Module 60: Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Theories

Personality

an individual ‘s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting

Psychodynamic theories

Theories that view personality with a focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences

Psychoanalysis

Freud’s theory of personality that attributes thought and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions

Unconscious

According to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware

Free association

In psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing

Personality structure

Human personality, emotion, and desire come from conflict between impulse, restraint, aggression, pleasure, or social control

Id

A reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The Id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification

Ego

The largely conscious “executive” part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id. The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain

Superego

The part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgement (the conscience) and for future aspirations

Psychosexual stages

The childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, the id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones

Oral (0-18 months)

Pleasure centers on the mouth — sucking, biting, chewing

Anal (18 - 36 months)

Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination; coping with demands for control

Phallic (3 - 6 years)

Pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with incestuous sexual feelings

Latency (6 to puberty)

A phase of dormant sexual feelings

Genital (puberty on)

Maturation of sexual interests

Erogenous zones

Distinct pleasure-sensitive zones

Oedipus complex

According to Freud, a boy’s sexual desires towards his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father

Electra complex

Parallel to girls to oedipus complex

Identification

The process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos

Fixation

In psychoanalytic theory, according to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved

Defense mechanisms

In psychoanalytic theory, the ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality

Regression

Retreating to an earlier psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated

Reaction formation

Switching unacceptable impulses into their opposites

Projection

Disguising one’s own threatening impulses by attributing them to others

Rationalization

Offering self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening unconscious reasons for one’s actions

Displacement

Shifting sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person

Sublimation

Transferring of unacceptable impulses into socially valued motives

Denial

Refusing to believe or even perceive painful realities

Alfred Adler

Believed much of of our behavior is driven by effort to conquer childhood inferiority feeling that triggers our strive for superiority and power

Inferiority complex

belived childhood social tension are crucial for personality formation

Karen Horney

Childhood axiety trigger our desire for love and security. opposite of Freud’s assertion that women have weak superegos and suffer "penis envy" she attempt to balance his masculine basis

Carl Jung

Freud’s disciple-turned dissenter; placed less emphasis on social factors and greed with Freud that the unconscious exerts a powerful influence. But to Jung, the unconscious contains more than our repressed thoughts and feelings

Collective unconscious

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

Projective test

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

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

A projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes

Rorschach inkblot test

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

Modern research on the idea of repression

Today’s developmental psychologists see our development as lifelong, not fixed in childhood.

They also doubt that conscience and gender identity form as the child resolves the Oedipus complex at age 5 or 6.

They noted that Freud’s ideas about sexuality arose from stories of childhood sexual abuse told by his female patients—stories that some scholars believe Freud doubted and attributed to his patient’s own childhood sexual wishes and conflicts

They find little support for Freud’s idea that defense mechanisms disguise sexual and aggressive impulses

Freud’s theory offers after-the-fact explanations of any characteristic

Modern unconscious mind

Many researchers now think of the unconscious as information processing that occurs without our awareness

False consensus effect

The tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors

Terror-management theory

A theory of death-related anxiety; explores people’s emotional and behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death