Personality Theory

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Personality Theory

• Chapter 3 Psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud

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Seduction Theory, Freuds Abandonment of It, and
Its Modern Version

• The single cause of neurosis is childhood sexual
  abuse, dealt with by repression.
• The modern version many adult symptoms (e.g.,
  anxiety, depression) result from childhood sexual
  abuse
• Note the clinical problems. Are they all a result
  of depression and anxiety?

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• How do we tell?
• The risk of suggestion by the therapist
• Denial instead of repression
• Casting out an intolerable reality
• Freud was criticized for abandoning a valid
  theory.
• Note how difficult it is to glean unambiguous
  clinical evidence.

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The Beginnings of a Psychological Theory of
Neurosis and of Personality

• Psychological disorder originates in childhood.
• The psychological process of repression.
• Neurotic symptoms express internal conflict,
  which all of us experience.
• Freuds emerging concepts of instinctual life and
  the ego.

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• A psychological method to treat psychological
  disorders.
• The irrationality of symptoms.
• The phenomenon of resistance betrays repression.
• Neurotic symptoms are an unsuccessful attempt at
  compromise between wish fulfillment and ego
  restraint.
• Transference, negative and positive.

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The Structure of Personality

• Instinctual life
• Das Es (the it), id as we call it.
• Biological needs and a psychological part, a
  wish.
• Two mechanisms
• Reflex action (e.g., sucking)
• Primary process (images, hallucinations of
  gratifying objects)

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• Four attributes of instincts
• Source in state of need
• Aim the reduction of tension
• Object environmental objects, persons, and
  behaviour that will reduce tension
• Impetus the strength of an instinct
• The cyclical nature of instincts (arousal and
  quiescence), is called the repetition compulsion.

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• The repetition compulsion also refers to the
  persistence of neurotic behaviour.
• Instincts are significant for human behaviour and
  personality.
• Sex
• Aggression

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• The ego - executive of personality
• Doer, planner, reality tester, and restrainer
• Secondary, not primary process
• The ego develops out of the id.
• Developmental origin the brief experience of
  deprivation
• Threat to the ego and the experience of anxiety
• Reality anxiety
• Neurotic anxiety
• Moral anxiety

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• Mechanisms of defence
• Repression (and denial), reaction formation,
  projection, fixation, and regression.
• All misrepresent the unconscious and distort
  reality.
• The ego and object cathexes
• Libidinal energy invested in objects, persons,
  activities.
• Depression and the withdrawal of object cathexes.
• The massive withdrawal of cathexes in
  schizophrenia.

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• The moral part of personality, the superego
• Later emergence
• Internalized behaviour control
• The ego ideal
• The tyranny of the superego

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Personality Development

• Freuds theory is a stage theory of development.
• Psychological stages are coordinated to the
  biology of instincts.
• Erogenous bodily zones yield pleasure.
• The adaptive significance of this scheme.

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• The stages
• Oral stage (1st year)
• Incorporative and biting (sadistic) sub-stages.
• Anal stage (2nd year)
• There are again sub-stages.
• Pleasure in elimination
• Pleasure in control

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• Phallic stage (years 3-5)
• Very childish sexual pleasure in genital
  stimulation.
• Sexual interest in mother (Oedipus Complex).
• Rivalry with father, which will have to end.
• Renunciation of sexual interest, identification
  with father, and formation of superego
• Personality is now formed.

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Fixation and Character Types

• Oral fixation
• Incorporative dependency, gullibility,
  passivity, all having to do with taking in
• Sadistic the mouth as an instrument of
  aggression
• Anal fixation
• Power struggle between angry parents and
  independence of infant.
• The anal retentive character is miserly,
  stubborn, and unable to love.

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• Phallic fixation
• The effects of failure of identification.
• Fixation in a pregenital stage will leave its
  mark on personality.
• Frustration and threat damage the childs ego.
• Excessive indulgence means inadequate
  socialization.

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• Personality consequences of fixation.
• The case of Little Hans How convincing is it?
• Latency (to puberty)
• Adult genital sexuality

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• The feminine equivalent of the Oedipus Complex.
• Not the threat of castration but perceived
  castration.
• Weakened cathexis for mother, which is gradually
  re-established.
• There is a biological basis for each stage and a
  psychology.

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Psychosexual Theory

• Children pass through stages, each with unique
  biological and psychological characteristics,
• A single dominant motive.
• Where is the theory realistic? Where is it weak?
• How adequate is the evidence?

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• Adult character structure the imprint of
  psychosexual development.
• How expressed in adulthood?
• The libidinal origins of adult behaviour (e.g.,
  smoking, drinking).
• Adult behaviour or symptoms.
• Example hysterical character structure.
• Childhood fixations leading to adult behaviour.

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Dreams

• Manifest ? Dream ? Latent
• Content Work Content

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• Dreams express a forbidden wish that would cause
  anxiety and disrupt sleep.
• Ego censorship
• Processes of the dream work
• Condensation
• Substitution
• Displacement
• Expression in opposites
• Symbolism (e.g., phallic objects)

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• All leading to the mysterious but not
  anxiety-producing manifest content.
• Freudian dream theory draws on clinical data,
  Freuds own dreams, his knowledge of mythology,
  and the meaning of dreams in ancient societies.

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Some Extended Implications of Psychoanalysis

• Creativity the special way libidinal energy is
  expressed.
• Remember that all ego activity ultimately derives
  from the id.
• Regression in the service of the ego

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• The psychology of aggression displacement of the
  death instinct to others.
• Frustration and tension - the price of
  socialization - result in frustration and, in the
  end, aggression.
• In humans, an active instinct for hatred and
  destruction.
• A provocative interpretation of sadism and
  masochism

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• The concept of transference childhood attitudes
  and feelings transferred to analyst.
• A model for other relationships.
• Teachers and students.
• Mommy, I . . .
• Political leaders and followers.

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• Wit and humour
• Forbidden ideas divested of their danger.
• Laughter at a joke a sudden release of tension.

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• Psychoanalysis in literature
• Novelists, poets, and literary critics
• An indirect influence on many writers (e.g.,
  James Joyce and Ulysses).
• Could Joyce have written Ulysses without Freuds
  concept of a psychological unconscious?

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A Psychoanalytic Interpretation of Snow White and
the Seven Dwarfs

• The Story
• Snow White, a princess, is badly treated by her
  wicked stepmother, the queen. She escapes to live
  with the seven dwarfs. The queen finds her and
  poisons her. She lies in a casket for seven years
  and is then rescued by a handsome prince who
  opens her casket with his sword.

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• The Analysis
• This is a thinly disguised Oedipal theme. The bad
  queen represents the mother, on whom Snow White
  projects hate and sexual jealousy. Snow Whites
  emergent sexuality becomes latent for seven
  years, the latency period, and is awakened in
  genital form by the prince. Do the seven
  non-sexual dwarfs also stand for the latency
  period? And the sword?

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• A psychoanalytic interpretation of Snow White and
  the Seven Dwarfs is facetious, but it illustrates
  the extent of Freudian influence on literature
  and story.

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• There is a great deal of serious literature and
  criticism informed by psychoanalysis.
• James Joyces Ulysses shows an indirect
  psychoanalytic influence.

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Research on Psychoanalysis

• Freud saw psychoanalysis as both a method of
  treatment and a scientific method to validate
  hypotheses.
• The experimental method, he claimed, is
  inappropriate to study personality.
• Major problems with the clinical method as a
  method of scientific investigation.

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• Can other clinical observers see the same things?
• Can we replicate clinical observations, or are
  they often unique and unrepeated?

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• Experimental research on psychoanalytic
  hypotheses.
• Two of the areas psychologists have studied
• Repression.
• Unconscious processes.

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• Two experimental approaches to the study of
  repression
• Arouse anxiety (create fright, produce severe ego
  threat), and then test for memory of stimuli
  associated with anxiety experience.
• E.g., Glucksberg and Kings repression
  experiment.
• Select subjects by personality tests who are
  likely to repress and expose them to
  anxiety-related material.

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Glucksberg and Kings Repression Experiment
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• The second approach the study of individual
  differences in motivated forgetting.
• An example Weinberger et al. classified subjects
  as repressors or non-repressors by measures of
  anxiety and defensiveness

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• David Holmes, an authority on repression research
  concludes that there is no controlled laboratory
  evidence supporting the concept of repression.

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• Research on unconscious processes.
• Freud made the unconscious a core part of
  personality.
• There are other views
• Pierre Janets concept of dissociation.
• William James and unconscious mental states.

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• Freuds unconscious the store of ideas and
  feelings too disturbing to be admitted to
  consciousness.
• Behaviourism rejected the study of unconscious
  processes.
• The cognitive revolution starting in the 1970s
  and the study of processes outside awareness.

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• The distinction between explicit and implicit
  memory.
• Implicit memories can influence thought and
  action without our awareness.
• An experimental example.
• Implications for persuasion advertising and
  propaganda.

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• A motivational unconscious.
• A distinction between explicit and implicit
  motives.
• Implicit motives can be assessed by projective
  tests like the TAT.
• Explicit motives predict short-term behaviour.
• Implicit motives predict long-term goals and
  lifestyle.

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• The literature on a psychological unconscious is
  very large.
• This research doesnt directly test Freudian
  hypotheses about the unconscious.
• Modern cognitive research on the unconscious does
  owe a debt to Freud.

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• The status of research on psychoanalysis is
  ambiguous.
• What do we believe about repression? About the
  complexities of the Freudian unconscious?
• How do we judge psychoanalysis?
• In places, it is wrong (feminine psychology, the
  psychology of aggression).
• Many hypotheses are difficult or impossible to
  test.

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• Psychoanalysis, though, is a rich and complex
  theory.
• How do we deal with its record of failure in
  research?
• The theory is still alive and influential.
• Should its place in clinical practice continue?
  Its cultural influence?
• Should we continue to pursue research on
  psychoanalysis?

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Take-Home Messages

• A review of the seduction theory and its modern
  version.
• The many proposed symptoms of modern seduction
  theory.
• Denial instead of repression.
• Clinical problems
• How do we distinguish stories from reality?
• Links between child experience and adult neurosis?

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• An extraordinary list of Freuds early
  discoveries
• Childhood origins of psychological disorder
• Repression
• Conflict
• Instinctual life and the ego
• A psychological method to treat psychological
  disorders
• Resistance
• Transference

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• The structure of personality
• The id and instinctual life.
• Attributes of instincts source, aim, object,
  impetus.
• The repetition compulsion, a cycle of instinctual
  life, and its neurotic expression.
• Significant instincts in personality sex and
  aggression.

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• The ego does, plans, tests, and restrains.
• Derived from the id.
• The ego and anxiety
• Defence mechanisms
• Repression
• Reaction formation
• Projection
• Fixation and regression
• The ego and object cathexes.

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• The superego conscience, ego ideal.
• Later development.
• Internalized control of behaviour.
• An ideal image of self and where it comes from.
• A tyrannical moral master.

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• Dreams, the royal road to the unconscious.
• Manifest content, dream work, and the latent
  content, a wish.
• The processes of the egos dream work
• Condensation, substitution, displacement,
  expression in opposites.
• Dream symbolism.
• The sources of dream theory.

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• Freuds stage theory of psychological
  development, the psychosexual stages.
• Psychological stages coordinated to the
  biological unfolding of instincts.
• Erogenous zones and pleasure.

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• The stages
• Oral (incorporative and biting) 1st year
• Note the consequences of fixation.
• Anal 2nd year
• The childs first exposure to socialization
  demands
• Potential problems and how to avoid them.
• Phallic (about 3-5)
• The boys emerging sexuality and childish desire
  for his mother.
• The significant case of Little Hans and
  interpretation of his fantasy and phobia.
• The resolution of the Oedipus Complex and
  superego formation.

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• The girl and the castration complex.
• A perceived loss leads to anger toward the mother
  and turning away from her.
• The girl will have to re-establish her cathexis
  for her mother and adopt her as ego ideal and
  source of conscience.
• Why are there conscience differences between men
  and women?
• Is this a satisfactory theory of feminine
  development?

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• Personality is basically formed with the
  resolution of the Oedipus Complex
• Latency
• Genital sexuality
• Adult character structure reflects the way
  libidinal energy was socialized and fixations
  that may have occurred.

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• Some implications of psychoanalysis for
• Creative expression.
• Human aggression, both individual and group.
• An extended view of transference.
• Students and teachers
• Followers and leaders
• Wit and humour.
• Psychoanalysis and literature.

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• Research on psychoanalysis
• Freuds claim that only in psychoanalysis can its
  hypotheses be tested.
• Experimental psychologys insistence that
  controlled experimentation is required.
• Two areas of research on psychoanalysis
• Repression
• An uncertain record

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• The unconscious
• Modern cognitive psychology has evidence of
  unconscious influences on behaviour and evidence
  for a motivated unconscious.

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• Summing up
• A commandingly inclusive theory but a
  problematical one.
• Hypotheses that are wrong or very difficult to
  test.