Neo-Freudians and Scientific Basis of Psychoanalytic Theory

Week 4. Chapter 4.

What is Psychological Assessment?

• Tests that should shed light on the nature of a person’s personality, including the causes of psychological distress

• Must include Validity and Parsimony

• Free Association is an example

What does VALIDITY mean?

The accuracy of an assessment, or the relevance of the assessment.

What does PARSIMONY mean?

Explanations of brain processes and human behaviours that are simple and efficient.

What does Freud say we should use to investigate people’s personalities?

Free Association.

How does Free Association work?

• Client would lay on a couch and vocalize their thoughts with no censorship

• This creates an atmosphere of acceptance and non-judgemental curiosity

What is the Goal of Free Association?

A journey of co-discovery which can enhance the patient’s integration of thought, feeling, agency, and selfhood. Brings the repressed into the conscious.

What questions are asked regarding the VALIDITY of Free Association?

• Does it really reveal something specific about the person?

• Reveals the unconscious?

• Can this be used to come to some decisions about a person's personality?

• Would two different therapists come to the same conclusion?

What is the PARSIMONY of Free Association?

Simple, but time-consuming; therefore Projective Tests are better.

What are Projective Tests?

• When a client is asked to respond to an ambiguous object; leading to an interpretation that is said to reveal aspects of their personalities, their thinking style, or their underlying/unconscious psychodynamics

• This is a style of projection; the patient will project their personality into the ambiguous object

• Rorschach Inkblot Test and Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

What do Projective Tests emphasize that make it relative to the Psychodynamic theory?

• Complex Organization of personality function

  • Narrative; there is no ‘yes or no’ which opens up possibilities for looking at things

• Our Unconscious and defence mechanisms

• A Holistic understanding of personality

  • Overall interpretation of why we do things

What is the Rorschach Inkblot Test?

• Coined by Hermann Rorschach; 10 images total

• The use of ink blots on folded paper to make patterns of ambiguous shapes

• This test allowed patients to focus on any part of the shape and interpret what they see, while also explaining their reasoning

What is the Analysis of the Inkblot Test?

• Look at the structure of the interpretation → helps us understand disorders

• Look at the content of the interpretation → helps us understand the nature of the interpretation (symbolism)

• Look at the process of the interpretations → how the client performs the task

  • Avoidance

  • Attitude

  • Over-dependence on the therapist/instructor

What is the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)?

• A scene that is provided to a patient where they can project their personalities into the scene

• The stories that people describe are relatable to themselves, but clients are unaware of this; reveals unconscious thoughts

• The response is generally important; common themes across responses indicate unconscious thoughts

Are Projective Tests said to actually work?

They have some Validity, and are not very Reliable.

Conclusions on Projective Tests.

• Stimulus in Projective tests have little to do with everyday life

  • This is because they are too abstract

  • People might respond to tests in a ‘memory-recall’ fashion

• There are some positive outcomes when themes that are relevant to the construct of the test

• Projective Tests were not used by Freud

What are the Psychodynamic Personality Types?

• Oral

  • being obsessed with oneself (narcissistic personality disorder)

  • seek gratification from eating, smoking, drinking

• Anal

  • withholding or excreting (develop power, toilet training)

  • Retentive → neat, orderly, retaining/hoarding

  • Expulsive → exhibiting cruelty, poor emotional regulation, disorganization, rebelliousness, general carelessness

• Phallic

  • Males → father (toxic masculinity)

  • Females → mother (manipulative)

What do Fixations in Psychodynamic stages have to do with personality?

If a child receives little gratification in a stage, they will not be able to move past that stage. This might stop personality development, and as they grow and develop stress, they will regress to an early stage of fixation.

Is it possible to achieve Psychological Change?

• Therapy is one Process that is possible

• Through insight into the Unconscious to make it conscious and address it

  • Dream analysis and Free Association

  • Transference

How does Free Association and Dream analysis help with Psychological Change?

Freud thought that bringing thoughts into the conscious from the unconscious was vital to effecting change; Freud then said that people need to be able to look emotionally at their memories and insights to achieve change.

What is Transference?

Development of attitudes toward an individual that are based on attitudes held earlier in life toward significant others. It can occur in everyday lives.

What is Therapeutic Transference?

This is essentially transferring the feelings that a patient had towards someone in their lives, towards the analyst (therapist) and allowing the patient to project their unconscious thoughts onto them

What is Transference Neurosis?

The acting out of conflicts in the past, but with the psychoanalyst, in a safe and supportive environment.

How does change occur during a Transference Thereapy session?

• Environment → the conflict is less intense than it used to be (the environment is safer)

• Context → the psychoanalyst assumes a different attitude as the conflict person of the past, leading to different outcomes and attitudes

• Functioning → the patient is older, meaning they have matured and more mature ways of thinking

What are some Related Neo-Freudian Theories?

• Compensatory Theory

• Jungian Theory

• Object Relations

• Self Psychology

• Attachment Theory

What is Compensatory Theory?

• Coined by Alfred Adler

• This theory compensates for feeling insecure and feelings of unmotivation

• When feelings of insecurity and inferiority appear, self-improvement is the first thing that comes to mind in socially acceptable ways

What did Adler say about his Theory?

• There is importance on early childhood stages

  • children are inferior in the development of abilities compared to everyone else, meaning they strive to develop

    • Firstborns are stronger and better

What is Jungian Theory?

• Human Psyche was made of 3 parts

  • EGO → the Self; conscious mind

  • PERSONAL UNCONSCIOUS → memories, including the suppressed ones

  • COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS →not personal, but Universal concepts that are results of our ancestry

    • there are archetypes (4); we know these intuitively

What are the 4 Major Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious?

• They symbolize human motivations, values, and personalities

  • PERSONA

  • SHADOW

  • ANIMA (M) /ANIMUS (F)

  • SELF

Persona VS. Self

We need to find a balance between the 2 archetypes. They are exact opposites of one another and we need both for survival, but the Persona cannot take over or we will lose ourselves.

What is the PERSONA?

• A “mask“ that we put on so the world can see what parts of our personalities we want to be shown

• We choose how we want the world to see us

What is the SHADOW?

• Contains suppressed ideas/instincts; it exists in the unconscious

• It forms from the attempts we make to adapt cultural norms and expectations

• We hide what we don’t want people to know about ourselves and what we don’t want to accept about ourselves

  • Our weaknesses are hidden, along with the other parts of us we don’t want people to see

  • This means people deny what is hidden and project it onto other people

• we must come to accept and make it part of our identity

What is the ANIMA (M) / ANIMUS (F)?

• Found in both the COLLECTIVE and PERSONAL unconscious

  • COLLECTIVE → how they should behave

  • PERSONAL → experiences with people that create personal images of them

  • Syzygy is the union of opposites → completion/wholeness

What is the SELF?

• The center of all our psychological systems; the EGO

• Both the unconscious and conscious are unified

• Creation of the self occurs through individualization which leads to a cohesive Self

What is very important in the individualization process?

Conscious Awareness of the conflicts between the unconscious and conscious is important.

What is Object Relations Theory?

What is Self Psychology Theory?

What is Attachment Style Theory?