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SIGMUND FREUD (1856-1839): A VIEW OF THE THEORIST
- Born in Moravia (in what is now the city of Fribourg of the Czech Republic) in 1856, though spent most of his life in Vienna
- Was the first child of his parents, but his father had two sons by previous marriage
- Parents then had seven more children after his birth
- Was aware that he was his mother’s favorite SIGMUND FREUD (1856-1839): A VIEW OF THE THEORIST
- Enrolled in medical school at the University of Vienna
- Influenced by an intellectual movement known as mechanism
- The principles of natural science could explain not only the behavior of physical objects but human thought and behavior as well
- Vitalism claims that a non-physical spiritual force is responsible for life
- For financial reasons, abandoned a neurology research career and became a physician
- In 1897, the year after my father’s death, plagued by depression and anxiety
- Sought relief via self-analysis, an activity that proved fundamental to the development of psychoanalysis
- Tried a variety of techniques to uncover the underlying psychological causes of patients’ problems, including hypnosis and free association SIGMUND FREUD (1856-1839): A VIEW OF THE THEORIST
- In 1900 published The Interpretation of Dreams -Developed theory about the basic structures and working principles of the human psyche
- Views were ridiculed and medical institutions that taught them were boycotted
- Gradually achieved recognition
- Lectures in the United States in 1909 enhanced his profile outside of Europe
- An International Psychoanalytic Association was founded in 1910
- Published prolifically, had a waiting list of patients, and achieved increasing fame
- By the time of his death in London on September 23, 1939 was an international celebrity THE MIND AS AN ENERGY SYSTEM
- The mind is a system that contains and directs instinctual drives
- The major scientific problem is to explain how mental energy flows, gets sidetracked, gets dammed up THE MIND AS AN ENERGY SYSTEM Three core ideas:
- There is a limited amount of energy 2, Energy can be blocked but does not “just go away”; instead gets expressed in some 3. other manner, along a path of least resistance
- The mind functions to achieve a state of quiescence
The case of Anna O
- Experienced bizarre symptoms whose biological causes could not be determined partial paralysis
- blurred vision
- persistent cough
- difficulty conversing in her native language, German “Hysterical” symptoms: emotional disorders that manifest themselves in physical symptoms (currently known as somatization disorder)
- Anna O. found that she would experience relief from a symptom if she could trace it to an event in her past “Catharsis”
- release and freeing of emotions by talking about one’s problems
- Two implications of catharsis
- Mind is an energy system
- The mind has more than one part
- A region of ideas of which people are consciously aware
- A more mysterious, hidden region of ideas that lie outside of awareness: “unconscious” PERSONALITY AND THE BRAIN
- Hysteria (Conversion Disorder)
- When Freud first started studying hysteria, some of his peers thought hysterics were fakers
- One way to find out is to turn to contemporary evidence on personality and the brain
- studied 16 people with conversion using brain imaging techniques
Superego FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY STRUCTURE
- Levels of Consciousness and the Concept of the Unconscious
- The conscious level includes thoughts of which we are aware
- The preconscious level contains mental contents of which we easily could become aware if we attended to them
- Unconscious mental contents are parts of the mind of which we are unaware and cannot become aware except under special circumstances FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY STRUCTURE
- Levels of Consciousness and the Concept of the Unconscious
- Freud attempted to understand the properties of the unconscious by analyzing a variety of psychological phenomena: slips of the tongue
- Neuroses
- Psychoses
*Neurosis is a mild mental disorder NOT arising from organic diseases –
instead, it can occur from stress, depression, or anxiety. Psychosis is a major
personality disorder characterized by mental and emotional disruptions
- Cant take care of themselves FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY STRUCTURE Manifest content = the storyline of a dream Latent content = unconscious ideas, emotions, and drives that are manifested in the dream’s storyline FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY STRUCTURE Levels of Consciousness and the Concept of the Unconscious In analyzing dreams, Freud noted that the unconscious:
Is bizarre Is alogical (e.g., opposites can stand for the same thing) Disregards time (e.g., events of different periods may coexist) Disregards space Deals in a world of symbols FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY STRUCTURE
- Levels of Consciousness and the Concept of the Unconscious
- Latent content of dreams: unconscious wishes Manifest content: wish fulfillment
- Symbolically represents the fulfillment of unconscious wishes that it may be impossible to fulfill in everyday
- A person can satisfy a hostile or sexual wish in a disguised and thereby safe way
- In The Interpretation of Dreams, each element of the dream is treated as a clue to the underlying wish that the dream represents FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY STRUCTURE
- The Motivated Unconscious
- Mental contents enter the unconscious for motivated reasons
- Unconscious stores ideas that are so traumatic that they would cause psychological pain
- We are motivated to banish such thoughts from awareness
- Freud’s fundamental message to the world
- Thoughts in the unconscious influence ongoing conscious experience
- Our conscious thoughts, feelings, and actions are fundamentally determined by mental contents of which we are unaware FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY STRUCTURE
- Relevant Psychoanalytic Research
- Clinical observations suggested to Freud that the unconscious includes memories and wishes that are “deliberately buried” in our unconscious
- People under hypnosis can recall things they previously could not
- Patients often become aware of memories and wishes previously buried FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY STRUCTURE
- Relevant Psychoanalytic Research
threatening or anxiety-alleviating unconscious wishes and then observing participants’ reactions
- The material is shown for long enough to activate the unconscious wish but short enough so that it is not recognized consciously FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY STRUCTURE Relevant Psychoanalytic Research Silverman and colleagues’ research Subliminally presented conflict-intensifying material (“Loving Daddy Is Wrong”) and conflict-reducing material (“Loving Daddy Is OK”) to female undergraduates For subjects prone to conflict over sexual urges, the conflict-intensifying material, presented outside of awareness, was found to disrupt memory for passages presented after the subliminal activation of the conflict (This was not true for the conflict-reducing material or for subjects not prone to conflict over sexual urges ) FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY STRUCTURE
- Relevant Psychoanalytic Research
- Patton’s (1992) research on eating disorders
- Healthy college-age women and women with signs of eating disorders were compared in terms of how many crackers they would eat following subliminal presentation of three messages: Mama Is Leaving Me, Mama Is Loaning It, Mona Is Loaning It
- The eating disordered subjects who received the abandonment stimulus below threshold ate more crackers than subjects without an eating disorder or subjects with an eating disorder exposed to the abandonment stimulus above threshold CURRENT APPLICATIONS MOTIVATED UNCONSCIOUS PROCESSES IN POLITICAL JUDGMENTS Westen et al. (2006) presented information threatening to one of three target persons a political candidate they favored, the opposing candidate, or a well-known but neutral figure Participants’ brain activity was recorded using fMRI
When thinking about information threatening to their favored candidate, participants judged that such information cast a bad light on the opposing candidate, but that it did not have the same negative implications for their favored candidate When participants were making judgments about information threatening to their preferred candidate, regions of the brain associated with emotional response were particularly active Emotional reactions, then, appeared to drive defensive information processing. This and other research supports a psychoanalytic motivated unconscious processing of information FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY STRUCTURE Id, Ego, and Superego Distinctions among conscious, preconscious, and unconscious proved to be inadequate b/c ignored a psychological agency (the “ego”) that Was unitary in its functioning Varied in its degree of consciousness Needed another conceptual tool that distinguished among three systems In 1923, Freud presented a second model of mind: that of the id, ego, and superego FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY STRUCTURE Id
- Source of all drive energy – the “great reservoir” of mental energies
- Seeks the release of excitation or tension
- Operates according to the pleasure principle: pursue pleasure and avoid pain Does not: Devise plans and strategies for obtaining pleasure Wait patiently for a particularly pleasing object to appear Concern itself with social norms and rules Seeks satisfaction through action or merely by imagining that it has gotten what it wants Functions entirely outside of conscious awareness 30 FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY STRUCTURE Superego Functions involve moral aspects of social behavior
FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY
PROCESS
Death instinct Very opposite of the life instinct Aim of the organism to die or return to inorganic state One of the most controversial and least accepted parts of psychoanalytic theory Death instinct often turned away from oneself and directed toward others in acts of aggression Some analysts refer to the instinct as an aggressive instinct FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY PROCESS The Dynamics of Functioning Instincts can be: Blocked from expression Expressed in a modified way Sexual instinct 🡪Affection Aggressive instinct 🡪Sarcasm Expressed without modification Displaced from one object to another Love of one’s mother 🡪wife, children, or dog Combined Sexual and Aggressive Instincts 🡪Football FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY PROCESS The Dynamics of Functioning The interplay between expression and inhibition of instincts is foundation of dynamic aspects of psychoanalytic theory Key concept: anxiety: painful emotional experience representing a threat or danger Alerts the ego to danger so that it can act Related to an earlier trauma Later, associated with similar trauma
Anxiety develops out of conflict between the push of id and threat of punishment by superego FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY PROCESS Anxiety, Mechanisms of Defense, and Contemporary Research on Defensive Processes Individuals develop defense mechanisms to avoid anxiety Develop ways to distort reality and exclude feelings from awareness Defensive functions carried out by the ego to cope with impulses of id FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY PROCESS Denial In conscious thought, deny the existence of a traumatic or otherwise socially unacceptable fact Fact is so “terrible” that one denies that it is “true” Avoidance may be initially conscious, but later becomes automatic and unconscious Psychoanalysts doubt that distortions about oneself and others can have value for adaptive functions Yet, some psychologists suggest that positive illusions and self-deceptions can be adaptive and perhaps essential, for mental health The answer appears to depend on the extent of distortion, how pervasive it is, and the circumstances under which it occurs FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY PROCESS Projection People defend against the recognition of their own negative qualities by projecting them on to others Social-cognitive analysis of projection People tend to dwell on those features of themselves that they do not like Whenever one dwells on a topic, it becomes “chronically accessible” Whenever one interprets the actions of other people, one does so by using concepts in one’s own mind
Example: Some of the greatest atrocities of humankind have been committed in the name of love FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY PROCESS Sublimation Original object of gratification is replaced by a higher cultural goal that is far removed from a direct expression of the instinct Instinct is turned into a new and useful channel Freud interpreted daVinci’s Madonna as a sublimation of his longing for his mother FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY PROCESS Repression The major defense mechanism of psychoanalytic theory A thought, idea, or wish so traumatic and threatening that it is buried in the unconscious Viewed as playing a part in all other defense mechanisms Requires a constant expenditure of energy FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY PROCESS Freud first recognized repression in his therapeutic work After weeks or months of therapy, patients would remember traumatic events from their past and experience a catharsis Prior to recalling the event, the idea of the event was outside of conscious awareness The person first experienced the event consciously, but the experience was so traumatic that the individual repressed it FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY PROCESS Rosenzweig (1941) Varied the level of personal involvement in a task Studied participants’ recall of their success or failure on the activity When participants were personally involved, recalled a larger proportion of successfully completed tasks vs. tasks they had been unable to complete
Presumably repressed the experiences of failure FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY PROCESS Morokoff (1985) Women high and low in sex guilt exposed to an erotic videotape Were asked to report level of sexual arousal while physiological response was recorded Women high in sex guilt reported less arousal than those low in sex guilt but showed greater physiological arousal Presumably, guilt led to repression FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY PROCESS Weinberger, Schwartz, and Davidson (1979) solved two problems confronted by repression researchers How does one identify repressors? How does one demonstrate that the repressors actually are experiencing emotions that they do not admit having? Administered a social desirability scale plus a self-report measure of anxiety FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY PROCESS Weinberger, Schwartz, and Davidson (1979) People who (a) report extremely low levels of anxiety, but also (b) score high on social desirability are repressing their anxieties Low anxious, high anxious, and repressors then invited to participate in laboratory study Asked to complete word phrases, some of which contained sexual or aggressive content Anxious arousal measured physiologically Repressors—who had described themselves as low in anxiety—were actually high in anxiety Physiological measures indicated they experienced anxious exceeded low anxious and high anxious FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY PROCESS Davis and Schwartz (1987)
A strong psychoanalytic position would suggest that most significant aspects of later personality entirely determined by the end of the first five years of life FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT The Development of the Instincts and Stages of Development Freud: What is the nature of the instincts one must cope with during development? Theory of psychosexual stages of development Development occurs in a series of distinct steps, or stages Each stage is characterized by a bodily source of gratification: the “erogenous zone” FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT The Development of the Instincts and Stages of Development Oral stage: sensual gratification centers on the mouth Early oral gratification occurs in feeding, thumb sucking, and other mouth movements characteristic of infants In adult life, orality seen in chewing gum, eating, smoking, kissing In early oral stage, child is passive and receptive In late oral stage, with the development of teeth, can be a fusion of sexual and aggressive pleasures 55 FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT The Development of the Instincts and Stages of Development Anal stage (ages 2 and 3): excitation in the anus and in movement of feces Pleasure related to this erogenous zone involves the organism in conflict between wish for pleasure in evacuation and the demands of the external world for delay Conflict represents first crucial conflict between the individual and society Child may associate having bowel movements with losing something important, which leads to depression Child may associate bowel movements with giving a prize or gift to others, which may create feelings of power and control FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY
GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT
The Development of the Instincts and Stages of Development Phallic stage (ages 4 and 5): excitation and tension focused on the genitals Biological differentiation between the sexes leads to psychological differentiation Increased interest in the genitals leads boys to realize that females lacks a penis; castration anxiety Oedipus complex: fate of every boy is to kill his father and marry his mother The father becomes a rival for the affections of the mother Boy’s hostility toward father causes increased castration anxiety and eventual abandonment of Oedipus complex FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT Silverman and colleagues (1978) research on subliminal psychodynamic activation studies Subliminal stimuli, presented after participants engaged in a dart-throwing competition: “Beating Dad Is Wrong” vs. “Beating Dad Is OK” vs. neutral stimuli (e.g., “People Are Walking) Participants tested again for dart-throwing performance following subliminal exposure The “Beating Dad Is OK” stimulus produced higher scores than the neutral stimulus “Beating Dad Is Wrong” stimulus produced lower scores These results not obtained when the stimuli were presented above threshold FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT Developmental processes during the phallic stage differ for females Females realize they lack a penis and blame the mother Develop penis envy: choose the father as the love object and imagine that the lost organ will be restored by having a child by the father Oedipus complex is started because of penis envy Female child resolves the conflict by keeping the father as a love object but gaining him through identification with the mother
GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT
The Importance of Early Experience Many contemporary researchers suggest a greater potential for development and change across the life span Are isolated traumatic events less important than the repeated experiences of a less dramatic but more persistent nature? FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT The Importance of Early Experience Gaensbauer (1982) “Jenny” first studied systematically at almost four months old At three months, physically abused by father Foster home and depression Second foster home; warm attention and normal responding 8 months, returned to natural mother 20 months, still some separation distress Evidence of both continuity and discontinuity between Jenny’s early emotional experiences and her later emotional reactions FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT The Importance of Early Experience Lewis et al. (1984) Assessed the relationship between early emotional relationships with the mother and later psychopathology Attachment behavior toward their mother of boys and girls one year of age was observed Children assigned to attachment categories: avoidant, secure, or ambivalent For boys, attachment was significantly related to later pathology No relationship between attachment and later pathology observed for girls FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT The Development of Thinking Processes Distinction between primary and secondary process thought.
Primary process thinking = language of the unconscious Illogical and irrational Reality and fantasy indistinguishable Secondary process thinking = language of consciousness, reality testing, and logic FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT The Development of Thinking Processes Development parallels the development of the ego and superego Contemporary psychologists have recognized that the mind works according to more than one thinking process Epstein (1994) experiential vs. rational thinking Bolte, Goschke, & Kuhl, (2003) analytic vs. holistic thinking Metcalfe & Mischel (1999) “hot” emotional processes versus relatively “cool” logical cognition Baron-Cohen (2002) feeling states describable as “empathizing” versus rational thought processes that involve “systemizing”
