Biography

• Lived 1856 - 1939

• Used to be a physician

• THEORY: based on clinical population

• THEORY: influenced by “Victorian times”

• Died in UK – oral cancer – suicide (heavy smoker)

• Most of his patients were women (OBJECTS)

• Suicide (overdose morphine) age 83

The Psychoanalytic Perspective

• Freud’s theory proposed that childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence personality

• Free Association

  • Reaction against hypnosis

  • Ex. The patient is asked to relax and say whatever comes to mind, no matter how embarrassing/trivial – seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions

• First came up use of hypnosis – influenced by the work of Dr. Mesmer

• Hypnosis

  • Altered state of consciousness

  • Case of Anna O.

    • With colleague and mentor J. Breur (hypnosis)

    • Unexplainable symptoms (paralyzed but no cause)

    • Root issues: father’s illness, dog’s bite

    • As Anna started talking, symptoms lessened

    • Free Association => chimney sweeping

      • Started talking about her father

• Unconscious

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

  • Contemporary viewpoint – information processing of which we are unaware

Personality Structure

• Freud’s idea of the mind’s structure

  • Iceberg metaphor

• Id

  • Contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy

  • Strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives

  • Operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification

• Superego

  • The part of personality that presents internalized ideas

  • Represents “rules” of society

  • Operates on the morality principle, provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations

• Id and Superego

  • In constant conflict

  • Causes guilt and anxiety

  • People need to learn how to cope with this conflict

    • Some do it successfully and others don’t

  • Conflicts must be resolved by ego

• Ego

  • The largely conscious, “executive part” of the personality

  • Mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality

  • Operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id’s desire in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain

*Eros takes precedence over Thanatos

Defense Mechanisms

• The ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality (can be a normal process, but can also lead to disordered behavior)

• Motivators are unconscious

• Tactics that reduce/redirect anxiety in various ways, but always by distorting reality

1. Repression

   • A defense mechanism that pushes threatening thoughts into the unconscious

   • Forgetting

   • Often connected with trauma (abuse, PTSD, MPD)

2. Denial

   • A defense mechanism in which one refuses to acknowledge anxiety provoking stimuli

   • When you deny something exists

   • Rejecting it exists

3. Projection

   • A defense mechanism in which anxiety arousing impulse are externalized by placing onto others

   • Putting own anxiety to others

4. Displacement

   • A defense mechanism in which the target of one’s unconscious fear/desire is shifted away from the true cause

5. Sublimation

   • A defense mechanism where dangerous urges are transformed into positive, socially acceptable forms

   • Dangerous urges -> positive forms

   • Ex. Surgeon who becomes excited at the sight of blood

6. Regression

   • A defense mechanism where one returns to an earlier, safer stage of one’s life to escape present threats

   • Emotionally unstable -> fetal position

7. Rationalization

   • A defense mechanism where after the fact (post hoc) logical explanations for behaviors that were actually driven by internal unconscious motives

   • Forced self-justification

   • Ex. “I did it because of you.”

8. Reaction Formation

   • A defense mechanism that pushes away threatening impulses by overemphasizing the opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings

   • Opposite of what you really mean

   • Engaging in the opposite feelings

   • Ex. express a disdain for pornography but really enjoy it

Personality Development

• Psychosexual Stages

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

  • Majority of personality is formed before age 6

Stages of Psychosexual Development

1. Oral Stage: Birth to 2 years

   • Need for oral stimulation

   • Achieved through sucking and later chewing

   • If the oral stimulation was inadequate the individual would continue to seek it throughout life

   • Oral Dependent Personality: gullible, passive, and need lots of attention

   • Oral Aggressive Personality: like to argue and exploit others

   • Oral activity and means of aggression

2. Anal Stage: 2-3 years

   • Gratification now comes from emptying the bowel

   • Attention turns to the process of elimination. Child can gain approval/express aggression by letting go/holding on

   • Anal Retentive: stubborn, stingy, orderly, and compulsively clean (hold on)

   • Anal Expulsive*:* disorderly, messy, destructive, or cruel (letting go)

3. Phallic Stage: 3-6 years

   • Interest in genitals develop

   • Child now notices and is physically attracted to opposite sex parent

   • Child derives pleasure from playing with genitals

4. Latency Stage: 6 years to Puberty

   • Less interest in own and others’ bodies

   • Little cross sex interaction

   • Freud thought sexual energies were submerged/repressed during this stage

5. Genital Stage: Puberty to Adulthood

   • Sexual nature now develops fully with adult needs and desires

   • Recurrence of masturbation and interest in sexual matters

   • Freud thought there was a progression to interest in the opposite sex if latency stage was fully resolved. If not, result was homosexuality.

Identification

• The process by which children incorporate the parents’ values into the developing superegos

• The reason our culture placed so much emphasis on traditional families

Fixation

• A lingering focus on pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, where conflicts were unresolved