence

• effect: development of an oral personality

  • pessimism or optimism

  • suspiciousness or gullibility

  • self-belittlement or cockiness

  • passivity or manipulativeness

Fixation in anal phase

• cause: over controlling parent who forces toilet training too quickly or too harshly

• effect: an adult who exhibits an anal personality:

  • dominated by tendency to hold onto or to retain

  • stingy

  • constricted feelings

  • stubborn

fixation at the phallic phase

• effect: recklessness, narcissistic, excessively vain and proud

• afraid or incapable of close love

Phallic stage is where children will experience what complexes?

oedipus and electra

oedipus complex

in phallic stage, boys develop a sexual longing for their mother and sees their father as his rival; results in development of superego

electra complex

in phallic stage, girls develop a sexual longing for their father and sees their mother as her rival; developed by Jung

What did Freud say about the Electra Complex

that girls experience penis envy

penis envy

girls represses the hostile female competition and anger for castration, for fear of losing the love of her mother

Conflicts and fixations lead to what?

maladaptive behavior

defense mechanisms

protect people against pain and are universal reactions, all meant to keep anxiety at bay (maladaptive)

repression

unconsciously banish painful memories from consciousness

suppression

active and conscious attempt to stop anxiety-provoking thought by simply not thinking about them (stores in the preconscious)

denial

refusal to perceive an unpleasant event in reality

displacement

unconsciously redirect anger on substitute objects or people

sublimation

form of displacement, though done by displacing anger on ones or in ways that are socially acceptable

regression

movement from mature behavior to immature behavior

projection

attributing our own undesirable characteristics on to others

reaction formation

convert undesirable characteristics to their opposites

rationalization

justification of behavior through the use of plausible, but inaccurate, excuses

intellectualization

dissociation between thoughts and feelings with elaborate rationale to explain unbearable pain

undoing

performing an act to nullify or make amends for an undesirable one

Freud’s 11 defense mechanisms

1. repression

2. suppression

3. denial

4. sublimation

5. reaction formation

6. intellectualization

7. undoing

8. rationalization

9. displacement

10. projection

11. regression

Freud’s 4 major assessment techniques

1. free association

2. dream analysis

3. resistance

4. transference

transference

chhracterized by ambivalence, attitudes of both affection and hostility, toward “parents” and are displaced onto the therapist

free association

therapeutic technique central to psychoanalysis in which the therapist encourages patients to report, without restriction, any thoughts that occur to them no matter how irrelevant, unimportant, or unpleasant

dreams

the royal road to the unconscius

dream analysis

psychoanalytic technique used to probe the unconscious through interpretation of the patient’s dreams

process of dream analysis

analyze and interpret the symbols present in the manifest content in an attempt to discover the latent content or hidden meanings; believed symbols had universal meanings

resistance

in psychoanalysis, when unwilling to disclose painful memories

positive transference

special affection toward the therapist, usually develops first (praise, trust, falling in love)

counter transference

therapist’s reaction with personal feelings toward the patient

negative transference

showing anger and hostility toward the therapist