Download Spotlight on Terminology and Language – ESL Pointers

Spotlight on Terminology and Language – ESL
Pointers
Module 31: Psychodynamic Approaches to
Personality
Page 395 “Reclusive, at times standoffish and
aloof, this Bernard rarely rubbed elbows in
Manhattan’s cocktail circuit or at Palm Beach
balls. “
To be Reclusive means not liking to be around
other people but withdrawing out of the public
eye.
To be standoffish and aloof mean that Madoff
did not welcome contact with others but remained
silent or withdrawn.
To rub elbows with another person or a group
means that you belong in their company. You are
known to those people or work alongside them.
Page 395 “The university student was intent on
making a good first impression on an attractive
woman he had spotted across a crowded room at a
party.”
Someone who is intent on something is
determined to do it.
Page 395 “Like the unseen mass of a floating
iceberg, the memories, knowledge, beliefs,
and feelings in the unconscious far surpass in
quantity the information about which we are
aware.”
To surpass is to exceed. This theory proposes
we have much more information in the
unconscious than just the information about
which we are aware.
Page 395 “But because the unconscious
disguises the meaning of the material it holds,
the content of the unconscious cannot be
observed directly.”
Disguises are changes in someone’s
appearance so that they are not recognized.
Page 395 “The unconscious provides a ‘safe
haven’ for our recollections of threatening
events.”
A safe haven is a place of safety.
Page 396 “If personality consisted only of
primitive, instinctual cravings and longings, it
would have just one component: the id. The id
is the raw, unorganized, inborn part of
personality.”
Page 395 “As he walked toward her, he mulled
over a line he had heard in an old movie the night
before: ‘I don’t believe we’ve been properly
introduced yet.’”
Cravings are a strong desire for something.
When we mull something over; we think about
and give consideration.
Page 396 “Such conflicts may be due to
having needs ignored or (conversely) being
overindulged during the earlier period.”
Page 395 “After threading his way through the
crowded room, he finally reached the woman and
blurted out, ‘I don’t believe we’ve been properly
seduced yet.’”
When we thread through something we are pass
through it very carefully.
To blurt something out is to say it suddenly, as if
by accident.
To seduce is to lead someone away from proper
behavior or entice them into bad behavior,
especially sexual behavior.
Longings are a strong desire for something or
someone that we are unable to have.
Conversely means the opposite of something.
When we overindulge we give into our
cravings and allow ourselves to take in too
much.
Page 396 “The sequence Freud proposed is
noteworthy because it explains how
experiences and difficulties during a particular
childhood stage may predict specific
characteristics in the adult personality.”
Something that is noteworthy is important
and deserving of being noticed.
Page 396 “In the first psychosexual stage of
development, called the oral stage, the baby’s
mouth is the focal point of pleasure (see Figure 2
for a summary of the stages).”
A focal point is the center of attention.
Page 387 “Fixation at the oral stage might produce
an adult who was unusually interested in oral
activities—eating, talking, smoking—or who
showed symbolic sorts of oral interests: being
either ‘bitingly’ sarcastic or very gullible
(‘swallowing’ anything).”
Page 398 “Furthermore, according to Freud,
at this time the male unconsciously begins to
develop a sexual interest in his mother, starts
to see his father as a rival, and harbors a wish
to kill his father—as Oedipus did in the
ancient Greek tragedy.”
A rival is an enemy or opponent in a
competition.
Page 398 “But because he views his father as
too powerful, he develops a fear that his father
may retaliate drastically by removing the
source of the threat: the son’s penis.”
Something that is biting is clever and cruel.
Something that is sarcastic makes fun of someone
and is characterized by words that mean the
opposite of what they seem to mean.
Someone who is gullible is very trusting and will
believe anything they are told.
To swallow something is to believe it –take it in
Page 387 “At this point, the major source of
pleasure changes from the mouth to the anal
region, and children obtain considerable pleasure
from both retention and expulsion of feces.”
To expel something is throwing or pushing it out;
expulsion is the act of doing this.
Page 387 “Fixation during the anal stage might
result in unusual rigidity, orderliness,
punctuality—or extreme disorderliness or
sloppiness—in adulthood.”
To retaliate against someone is to give back
hurt for hurt in words or actions; payback.
Page 398 “During this period, sexual interests
become dormant, even in the unconscious.”
When things become dormant they are
temporarily not active.
Page 398 “Although anxiety can arise from
realistic fears—such as seeing a poisonous
snake about to strike—it can also occur in the
form of neurotic anxiety, in which irrational
impulses emanating from the id threaten to
burst through and become uncontrollable.”
To emanate from something is to come from
it.
Page 398 “The feelings remain lodged within
the unconscious, because acknowledging them
would provoke anxiety.”
Things that are sloppy lack order; they are messy.
Page 397“Now interest focuses on the genitals and
the pleasures derived from fondling them.”
When we fondle something we stroke it in a
loving way.
Page 397 “During this stage the child must also
negotiate one of the most important hurdles of
personality development: the Oedipal conflict
which is experienced by young boys and the
Electra complex, which is experienced by young
girls.”
Hurdles are difficulties that need to be overcome.
When something is lodged somewhere it is
stuck in that place.
Page 398 “If repression is ineffective in
keeping anxiety at bay, other defense
mechanisms may be used.”
When we “keeping something at bay” we
are preventing it from influencing us.
Page 398 “Yet some people fall prey to them
to such an extent that a large amount of
psychic energy must constantly be directed
toward hiding and rechanneling unacceptable
impulses.”
When we “fall prey” to something we have
allowed something to influence us.
Page 400 “ For example, Jung might explain the
popularity of the
Harry Potter movies as being due to their use of
broad archetypes of good (Harry) and
evil (Voldemort).
Harry Potter movies are stories about good and
bad sorcerers and witches. The forces of good are
always being challenged by evil.
Harry is a powerful good sorcerer.
Voldemort is a powerful evil sorcerer
Page 401 “Her conceptualizations, developed in
the 1930s and 1940s, laid the groundwork for
many of the central ideas of feminism that
emerged decades later (Eckardt, 2005; Jones,
2006).”
Groundwork is basic work that helps prepare for
a larger project, like a foundation for a building.