Lecture 2

Fred’s psychoanalytic approach: role of unconsciousness, developed first of therapeutic procedures for understanding & modifying structure of one’s basic character.

Five basic models in psychoanalysis: structural, dynamical, topographic, developmental.

structural: id, ego & superego

dynamical: theory of drives

economical: psychic energy

topographic: (un)consciousness

developmental: psychosexual stages

The ID: demenading child, basic psychic energy ruled by the pleasure principle; strive to satisfy desires and reduce inner tension.

The Ego: traffic cop, ruled by the reality principle, deals with real world, solves problems by planning and acting.

The Superego: the judge, ruled by the moral principle; internalized social norms & moral forces pressing on and constraining individual action.

Freudian slip: psychological error in speaking or writing, evidence of some unconscious urge, desire, or conflict and struggle.

Dream interpretation: Freud assumed every dream has a meaning that can be interpreted, the infantile wish fulfillement represented in them.

Drive: contains source, goal and object. Source comes from the interior (hunger, sexual tension), goal is to relive the tension and reach the pleasure.

Eros: life instinct, libido.

Thanatos: death instinct, accounts for aggressive drive to die or to hurt themselves or others.

Cathexis: the libido’s charge of energy.

Psychosexual development of personality: oral stage (first year), anal stage (2-4), phallic stage (4-6), latency stage (5-11), genital stage (12-18).

Oral stage: related to later mistrust and rejection issues.

Anal stage: related to later personal power and control issues.

Phallic stage: related to later sexual attitudes.

Latency period: a time of socialization.

Genital stage: sexual energies are invested in life.

Oedipus complex: a boy’s sexual feelings for his mother and rivalries with his father. Form personality through identification with father.

Castration anxiety: unconscious fear of loss of a penis and becoming like female. Fear of powerful people and revenge from them.

Penis envy: a girl’s feelings of inferiority and jealousy. Turns affection from mother to father bc blames her mother for not having a penis.

Ego-defense mechanism: behaviors which operate on an unconscious level and tend to deny or distort reality. Helps to cope with anxiety and prevent the ego from being overwhelmed.

Type of defense mechanism:

Repression: pushes threatening thoughts back to the unconscious.

Reaction formation: pushing away threatening impulses by overemphasizing the opposite in one’s thoughts and actions,

Denial: refusing to acknowledge anxiety-provoking stimuli.

Projection: anxiety-arousing impulses are externalization by placing them or projecting them onto others.

Displacement: shifting targets of one’s unconscious fears or desires, e.g. man - angry at boss - kicks dog.

Sublimation: transforming of dangerous urges into positive, socially acceptable motivation.

Regression: returning to earlier, safer stages of our lives.

Rationalization: logical explanations for behaviors that were actually driven by internal unconscious motives.

Psychoanalytic techniques: free association, interpretation, dream analysis.

Transference: the client reacts to the therapist as he did to an earlier significant other, allows the client to experience feelings that would be otherwise inaccessible.

Countertransference: the reaction of the therapist toward the client that may interfere with objectivity.

Resistance: anything that works against the progress of therapy and prevents the production of unconscious material.

Analysis of resistance: helps the client to see that avoidance of therapy is a way to defend against anxiety.