Psychodynamic Study Guide

Mind Map: Primary Defen

Psychodynamic Study Guide

Psychoanalysis → “second force in psychology”

  • FOCUS: Unresolved unconscious conflicts = constant conflict going on between our mind with different forced

  • Psychodynamic Thought

    • Transformation and exchanges of “psychic energy” within the personality

    • Focus: energies + conflicts between the id, ego, and superego

Fundamental Hypotheses of Psychoanalysis

  • Psychic Determinism

    • Mental activity is NOT random (every process is linked to previous thoughts + events

  • Dynamic Unconscious

    • The greater part of mental activity occurs outside conscious awareness

    • The greater part of mental activity occurs outside conscious awareness

      • mental processes, including conscious and unconscious ones, are determined by past experiences, internal drives, and external stimuli.

      • The existence of a dynamic unconscious is necessary to support this principle because it implies that there are hidden connections and influences between different mental processes.

Important things to remember about Freud

  • Created “dynamic psychology” → transformations and exchanges of energy within a personality

  • Anna O (patient of freuds) → “talking cure”

    • Hysteria originates in sexual malfunction & symptoms can be talked away

    • “Chimney sweeping” = symptoms reduced/disappeared

  • His father died 1896 → “most important event” that eliminated his “seduction theory” and developed the oedipus complex instead

    • Freud had originally proposed that many neuroses (mental disorders characterized by anxiety, compulsions, or other distressing symptoms) stemmed from early childhood experiences of sexual abuse or molestation, often by a parent or caregiver.

    • However, after his father passed away he believed that these memories of childhood sexual abuse were not accurate representations of reality but rather fantasies or unconscious desire

  • Freud’s second daughter died of influenza → created new drive theory = pleasure principle/life drive (eros) + death drive (Thanatos)

Parapraxes & Dreams

Topographical/Iceberg model

Structural Model

(Id, Ego, Superego)

Motivational Drives

Dreams

  • 1895 → Freud interpreted his own dream “irma’s injection”

2 forms of dreams

  1. Manifest Dream content

  2. Latent Dream-thoughts

Dreams are distorted with unconscious wishful impulses (unconscious)

3 systems of awareness = conscious system, preconscious system, unconscious system

Systems contain dynamic movements of energy: sources of thinking/feeling

  • Psychological energy transformed into anxiety that causes symptoms

Id is developed in early stages, then the ego develops, then superego.

The ego and superego balance the id BUT if there is not good development, then that is how psychopathology happens

Nervous energy arises from drives

  • Eros battles against Thanatos

  • Drives are biological propelled and beyond conscious awareness (primal)

**Interplay between Eros + Thanatos = constructive + destructive tendencies

Conscious

Mental activity completely within immediate awareness

ID

Give me what I want now

(unconscious)

Sexual Drive (Eros)

behavior is influenced by the libido (sexual energy)

Eros= sexual desire, pleasure, love, and creativity.

**libido fuels eros

Parapraxes (analyze with free association)

  • Slips

(tongue, pen, misreading, mishearing)

  • Temporary Forgetting

(tip of the tongue)

= counter will that is hostile

  • Bungled Actions (misplaying/

mislaying something) = wish to lose something

Preconscious

Mental activity available to conscious awareness, but not in conscious attention at the moment

  • E.g., acceptable sexual desires

Ego

Reality Testing

(All 3 levels)

Aggressive Drive (Thantos)

death instinct= aggressive and destructive impulses within the psyche (desire for violence, destruction, and self-destructive behaviors → frustration, rivalry, or the desire for dominance).

Unconscious

Mental activity hidden beyond conscious awareness

  • Only made known through parapraxes/dreams

  • E.g., trauma, fears, moral/unmoral at the time (unacceptable sexual desires)

Super Ego/Ego ideal

We have rules and obligations to follow

(All 3 levels)

Ego Defense Mechanisms

  • Utilized often as a result of one’s temperament, childhood, modeling by sig figures, and reinforcement

Primitive Defenses

  • immature lower-level/lower-level defenses (boundary between the self and the outer world)

  • Primary defenses exhibit qualities associated with preverbal stages of development. This means they operate before the acquisition of language and symbolic thought

    • Lack of Attainment of the Reality Principle: failure to fully grasp this principle, leading individuals to respond to internal impulses without regard for external reality or consequences.

    • Lack of Appreciation of Others Being Separate and Constant: In early development, children gradually learn to recognize the separateness of themselves and others, as well as the constancy of others' presence and identity. Difficulties with this can manifest as difficulties in forming stable and healthy interpersonal relationships or recognizing the autonomy of others.

Extreme Withdrawal

Psychological escape from reality

Schizoid Personalities (both physically and into fantasy)

Denial

If i don’t acknowledge it, it isn’t happening

Child’s egocentrism, Mania; psychotic denial; Narcissistic personalities; Borderline Personalities; Paranoid personalities; Manic Personalities prone to this;

Omnipotent Control

Prioritizing one’s power over ethics

Psychopathic Personalities(reaching for omnipotent control); Sadistic Personalities; Severe O-C’s

Extreme Idealization & Devaluation

Occurs when reality does not align with the belief of a “perfect person”

Narcissistic Personalities; Depressive Personalities; Narcissistic personalities;

Projection (externalization)

What is coming from inside is coming from outside

Paranoid personalities; psychotic(delusional) projection; Narcissistic personalities;

Introjection (internalization)

What is outside is misunderstood as coming from inside

Common in Depressive personalities ; Borderline organization; Masochistic Personalities

Projective Identification

Person projects internal objects and gets the person/target of projection to behave like those objects (accusing and confirming beliefs)

Borderline personalities; Narcissistic personalities; Paranoid personalities (tend to project negative qualities)

Splitting of the Ego (Splitting)

Characterizing object as either all good or all bad (perfect vs. unworthy/evil)

Borderline Personalities prone to this;

Somatization

Emotional states are expressed physically (stressed → illness)

Somatizing Personalities; Dependent Personalities

Acting Out (Defense Enactment)

Put into action what one lacks in words to express

Impulsive; Hysteric-Histrionic personalities; Borderline Personalities; Can be part of the compulsions in O-C personalities; Hallmark of Masochistic Personality

Sexualization (Instinctualization)

Subtype of acting out, pain → sexual excitement (anxiety → masturbate)

Hysteric-Histrionic personalities;

Extreme Dissociation

Normal reaction to trauma

Borderline Personalities; Histrionic Personalities;

Secondary Defenses

  • Mature, advanced, higher order defenses

  • Internal boundaries between the id, ego, and superego / between observing and experiencing parts of the ego

  • Make more specific transformations of thought, feeling, sensation, or behavior

Repression

Handling disturbing thoughts or experiences by relegating them from the unconscious

Hysteric-Histrionic personalities; some O-C Personalities

Regression

Unconsciously reverting to old feelings, thoughts, behaviors, or an earlier phase of development; somatization a type of regression (e.g. hypochondriasis)

Dependent Personalities; Somatizing personalities; Hysteric-Histrionic personalities;

Isolation of affect

Isolating feeling from knowing to deal with anxiety or painful states; subtype of dissociation

O-C Personalities,

Intellectualization

Higher order isolation of affect from intellect; thinking rationally via ego strength

O-C Personalities;

Rationalization

Unconsciously seeking cognitive, acceptable grounds for one’s decisions

Anxious-Avoidant Personalities; O-C Personalities

Moralization

Seeking a way to feel it’s one’s duty to pursue a course of action

Masochistic Personality; Some O-C’s;

Compartmentalization

Allows two conflicting conditions/beliefs to co-exist without conscious, guilt, shame, or anxiety; E.g. Golden Rule and Looking out for myself

Undoing

More mature version of omnipotent control; unconscious effort to counterbalance an affect, usually guilt or shame, with an attitude or behavior that will magically erase; e.g. religious rituals like confession

Primary defense for O-C Personalities;

Turning against the self (devaluation of self)

Redirecting some negative affect or attitude from an external object toward the self; depressive personalities and some masochistic personalities prone to this

Depressive personalities; Masochistic personalities

Displacement

Redirecting a drive, emotion, preoccupation or behavior from its natural object to another because the original direction presents too much anxiety; e.g. sexual fetishes; phobias

Anxious Avodiant Personalities;

Reaction Formation

Turning something into its opposite in order to make it less threatening

O-C Personalities; Narcissistic personalities;

Reversal

Enacting a scenario that switches one’s position from subject to object or vice versa; e.g. feeling too threatened to be cared for by another, one cares for others; satisfy one’s own needs by taking care of another (e.g. therapists)

Depressive Personalities; Dependent Personalities; Sadistic Personalities;

Identification

Deliberately , but partly unconsciously, becoming like another person

Sublimation

Finding a creative and useful way to express problematic impulses and conflicts

Humor

Subtype of sublimation; used to tolerate pain

Me, fernanda; Healthier Paranoids;

Important People & Schools of Psychoanalytic Thought (Post Freud)

Classic psychodynamic thought

  • foundational principles and theories developed by Freud. It emphasizes the role of unconscious processes, childhood experiences, and the dynamic interplay between the id, ego, and superego in shaping personality and behavior.

  • Freud's classic theories, such as the Oedipus complex, defense mechanisms, and the structural model of the mind, laid the groundwork for subsequent psychoanalytic developments.

Ego Psychology

  • Ego psychology, also known as structural ego psychology, focuses on the role of the ego in mediating between the demands of the id, superego, and external reality.

  • ego psychology emphasizes the ego's adaptive functions, defense mechanisms, and capacity for reality testing.

  • Ego psychologists aim to strengthen the ego's capacities for autonomous functioning, adaptive coping, and healthy ego integration through psychoanalytic therapy.

Interpersonal Psychoanalysis

  • Interpersonal psychoanalysis focuses on the interpersonal dynamics and relational patterns that shape an individual's personality and psychological well-being.

  • It emphasizes the significance of early social experiences, interpersonal relationships, and the therapeutic alliance in psychoanalytic treatment.

  • Interpersonal psychoanalysts explore the ways in which individuals interact with others, form attachments, and internalize relational patterns, with the goal of fostering self-awareness, insight, and healthier interpersonal functioning.

Contemporary Kleinian Theory

  • Contemporary Kleinian theory builds upon the work of Melanie Klein

  • Kleinian analysts focus on the internal world of the infant, the role of unconscious phantasy, and the dynamics of early object relationships.

  • Kleinian theory emphasizes the importance of early experiences with primary caregivers, the formation of internal object representations, and the resolution of primitive anxieties and defenses in shaping personality development.

British Object Relations School

  • The British Object Relations School focuses on the internalization of object relationships and the development of the self within the context of early attachment experiences.

  • Object relations theorists explore the ways in which individuals internalize and relate to internalized object representations (i.e., mental images of self and others) and the impact of these internalized objects on personality development, interpersonal relationships, and psychopathology.

Self-Psychology

  • Self-psychology emphasizes the importance of the self and self-object relationships in psychological development and psychopathology.

  • Self-psychologists focus on the formation of a cohesive self-structure, the role of mirroring and empathy in self-development, and the impact of self-object failures on psychological functioning.

  • Self-psychology places particular emphasis on the therapeutic relationship and the analyst's empathic attunement to the patient's subjective experience, to restore disrupted self-cohesion and facilitating psychological growth.

Classic Psychodynamic Thought

Ego Psychology

Interpersonal Psychoanalysis

Contemporary Kleinian Theory

British Object Relations School

Self-Psychology

Sigmund Freud

Anna Freud

Harry Stack Sullivan

Melanie Klein

W.R.D. Fairbairn

Erik Erikson

Carl Jung

Ernst Kris

Clara Thompson

Wilfred Bion

D.W. Winnicott

Heinz Kohut

Alfred Adler

Heinz Hartman

Edgar Levenson

Heinrich Racker

Michael Balint

Melanie Klein

Rene Spitz

Thomas Ogden

John Bowlby

Margaret Mahler

Betty Joseph

Harry Guntrip

Edith Jacobson

Introjective

focused on self-definition, “I can’t love myself”; “I'm not good enough, flawed, self-indulgent, evil”

Anaclitic

centered on self-in-relation (often mommy issues causes this per Dr. Acklin lol) “No one really loves me” ; “Im empty, hungry, lonely, I need connection”; strong emotional dependence on others;

PERSONALITY DISORDER= When defenses are so stereotypical or stuck that it prevents psychological growth and adaptation; have to be pervasive throughout someone’s life. Otherwise it could be described as a characterological style.

The Neurotic-Borderline-Psychotic Spectrum

  • Healthy: Still become symptomatic under stress but have certain “favored" ways of coping; they have enough flexibility to accommodate adequately to challenging realities (though not necessarily severe trauma). We all have characteristic “style or flavor or type” of personality or a stable mixture of styles.

  • Neurotic: People at this level of organization are notorious for their relative rigidity. They tend to respond to stress with a restricted range of defenses and coping strategies. Patterns of suffering tend to be restricted to specific areas (e.g. loss, rejection, self-punitiveness seen in depressive personality, issues of gender/sexuality/power in hysteric-histrionic personality; control issues in O-C personality). Defenses at the neurotic level are more likely to concern one area/one type of relationship rather than all relationships as seen in borderline level. People at this level tend to have some perspective/insight on their recurrent difficulties and can imagine how they would like to change.

    • Common personality styles at the neurotic level are: Depressive, Hysteric, phobic, and Obsessive-Compulsive personalities.

  • Borderline: People with borderline organization have difficulties with affect regulation and are vulnerable to extremes of overwhelming affect (depression, anxiety, rage). Recurrent relational difficulties; severe problems with emotional intimacy; problems with work; problems with impulse regulation; Addiction; When an attachment relationship is threatened they are also at greater risk of self-harm, including self mutilation, sexual risk taking, accumulation of inordinate debt, and other self-destructive behaviors/activities; Failure to integrate disparate aspects of identity into a coherent whole→Identity Diffusion

    • Higher level borderline-neurosis (more neurotic than borderline)- less deficits→ more exploratory approaches

    • Lower level borderline -psychotic - severe deficits → supportive, capacity building approaches

    • Key difference to Neurotic Level = absence of mature defenses like the neurotic level

Psychotic: People with a psychotic organization but not a Dx tend to have transient features such as overgeneralized, concrete, or bizarre thinking; socially inappropriate behaviors; pervasive and severe annihilation anxiety; fixed beliefs that their ideas of others are true regardless of what is said or done. Psychotic level of personality organization implies identity diffusion, poor differentiation between representations of self and others, poor discrimination between fantasy and external reality, reliance on primitive defenses, and severe deficits in reality testing. Examples of individuals functioning in the psychotic range→ anorexic client who is dangerously close to starvation but believes they are overweight; OC people who severely hoard; THe person’s “fixed” ideas are so absolute that it approaches delusional ideation.

Personalities Types/Characterological Styles

Depressive Personality:

Dependent Personality:

Anxious-Avoidant and Phobic Personalities:

Obsessive-Compulsive Personalities:

  • Fixation at Anal Stage issues

Schizoid Personalities:

Somatizing Personality:

Hysteric-Histrionic Personalities:

  • Fixation at oral and oedipal stage issues

Narcissistic Personalities:

Paranoid Personalities:

  • Neurotic to healthy spectrum of paranoid patients = the best type of therapy patients→ want to change cycle of upbringing that causes the paranoid personality structure

Psychopathic Personalities:

Sadistic Personalities:

Borderline Personalities