Module 60: Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Theories

In addition to to Module 60, this explanation may be helpful in answering the following questions:

1. Define Personality: continuously changing process, shaped by our individual needs and cognitions and by external pressures from the social environment.

2. What is the difference between the terms psychodynamic and psychoanalytic?

Psychoanalysis: focuses on how the mind's energy is exchanged, transformed, and expressed

3. Define and classify the difference between:

• Consciousness is being aware of our thoughts and feelings

• Preconscious thoughts that are stored temporarily in our unconscious mind but can be retrieved into conscious awareness
  Unconscious information processing we are not aware of, houses sexual and aggressive desires, wishes and wants which shape our personality

1. What is free association and how/why does the psychoanalytic perspective use it? Free Association: a method to explore the unconscious mind, individuals talk about whatever comes to mind in a stream of consciousness fashion, hoping to have a Freudian slip

2. According to Freudian Psychology, there are three components to one's personality. Identify each part and explain what the three parts mean.
   Id

• Present at birth

• Contains basic needs and drives
  Emphasis on sexual aggressive impulses
  Libido (internal energy force)
  Unconscious
  Pleasure principle

• I want...

Ego

Ego: Rational, planful, mediating dimension of personality

Conscious:

Information in your immedicte awareness

The "self"

• Link to real world (reality principle)

• Mediator between id and superego

• Uses defense mechanisms
  I can..

Superego

• Last to develop (ages 3-5)

• Morals and values about right and wrong

• Our conscience

• Demands perfection

• I should...

Superego: Moralistic, judgmental, perfectionist dimension of personality

Preconscious:

Information that can easily be made conscious

Unconscious:

Thoughts, feelings, urges and wishes thct are difficult to

Id: Irrational, illogical,

bring to conscious awareness

impulsive dimension of personality

6. Please define the following terms:

• Identification alignment with the same sex parent; latency

• Psychosexual stages children move through these stages which has a particular libidio focus

• Oedipus complex boy loves mom/wants to harm dad; incestuous feelings

• Electra complex girl loves dad/wants to harm mom; incestuous feelings

• Fixate (fixation) lingering focus in psychosexual stage
  Repression the unconscious blocking of unpleasant emotions, impulses, memories, and thoughts from your conscious mind

1. Which component of one's personality uses defense mechanisms? EGO

2. Explain why Freud believed that early childhood experiences are so important to development. events in our childhood have a great influence on our adult lives, shaping our personality

Defense Mechanisms Identify the defense mechanism that each of the following is an example of The individual who actually likes to have others do things for him may be quick to notice other people who are dependent and lazy. PROJECTION

• Soldiers exposed to traumatic experiences in concentration camps during wartime sometimes had amnesia and were unable to recall any part of their ordeal. REPRESSION

• Even a top baseball player will sometimes strike out on an easy pitch. When this happens, his next action may be to throw his bat or kick the water cooler with all his might. DISPLACEMENT

• A boy will sometimes react against the strong sexual attraction that he feels towards girls by becoming a confirmed woman hater. REACTION FORMATION

• The teacher was criticized by the principal for having a disruptive class. When the teacher got home that night, he argued with his wife and kicked the dog. DISPLACEMENT

• After John was rejected by the admissions office at Ohio State University, he claimed that he wouldn't enjoy attending such a large school anyway. Besides, he might receive higher grades at a smaller local college. RATIONALIZATION

• Ann was jealous and resentful of her sister and often wished something bad would happen to her. As an adult, Ann had no memory of these feelings. REPRESSION

• .

A student blames his low test score on poorly worded test questions rather than on the fact that he didn't study. RATIONALIZATION

• Fearing rejection, Sue puts off completing her college applications. PROCRASTINATION

• A young child going through the stress of entering school for the first time may begin to act in a very babyish way. He may suck his thumb, wet his bed, or insist on being carried by his mother or father instead of walking. REGRESSION

• A man who has been unkind to his wife buys her flowers (but does not apologize.) UNDOING
  Joan played on the girl's basketball team during her junior year. Practices and games left her with little free time and she didn't get along well with the other girls on the team. The team had a disappointing season and Joan hardly saw any playing time. After the season, Joan said that if she had it to do over again she would still try out for the team because the strenuous workouts during practice helped to keep her in shape. RATIONALIZATION (SWEET LEMON)

• Aggressive tendencies may be re-channeled by choosing to become a movie critic. SUBLIMATION

• A worker accuses her boss of having a quick temper when in fact, it is she herself who has the temper. PROJECTION

• Mike is afraid of going to the dentist and thus forgets his appointment. DENIAL

• Sam claims that he didn't make the team because the coach doesn't like him. RATIONALIZATION

• It is typical for the person who is most difficult to convince in an argument to say that everyone else is stubborn. PROJECTION

• A mother ignores the signs and refuses to admit that her son has a drinking problem and needs professional help. DENIAL
  Freud suggested that Leonardo da Vinci's painting of Madonnas could be traced back to his desire for intimacy with his own mother. According to Freud, da Vinci's artistry is an example of his defense mechanism. SUBLIMATION

People who cheat on their income tax often justify their behavior by claiming that government programs cost more than they're worth or that they pay more than their fair share of taxes.

RATIONALIZATION

• When Lynn has an intense argument with someone; she often breaks down and starts crying to release the tension. SUBLIMATION

• Tom feels guilty for lying to his mother so he washes his mother's car. UNDOING/SUBLIMATION

11. Scenario: Ira just failed the AP Psychology FRQ. Please explain how they could use the following defense mechanisms to respond to the disappointing grade.

• Sublimation Sublimation goes home and starts immediately studying for the next test

• Repression Mom asking how the test went today, "Test? What test?"

• Projection "But mom, everyone in the class failed the FRQ!"

• Rationalization Mrs. Simcik didn't go over all the material, questions were worded unfairly

• Displacement Goes home and takes anger out on their little brother or dog.

12. Summarize the Neo-Freudian perspectives of:

• Alfred Adler: inferiority complex - much of our behavior is driven by efforts to conquer childhood feelings of interiority, feelings that trigger our strivings for superiority and power. An inferiority complex refers to a person's feelings that they lack worth and don't measure up to the standards of others or of society. Adler believed that feelings of inferiority in childhood are what drive people to attempt to gain superiority and that this striving is the force behind all of our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
  Karen Horney: childhood anxiety, caused by the dependent child's sense of helplessness, triggers our desire for love and security; countered Freud's assumptions that women have weak superegos and suffer from "penis envy," further she suggested that men have womb envy, because they cannot give birth. Horney believed that each individual has the potential for self-realization and that the goal of psychoanalysis should be moving toward a healthy self rather than exploring early childhood patterns of dysfunction.
  Carl Jung: less emphasis on social factors, agreed that the unconscious exerts a powerful influence.
  The unconscious contains more than repressed thoughts and feelings. We have a collective unconscious. The collective unconscious is a universal version of the personal unconscious, holding mental patterns, or memory traces, which are common to all of us. These ancestral memories, which Jung called archetypes, are represented by universal themes in various cultures, as expressed through literature, art, and dreams

• Define collective unconscious a shared common reservoir of images and memory traces derived from our species' university experiences

• What are epigenetic marks? Epigenetic marks tell your genes to switch on or off. Epigenetic marks can be inherited and epigenetic marks can be accumulated. - Only those in the germ line will be passed down. Through epigenetic marks, environmental factors like diet, stress and prenatal nutrition can make an imprint on genes passed from one generation to the next.

13. Define projective tests

• Explain what the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is and how it is used: ambiguous pictures that the person makes a story; psychoanalyst evaluates the story to uncover the underlying meaning

• Explain what the Rorschach Inkblot Test is and how it is used: describe inkblot; psychoanalyst evaluates the story to uncover the underlying meaning

1. What are the major criticisms of Freud? Not empirical, focus on men, etc.

2. What, if anything, of Freudian psychology is still relevant? Defense mechanisms/repression

3. Define terror-management theory: mortality awarenes

Matching: write the letter that corresponds to the definition