TOP (CHAP 2 FREUD)

• Psychoanalytic Theory and Psychodynamic Theories:
• Unconscious motives and desires are important
• Importance of childhood experiences
• Twin cornerstone of theories: sex and aggression
• Patients of Freud were from upper-middle and upper classes
• Freud's career in medicine and association with Charcot and Breur
• Freud's levels of mental life: conscious, preconscious, and unconscious
• Freudian Slip: unconscious information emerges in slips of the tongue, jokes, dreams, and associations
• Provinces of the Mind: ID, Ego, Superego
• People are motivated by drives of which they have little or no awareness
• Conflicts between ID, Ego, and Superego are constant
• Freud's theory on sexual direction and unhealthy sexual practices
• Levels of Mental Life: conscious, preconscious, unconscious
• Freudian Slip reveals unconscious thoughts and feelings
• Drive/Instincts/Impulses come from the ID
• Sex Drive: life instincts, libido, cathexis, erogenous zones
• Freud's theory on love, narcissism, sadism, and masochism
• Aggression Drive: death instinct, aggressive drive, aim of aggression
• Forms of aggression: teasing, gossip, sarcasm, humor
• Anxiety arises from conflicts between ID, Ego, Superego, and external world
• Anxiety serves as an ego-preserving mechanism by signaling danger
• The ego uses anxiety to be alert for signs of threat and danger
• Three kinds of anxiety involve the id, superego, and external world: neurotic anxiety, moral anxiety, and realistic anxiety
• Neurotic Anxiety:

  • Originates from id impulses
  • People may experience it in the presence of an authority figure due to unconscious feelings of destruction against parents
  • Childhood hostility and fear of punishment can lead to unconscious neurotic anxiety
• Moral Anxiety:

  • Stems from conflict between ego and superego
  • Results from beliefs about morally wrong actions, like yielding to sexual temptations or failing to behave consistently with moral standards
• Realistic Anxiety:

  • Involves a nonspecific feeling of possible danger
  • Related to fear and can occur in situations with real, objective danger
• Defense Mechanisms:

  • Behaviors that protect people from anxiety
  • Many types are automatic and unconscious
  • Ego establishes defense mechanisms to avoid dealing directly with sexual and aggressive impulses and defend against accompanying anxiety
• Principle defense mechanisms identified by Freud:

  • Repression
  • Reaction formation
  • Displacement
  • Fixation
  • Regression
  • Projection
  • Introjection
  • Sublimation
• Repression:

  • Keeps unpleasant thoughts, memories, and feelings in the unconscious
  • Basic defense mechanism involved in protecting the ego from undesirable id impulses
• Reaction Formation:

  • Behaving in a way opposite to unacceptable thoughts or feelings
  • Can be identified by exaggerated character and obsessive-compulsive form
• Projection:

  • Attributing one's own unacceptable thoughts or feelings to someone else
  • Paranoia is an extreme type of projection
• Rationalization:

  • Using incorrect but self-serving explanations to justify unacceptable behavior, thoughts, or feelings
• Displacement:

  • Transferring feelings about a person or event onto someone or something else
  • Involves redirecting unacceptable urges to disguise the original impulse
• Denial:

  • Refusing to acknowledge something obvious to others
• Regression:

  • Reverting to a more immature state of psychological development
  • Common in children and visible in behaviors like bedwetting
• Sublimation:

  • Channeling unacceptable thoughts and feelings into socially acceptable behavior
  • Helps individuals and society, expressed in creative cultural accomplishments
• Psychosexual Stages of Development:

  • Personality solidifies during childhood, largely before age five
  • Five stages involve gaining sexual gratification from different body parts
  • Conflicts in each stage influence personalities, and fixation can occur if needs are over-gratified or frustrated
• Oral Stage:

  • Pleasure from sucking, biting, and swallowing
  • Erogenous zone: mouth
  • Two phases: oral-receptive and oral-sadistic
• Anal Stage:

  • Involves toilet training
  • Erogenous zone: bowel and bladder control
  • Reaction in two ways: anal-aggressive and anal-retentive personalities
• Phallic Stage:

  • Focuses on the genitals
  • Involves guilt or anxiety about sex