the psychoanalytic perspective zfrom freud’s theory which proposes that childhood sexuality and...

The Psychoanalytic Perspective

From Freud’s theory which proposes that childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence personality

Personality


Perspectives on Personality

• Personality is a person’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.

• Four major perspectives on personality– Psychoanalytic– Trait– Humanistic– Social cognitive

Issues in personality theory

• Free will or determinism? • Nature or Nurture?• Past, present, or future?• Uniqueness or universality?• Equilibrium or growth?• Optimism or pessimism?


• Psychoanalysis– Freud’s psychoanalytic theory that attributes

our thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts

– techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions


• Free Association– in psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the

unconscious– person relaxes and says whatever comes to

mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing

The Psychoanalytic Perspective• Unconscious

– According to Freud- a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings and memories

– Contemporary viewpoint- information processing of which we are unaware

• Preconscious– information that is not

conscious, but is retrievable into conscious awareness

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Personality Structure• Id

– contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy

– strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives

– operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification

www.cbs.columbia.edu

Personality Structure

• Superego– the part of personality that presents

internalized ideals– provides standards for judgement and for

future aspirations

Personality Structure

• Ego– the largely conscious, “executive” part of

personality– mediates among the demands of the id,

superego and reality– operates on the reality principle, satisfying

the id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain

Personality Development• Psychosexual Stages

– the childhood stages of development during which the id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones

• Oedipus Complex– a boy’s sexual desires

toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father

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Personality DevelopmentFreud’s Psychosexual Stages

Stage Focus

Oral Pleasure centers on the mouth--(0-18 months) sucking, biting, chewing

Anal Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder (18-36 months) elimination; coping with demands for

control

Phallic Pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with (3-6 years) incestuous sexual feelings

Latency Dormant sexual feelings(6 to puberty)

Genital Maturation of sexual interests(puberty on)

Personality DevelopmentAccording to Freud, • Identification

– the process by which children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos.

– What we now call gender identity• Fixation

– a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, where conflicts were unresolved

• Maladaptive adult behavior arises from the oral, anal, and phallic stages.

Defense Mechanisms

• Defense Mechanisms– the ego’s protective methods of reducing

anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality• Repression

– the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness

Defense Mechanisms

• Reaction Formation – defense mechanism by which the ego

unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites

– people may express feelings that are the opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings

Defense Mechanisms

• Projection – defense mechanism by which people disguise their

own threatening impulses by attributing them to others

• Rationalization – defense mechanism that offers self-justifying

explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one’s actions

Defense Mechanisms

• Displacement– defense mechanism that shifts sexual or

aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person

– as when redirecting anger toward a safer outlet

Defense Mechanisms

• Sublimation– defense mechanism by which people

rechannel their unacceptable impulses into socially approved activities

The Interpretation of Dreams

• Sigmund Freud- The Interpretation of Dreams (1900)– wish fulfillment – discharge otherwise unacceptable feelings

• Manifest Content– remembered story line

• Latent Content– underlying, uncensored meaning

Evaluating Freudian Psychology

• Important within its historical context• Researchers find little support that defense

mechanisms disguise sexual and aggressive impulses

• History does not support Freud’s idea that sexual repression causes psychological disorders

The Neo-FreudiansAccepted basic ideas of Freud

• Personality structures• Importance of unconscious• Shaping of personality in

children• Anxiety and defense

mechanisms

Challenged ideas of Freud

• Motives of sex and aggression• Conscious mind in interpreting

experience and coping with the environment

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The Neo-Freudians

Like Freud, Adler believed in childhood tensions. However, these tensions were social in nature and not sexual. A child struggles with an

inferiority complex during growth and

strives for superiority and power.

Alfred Adler (1870-1937)

National L

ibrary of Medicine

25

The Neo-Freudians

Like Adler, Horney believed in the

social aspects of childhood growth and development.

She countered Freud’s assumption

that women have weak superegos and suffer from “penis

envy.” Karen Horney (1885-1952)

The B

ettmann A

rchive/ Corbis

26

The Neo-Freudians

Jung believed in the collective unconscious,

which contained a common reservoir of images derived from

our species’ past. This is why many cultures share certain myths and images such as the mother being a

symbol of nurturance.Carl Jung (1875-1961)

Archive of the H

istory of Am

erican Psychology/ University of A

kron

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Assessing Unconscious Processes

Evaluating personality from an unconscious mind’s perspective would require a

psychological instrument (projective tests) that would reveal the hidden unconscious mind.

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Thematic Apperception Test(TAT)Developed by Henry Murray, the TAT is a

projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the

stories they make up about ambiguous scenes.

Lew

Merrim

/ Photo Researcher, Inc.

29

Rorschach Inkblot Test

The most widely used projective test uses a set of 10 inkblots and was designed by Hermann Rorschach. It seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their

interpretations of the blots.

Lew

Merrim

/ Photo Researcher, Inc.

30

Evaluating the Psychoanalytic Perspective

1. Personality develops throughout life and is not fixed in childhood.

2. Freud underemphasized peer influence on the individual, which may be as powerful as parental influence.

3. Gender identity may develop before 5-6 years of age.

Modern Research

31


4. There may be other reasons for dreams besides wish fulfillment.

5. Verbal slips can be explained on the basis of cognitive processing of verbal choices.

6. Suppressed sexuality leads to psychological disorders. Sexual inhibition has decreased, but psychological disorders have not.

Modern Research

32


Freud's psychoanalytic theory rests on the repression of painful experiences into

the unconscious mind.

The majority of children, death camp survivors, and battle-scarred veterans are

unable to repress painful experiences into their unconscious mind.

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The Modern Unconscious Mind

Modern research shows the existence of non-conscious information processing. This involves:

1. schemas that automatically control perceptions and interpretations

2. the right-hemisphere activity that enables the split-brain patient’s left hand to carry out an instruction the patient cannot verbalize

3. parallel processing during vision and thinking

4. implicit memories

5. emotions that activate instantly without consciousness

6. self-concept and stereotypes that unconsciously influence us

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The scientific merits of Freud’s theory have been criticized. Psychoanalysis is meagerly testable. Most of its concepts arise out of clinical practice, which are

the after-the-fact explanation.

• narcissitic parenting

the psychoanalytic perspective zfrom freud’s theory which proposes that childhood sexuality and...

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