Download Structural and Topographic Models of the Mind

Freud and Psychoanalysis
Personality Theory
PSYC 4200
Why Use Psychoanalytic and
Psychodynamic Models?
• Advantages
– historical continuity
– clinical utility
– some empirical validation
• Disadvantages
–
–
–
–
many aspects unprovable, unrefutable
highly inferential, less inter-rater unreliability
many tenets have been discredited
hard to integrate with neurobiological model
Models and Innovators
• S. Freud - “classical”
• A. Freud, Hartman, Kris, Lowenstein - ego
psychology, object relations
• Sullivan - interpersonal model
• French, Alexander - psychosomatics
• Winnicott, Klein - primitive (infantile) mind
• Kohut - self-psychology
Basic Postulates of Psychoanalysis
Psychic life is determined
The unconscious plays a dominant role in
determining human behavior
The most important explanatory concepts are
motivational
The history of the organism is of extreme importance
in determining contemporary behavior
Some Major Characteristics of
Freud’s Thought
Determinism
Belief in the Continuity of the Animal Kingdom
Role of Unconscious Influences
Developmental Emphasis
Emphasis on Motivation
Applied Psychology
Determinism
Freud appears to have been a determinist,
although it was never clearly stated in his
writings. He was particularly interested in
how unconscious motives affect rational
processes.
Belief in the Continuity of the Animal
Kingdom
Influenced by Darwin, Freud insisted that
humans have no grounds for excluding
themselves from the animal kingdom. He
subscribed to the position that "no spirits,
essences, or entelechies, no superior
plans or ultimate purposes are at work.
The physical energies alone cause effects-somehow."
Role of Unconscious Influences
Developmental Emphasis
Psychoanalytic theory gives importance to
development and growth. Abilities vary as a
function of age and early events in life are
consequential to later adjustment. Furthermore,
there are identifiable developmental stages that
must be negotiated to insure later psychological
health and well-being.
Emphasis on Motivation
Psychoanalysis emphasizes he importance
of motivation. Freud repeatedly referred to
the centrality of pleasure in human life and
to specific determinants of its expression.
Applied Psychology
A great deal of Freud's intellectual energy
was devoted to the problems of effective
intervention and treatment. The term
psychoanalysis seems to refer
simultaneously both to a system of
psychology and to a treatment technique.
Life’s Major Goal and Its Inevitable
Frustration
From the beginning of life we seek pleasure and avoid
pain.
Pleasure results from the satisfaction of needs, but we
find that the world is not very cooperative.
There are sources of suffering (our body, the world,
other people) which we try to avoid using various
methods (substituting one gratification for another,
religion, love)
Motivation and Unconscious
Processes
Orgel (1990) pointed out that "the core idea of
psychoanalysis begins with the assumption that in
every human being there is an unconscious mind."
Freud’s early experiences with hypnosis had
important effects on the development of this part of
his theory.
However, his larger vision of motivation was more
complicated and multidimensional.
Instinct
The term is often used as the translation for
Freud’s term Trieb, which is close in meaning
to the term drive. According to Freud, Trieb is
an internal stimulus that persists until it finds
satisfaction. It has a somatic source, a strength,
an aim (its own satisfaction), and an object (that
which will help it achieve its aim).
Life Instincts
These instincts perpetuate (a) the life of the
individual, by motivating him or her to seek
food and water, and (b) the life of the species,
by motivating him or her to have sex. The
motivational energy of these life instincts, the
"oomph" that powers our psyches, he called
libido, from the Latin word for "I desire."
Death Instinct
Libido is a lively thing; the pleasure principle
keeps us in perpetual motion. And yet the goal of
all this motion is to be still, to be satisfied, to be
at peace, to have no more needs. The goal of life,
you might say, is death! Freud began to believe
that "under" and "beside" the life instincts there
was a death instinct. He began to believe that
every person has an unconscious wish to die.
Anxiety
Freud believed that there are specific varieties
of anxiety associated with some of the
important and pervasive tensions that we all
must face.
Objective Anxiety
Neurotic Anxiety
Moral Anxiety
Objective Anxiety
Objective threats from the world or
from other people that threaten to
overpower the ego.
Neurotic Anxiety
According to Freud, this arises when the
irrational demands of the id threaten to
overwhelm the ego.
Moral Anxiety
According to Freud, anxiety associated with
the threat that the irrational demands of the
superego might overcome the ego.
The Structure of Personality
Id
Ego
Superego
The Id
In Freudian theory, the id is the most
primitive component of the personality. It
represents powerful biological needs and
demands instant expression and immediate
gratification.
The Ego
In Freud’s system, the ego is the "I" or me of the
personality--the center of organization and
integration that must adapt to the demands of reality.
Jung used the term in a similar way as a component
of personality that is closely associated with
conscious process.
The Superego
According to Freud, that part of the
personality consisting of internalized social
norms, values, and ideals. It serves the goal of
perfection and attempts to appropriate ego
activities to serve its goal.
Structural and Topographic
Models of the Mind
Developmental Stages
•
•
•
•
•
0ral
Anal
Phallic - oedipal
Latency
Genital
Oral
In Freud’s psychology the first stage of
psychosexual development. In this stage, the
child’s interactions with the world are
primarily via the oral cavity and there is
primitive learning about the responsiveness of
the world to oral activities such as crying and
sucking.
Anal
According to Freud, in the second and third
years of life, the child develops a deep
awareness of the pleasures associated with relief
of bowel and bladder tension. The expression of
this pleasure may be in conflict with societal
norms and thus create special difficulties that
must be negotiated with care if the child is to
develop normally.
Phallic
In Freud’s psychology, that period from 3 to
5 when the child develops an interest in his
other sex organs and the sex organs of the
parent. Freud believed that, at this time, the
child begins to identify with the oppositesex parent.
Latency
According to Freud, the period between the
phallic stage and the genital stage. In the
latency period there is no obvious
localization of erotic interest.
Genital
According to Freud, this stage is
associated with the adolescent years
and is marked by the development of
emotional ties with member of the
opposite sex.
Defense Mechanisms
•
•
•
•
•
Everyone uses them to deal with distress
Everyone has characteristic repertoire
Hierarchy of mechanisms
Rough correlation with pathology
More “primitive” defenses seen in
regression or certain disorders
Defense Mechanisms of the Ego
Repression
Projection
Regression
Reaction Formation
Other Defenses
Repression
An ego defense mechanism in which
dangerous thoughts, memories, or perceptions
are forced out of consciousness and into the
unconscious realm.
Projection
A defense mechanism of the ego manifested
when personal faults or weaknesses are
externalized or ascribed to objects, events or
other people. Thus, a marital partner tempted
to be unfaithful may ascribe the wish to be
unfaithful to his or her partner.
Regression
Return or retreat to an earlier stage of
development and reinstatement of
attitudes or behaviors that were
characteristic of an earlier stage.
Reaction Formation
A paradoxical situation in which the instinct
may undergo a reversal into its opposite (love
to hate, pleasure to pain, passivity to activity,
etc.). Ego masks awareness of an anxietyprovoking motive by emphasizing its
opposite.
Sublimation
According to Freud, any of a variety of socially
acceptable activities such as work, play, or
philanthropic activities that represent a
rechanneling of sexual energy along socially
acceptable lines. In general, sublimation involves
the substitution of a higher, more socially
acceptable activity for an activity that is less
socially acceptable.
Rationalization
A defense mechanism of the ego marked by
the practice of employing false but logical or
even plausible explanations designed to
excuse weakness or errors.
Rationalization
Identification or Introjection
In Freudian psychology, a defense
mechanism of the ego marked by imitation
of another person. The ego attempts to
borrow from the success or adequacy of
another individual.
Identification
Introjection
Denial
Blocking external events from awareness. If some
situation is just too much to handle, the person just
refuses to experience it. As you might imagine, this
is a primitive and dangerous defense -- no one
disregards reality and gets away with it for long! It
can operate by itself or, more commonly, in
combination with other, more subtle mechanisms
that support it
Denial
Intellectualization
Asceticism
The renunciation of needs
Displacement
The redirection of an impulse onto a substitute
target. If the impulse, the desire, is okay with
you, but the person you direct that desire
towards is too threatening, you can displace to
someone or something that can serve as a
symbolic substitute.
Undoing
”Magical" gestures or rituals that are meant
to cancel out unpleasant thoughts or feelings
after they've already occurred. Anna Freud
mentions, for example, a boy who would
recite the alphabet backwards whenever he
had a sexual thought.
Psychoanalysis
Dynamic Therapies
• Psychoanalysis
• Psychodynamic psychotherapy
Psychoanalysis as a Therapeutic
Technique
Freud’s theory of treatment assumes the
operation of specific functional
arrangements between conscious and
unconscious processes. The conscious
mind has only indirect access to the
dangerous materials that reside in the
unconscious domain.
Psychoanalysis as a Therapeutic
Technique
Freud found evidence for unconscious
processes in hypnotic phenomena, slips of
the tongue, forgotten appointments, and
dreams. Dreams have manifest content and
latent content. The former refers to the dream
as described by the dreamer, the latter refers
to the specific way the dream expresses an
unconscious wish or drive.
Psychoanalysis as a Therapeutic
Technique
Freud contended that a major goal of therapy is
to return back to the ego "its mastery over lost
provinces of...mental life." He believed that
dreams provide the most important avenue for
the expression of unconscious forces, but that
there is therapeutic value in simply sharing one’s
story and in free association.
Elements of Dynamic Therapy
•
•
•
•
•
•
Uncovering
Regression
Resistance
Insight
Transference
Reconstruction
Indications for Psychodynamic
Therapy
• Acute focal conflict (conversion, inhibition)
• Major depression (IPT)
• Personality disorders or chronic,
problematic interpersonal patterns
• Dissociative disorders
• Trauma-related disorders
• Resistance to BT, CBT
Transference
Countertransference
Resistance
Appreciative Overview
Emphasis on development
Unconscious processes
Focus on motivation
Psychotherapy
Interdisciplinary contributions
Critical Overview
Tendency to over generalize
Empirical verification
Closedness
Sexual emphasis
Psychoanalytic treatment
Theory of female sexuality