PSYCHOANALYTICAL PERSPECTIVE

Freud

Freudian Slips are Funny!

Psychoanalytical Perspective Sigmund Freud Thoughts and

actions are attributed to unconscious motives and conflicts Id Ego Superego

Let’s Get Psychodynamic!

Watch Freud Demonstration

Freudian Role Playing How do the ID, EGO, & SUPEREGO influence

our personality & behavior?

“Anxiety is the price we pay for civilized society.” Sigmund Freud

Defense mechanisms The conflict between the id’s wishes and

the superego’s social rules produces this anxiety.

The ego has an arsenal of unconscious defense mechanisms that help rid anxious tension by distorting reality.

Repression

Repression banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness.

Believed repression was the basis for all the other anxiety-reducing defense mechanisms.

When asked how he feels about the breakup with Muffy, Biff replies, “Who? Oh, yeah, I haven’t thought about her in a while.”

Denial

The most primitive defense, a distortion of reality by simply negating the truth.

Not accepting the ego threatening truth.

Biff continues to act as if he and Muffy are still together. He waits by her locker, calls her every night, and plans their future dates.

Maybe Muffy and I should go to Chipotle

tonight!

Displacement

Redirecting one’s feeling toward another person or object whom they perceive as less threatening.

Biff could displace his feeling of anger and resentment onto his little brother, pet hamster, or football.

Projection

People attribute their own unacceptable desires to others.

Believing that the feelings one has toward someone else are actually held by the other person.

Biff insists MUFFY still cares for him.

I still love Biff!

I wish he would

take me back!

Reaction Formation

Your behavior is exactly opposite your true feelings

Biff claims he loathes Muffy

Man, I’m so glad I dumped Muffy. I

can’t stand her!

Regression

Returning to an earlier, comforting form of behavior.

Biff begins to sleep with his favorite childhood stuffed animal, Fuzzy Kitten.

I just want my Mr. Fuzzy

Kitten…

Rationalization

Coming up with a beneficial result of an undesirable occurrence.

Sweet Lemons & Sour Grapes

Attempts to logically “explain away” unacceptable behavior.

Biff believes that he can find a better girlfriend. Muffy is not really all that pretty, smart, and fun to be with.

Which one?

Intellectualization

Undertaking an academic, unemotional study of a topic.

Helps a person minimize anxiety by viewing threatening issues in abstract terms

Biff embarks on an in-depth research project about failed teen romances.

Sublimation

Channeling one’s frustration toward a different goal.

Sublimation is viewed as a particularly health defense mechanism.

Biff devotes himself to writing poetry and published a small volume before he graduates high school.

Freud’s Psychosexual StagesFreud’s analyses of his patients led him to conclude that personality forms during the first 5-6 years of life. He believed that his patients problems originated in conflicts that had not been resolved during childhood years. These conflicts may manifest themselves later in life.

Oral 1-18 months

Anal 18-36 months

Phallic3-6 years

Latency6-puberty

GenitalPuberty on

Pleasure centers on the mouth- sucking, biting, chewingWeaning can be a conflict in this stage.

Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder function; copingwith demands for control. Potty training can be a conflict.

Pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with incestuous feelings. Boys love mom and fear Dad. “Oedipus Complex”

Dormant sexual feelings. Children repress their feelings for the rival parent. “Identification Process” & “Gender Identity”

Maturation of sexual interests. Begin experiencing sexual feelings toward others.

Freud believed the patient had become “stuck” or “fixated” in one of the stages.

Neo-Freudians

Alfred Adler Believed social tensions, NOT

sexual tensions, were crucial in the development of personality.

Birth Order & Inferiority Complex

Karen Horney Believed Freud’s theory was

male dominated. Social variables, not

biological variables are the foundation of personality development.

Horney and the other Neo’s started the movement toward revising psychoanalysis we use today.

Carl Jung Unlike Adler, Jung discounted

social factors Collective Unconscious-

shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our ancestors.

Archetypes (universal symbols) provided the evidence for this idea. “Shadow” is the darker, evil side of human nature. Supposedly, we hide this archetype from the world and ourselves.

Contemporary psychologists believe that some evolution has contributed to some universal behavior tendencies.