Psychology Lecture Notes: The Psychoanalytic Approach

Flashcards covering key vocabulary from the lecture on the Psychoanalytic Approach, including Freud's theories, psychosexual stages, personality structure, defense mechanisms, and Neo-Freudians.

Psychoanalytic Approach

A psychological perspective associated with Sigmund Freud, proposing that unconscious motivations and childhood experiences influence personality.

Wilhelm Wundt

A historical figure in psychology, noted for establishing the first psychology laboratory in December 1879.

G. Stanley Hall

A historical figure in psychology mentioned in the context of the field's early history.

Psychological Perspectives

Various approaches to understanding mind and behavior, including psychoanalytic, behavioral, humanistic, cognitive, neuroscience/biopsychology, evolutionary, behavior genetics, socio-cultural, and bio-psycho-social perspectives.

Personality

An individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.

Purpose of Personality Psychology

To understand individual differences and develop integrative understandings of humans.

Sigmund Freud

1856-1939, considered 'The Father of Psychoanalysis,' whose theory proposed that childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence personality.

Psychic Determinism

The psychoanalytic idea that everything that happens in a person’s mind has a specific cause that can be identified, with no accidents, no miracles, and no free will.

Unconscious (Freud)

According to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories.

Internal Structure (Mind)

The mind is divided into three parts: Id, Ego, and Superego.

Id

The irrational or emotional part of the mind, containing a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy, striving to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives, operating on the pleasure principle.

Ego

The rational part of the mind, largely conscious, mediating among the demands of the id, superego, and reality, operating on the reality principle.

Superego

The moral part of the mind that presents internalized ideals, providing standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations.

Psychic Energy (Libido)

The finite amount of mental energy available to the mind, with the goal of psychoanalysis being to free up more for daily living.

Psychic Conflict

The idea that the mind can be at conflict with itself, specifically between the Id, Ego, and Superego.

Libido

Freud's term for the life or 'sexual drive,' associated with creation, protection, enjoyment of life, creativity, productivity, and growth.

Thanatos

Freud's term for the 'death drive,' associated with aggression, destructive activities, and entropy.

Psychosexual Stages

The childhood stages of development during which the id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones.

Oral Stage (0-18 months)

A psychosexual stage where pleasure centers on the mouth—sucking, biting, chewing. Psychological theme is dependency, leading to adult types who refuse help or are extremely passive.

Anal Stage (18-36 months)

A psychosexual stage where pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination; coping with demands for control. Psychological theme is self-control, leading to adult types who are overly organized ('anal-retentive') or chaotic.

Phallic Stage (3-6 years)

A psychosexual stage where the pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with incestuous sexual feelings. Psychological theme is what it means to be a boy or a girl. Leads to development of morality.

Identification

The process by which children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos during the phallic stage.

Oedipus Complex

A boy’s sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father. This concept has not held up well in empirical research.

Latency Stage (6 to puberty)

A psychosexual stage characterized by dormant sexual feelings.

Genital Stage (puberty on)

A psychosexual stage characterized by the maturation of sexual interests and focuses on the genitals. The psychological theme is the creation and enhancement of life, ideally leading to balance in love and work.

Defense Mechanisms

The ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.

Repression

The basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness.

Regression

A defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated.

Reaction Formation

A defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites; people may express feelings that are the opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings.

Projection

A defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others.

Rationalization

A defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one’s actions.

Displacement

A defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person, such as redirecting anger toward a safer outlet.

Sublimation

A form of Displacement in which sexual urges are re-channeled into productive, non-sexual activities.

Denial

The failure to recognize or acknowledge the existence of anxiety-provoking information.

Intellectualization

Ignoring the emotional aspects of a painful experience by focusing on abstract thoughts, words, or ideas.

Free Association

A talk therapy technique allowing the patient to talk about whatever comes to mind; the psychoanalyst then analyzes the transitions.

Projective Test

A personality test, such as the Rorschach or TAT, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one’s inner dynamics.

Rorschach Inkblot Test

The most widely used projective test, consisting of a set of 10 inkblots designed by Hermann Rorschach, seeking to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots.

Neo-Freudians

Later theorists who built upon Freud's ideas but emphasized different aspects, such as Alfred Adler, Karen Horney, and Carl Jung.

Alfred Adler

A Neo-Freudian who emphasized the importance of childhood social tension.

Karen Horney

A Neo-Freudian who sought to balance Freud’s masculine biases.

Carl Jung

A Neo-Freudian who emphasized the collective unconscious.

Collective Unconscious

Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species’ history.