CHAPTER 2: Psychoanalysis

• Psychoanalysis

  • Most famous personality theory
• Sigmund Freud

  • Found Psychoanalysis
• Hysteria

  • a disorder typically characterized by paralysis or the improper functioning of certain parts of the body. 
• Catharsis

  • the process of removing hysterical symptoms through “talking them out.”
• Creative Illness

  • a condition characterized by depression, neurosis, psychosomatic ailments, and an intense preoccupation with some form of creative activity.
• Unconscious and Conscious

  • Two levels of mental life according to freud
• Unconscious Proper and Preconscious Proper

  • Two different levels of unconsciousness.
• Unconscious

  • To Freud, it is the explanation for the meaning behind dreams, slips of the tongue, and certain kinds of forgetting, called repression.
• Suppression

  • The blocking or inhibiting of an activity either by a conscious act of the will or by an outside agent such as parents or other authority figures. It differs from repression, which is the unconscious blocking of anxiety-producing experiences. 
• Repression

  • The forcing of unwanted, anxiety-laden experiences into the unconscious as a defense against the pain of that anxiety.
• Phylogenetic Endowment

  • Unconscious inherited images that have been passed down to us through many generations of repetition. A concept used by both Freud and Klein.
• Preconscious

  • contains all those elements that are not conscious but can become conscious either quite readily or with some difficulty.
• Conscious Perception

  • What a person perceives is conscious for only a transitory period; it quickly passes into the preconscious when the focus of attention shifts to another idea. These ideas that alternate easily between being conscious and preconscious are largely free from anxiety and in reality are much more similar to the conscious images than to the unconscious urges
• Unconscious Perception

  • Freud believed that ideas can slip past the vigilant censor and enter into the preconscious in a disguised form.
• Consciousness

  • can be defined as those mental elements in awareness at any given point in time. It is the only level of mental life directly available to us. Ideas can reach consciousness from two different directions.
• Perceptual Conscious System

  • turned toward the outer world and acts as a medium for the perception of external stimuli. In other words, what we perceive through our sense organs, if not too threatening, enters into consciousness.
• Levels of Mental Life

  • Conscious - Censorship - Preconscious - Final Censorship - Eye of Consciousness
• Id

  • The region of personality that is alien to the ego because it includes experiences that have never been owned by the person. The id is the home base for all the instincts, and its sole function is to seek pleasure regardless of consequences. 
• Ego

  • The province of the mind that refers to the “I” or those experiences that are owned (not necessarily consciously) by the person. As the only region of the mind in contact with the real world, it is said to serve the reality principle. 
• SuperEgo

  • The moral or ethical processes of personality. The superego has two subsystems—the conscience, which tells us what is wrong, and the ego-ideal, which tells us what is right. Represents the moral and ideal aspects of personality
• Id

  • At the core of personality and completely unconscious is the psychical region
• Id

  •  a term derived from the impersonal pronoun meaning “the it,” or the not-yet-owned component of personality. It has no contact with reality, yet it strives constantly to reduce tension by satisfying basic desires. Because its sole function is to seek pleasure, we say that it serves the pleasure principle.
• Id

  • is primitive, chaotic, inaccessible to consciousness, unchangeable, amoral, illogical, unorganized, and filled with energy received from basic drives and discharged for the satisfaction of the pleasure principle.
• Pleasure Principle

  • A reference to the motivation of the id to seek immediate reduction of tension through the gratification of instinctual drives
• Primary Process

  • A reference to the id, which houses the primary motivators of behavior, called instincts. Pleasure Principle.
• Secondary Process

  • process functions through the ego. A reference to the ego, which chronologically is the second region of the mind (after the id or primary process). Is in contact with reality. 
• Reality Principle

  • A reference to the ego, which must realistically arbitrate the conflicting demands of the id, the superego, and the external world.
• Moralistic Principle

  • Reference to the conscience, a subsystem of the supergo that tells people what they should not do. 
• Idealistic Principle

  • A reference to the ego-ideal, a subsystem of the superego that tells people what they should do. 
• Conscience and Ego Ideal

  • Two subsystems of the superego
• Conscience

  • The part of the superego that results from experience with punishment and that, therefore, tells a person what is wrong or improper conduct. 
• Ego Ideal

  • The part of the superego that results from experiences with reward and that, therefore, teaches a person what is right or proper conduct.
• Eros and Thanatos

  • Two major headings of various drives.
• Eros

  • Sex
• Thanatos

  • aggression, distraction
• Libido

  • Sex Drive 
• Impetus, Source, Aim, Object

  • Every basic drive is characterized by this.
• Impetus

  • Amount of force the drive exerts.
• Source

  • Is the region of the body in a state of excitation or tension in basic drives.
• Aim

  • to seek pleasure by removing that excitation or reducing the tension in basic drives.