Psychoanalysis Key Terms

Psychoanalysis

A critical approach that examines human behavior, motivation, and literature by focusing on the unconscious, childhood experiences, and unresolved psychological conflict.

Freud

The founder of psychoanalysis who argued that unconscious desires, fears, and early childhood experiences shape adult behavior and identity.

Conscious

Thoughts, feelings, and desires we are actively aware of in the present moment.

Unconscious

The storehouse of repressed fears, desires, wounds, and unresolved conflicts that influence behavior without our awareness.

Repression

The unconscious process of pushing painful or threatening thoughts and experiences out of conscious awareness, where they continue to influence behavior indirectly.

Id

The instinctual, pleasure-seeking force of the psyche that demands immediate gratification without concern for consequences.

Ego

The mediator between the id, the superego, and reality that manages behavior to reduce guilt, punishment, and anxiety.

Superego

The internalized voice of social rules, morality, and authority that enforces what we believe we should and should not do.

Defense Mechanisms

Unconscious behaviors that protect us from anxiety by hiding, distorting, or disguising uncomfortable truths.

Regression

A defense mechanism in which a person temporarily returns to an earlier psychological stage when faced with stress or conflict.

Core Issues

Deeply rooted psychological wounds, usually formed in childhood, that create recurring patterns of destructive behavior.

Fear of Intimacy

A chronic belief that emotional closeness will lead to harm, loss of control, or emotional devastation, causing avoidance of deep relationships.

Fear of Abandonment

The unshakable belief that loved ones will leave physically or emotionally, even without evidence.

Fear of Betrayal

The persistent belief that others cannot be trusted and will eventually deceive or hurt us.

Low Self-Esteem

The belief that one is less worthy than others and therefore undeserving of love, attention, or happiness.

Unstable Sense of Self

The inability to maintain a consistent personal identity, often shaped by others' approval or rejection.

Oedipal Fixation

An unresolved attachment or rivalry involving a parent that interferes with the ability to form mature adult relationships.

Psychosexual Stages of Development

Freud's theory that personality develops through childhood stages, each involving conflicts that must be resolved for healthy development.

Dream Displacement

The use of a safe person, object, or event in a dream to stand in for something more threatening.

Condensation

When a single dream image or event represents multiple unconscious conflicts at the same time.

Dream Symbols

Disguised images through which the unconscious expresses emotional truth indirectly rather than literally.

Phallic Imagery / Symbols

Images associated with power, control, dominance, or sexual identity, often upright or penetrating in form.

Yonic Imagery / Symbols

Images associated with the womb, enclosure, safety, or emotional nurture, such as containers or enclosed spaces.

Trauma

A psychological wound caused by a painful experience that continues to influence behavior long after the event.

Libido

Energy associated with desire, pleasure, and life-affirming drives, closely tied to identity.

Death Drive (Thanatos)

Freud's theoretical idea of an unconscious pull toward self-destruction or emotional numbness, which Tyson critiques as abstract and less useful for literary analysis.

Penis Envy

A symbolic term describing the unconscious desire for power, status, and social privilege

Castration Anxiety

The fear of losing power, status, or identity, understood symbolically rather than literally. Often a fear/jealousy of son to father

Denial

Refusing to acknowledge that a painful reality, problem, or experience exists in order to avoid emotional distress.

Selective Perception

Unconsciously seeing or hearing only what we feel emotionally capable of handling while ignoring threatening information.

Selective Memory

Unconsciously altering, distorting, or forgetting painful memories to protect oneself from emotional overwhelm.

Avoidance

Staying away from people, situations, or emotions that might trigger anxiety by activating repressed experiences.

Projection

Attributing one's own unacceptable thoughts, feelings, or desires to someone else and then judging or condemning them for it.

Rationalization

Creating logical or socially acceptable explanations for behavior that is actually driven by unconscious motives.

Sublimation

Redirecting unacceptable impulses into socially acceptable or productive activities.

Fear of Intimacy (as a defense)

Maintaining emotional distance to protect oneself from re-experiencing painful wounds triggered by closeness.

Anxiety (return of the repressed)

Not a defense itself, but the signal that defenses are failing and repressed material is resurfacing.