Personality Theory

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Personality Theory

• Chapter 2 The Beginnings of Personality Theory

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Sigmund Freud

• Freud was born in the small provincial town of
  Freiberg in Moravia, now Príbor in the Czech
  Republic
• He grew up in the sophisticated, but
  anti-Semitic, city of Vienna
• European culture and sexual repression
• A brilliant son, he was the indulged family
  favourite

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• He attended medical school at the University of
  Vienna, where he performed research in the
  laboratories of Ernst Brücke and other
  distinguished professors
• Neuro-anatomist, neuro-physiologist
• A blocked academic career

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Hysteria and Hypnosis

• The brilliant Charcots neurological clinic
• Exposure to the neurosis of hysteria
• Charcots explorations in hypnosis
• A model of hysteria?
• Treatment for hysteria?

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• Another (more correct) view of hypnosis from
  Liébeault and Bernheim
• It is suggestion, not a hysterical manifestation

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• A psychiatric practice with Josef Breuer, an
  older colleague
• Neurotic patients, many of whom were hysteric
• Often unsuccessful treatment techniques
• Discovery of the role of emotional release,
  abreaction

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• Breuer had one patient in particular, Anna O.,
  who exhibited a gallery of hysterical symptoms
• Breuers and Annas discovery of chimney
  sweeping
• Emotional attachments, transference, and (a
  no-no!) countertransference
• Breuer held the key in his hand . . .

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• Frau Emmy von N. Why dont you let me tell you
  in my own words?
• The new talking cure free association

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Discoveries

• Resistance and repression
• A sign of repression
• An internal war psychological conflict
• The irrationality of symptoms
• Unconscious mental life
• The role of childhood in the development of
  neurosis

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• The seduction theory
• Note its contemporary version
• Freuds early theory of neurosis
• Childhood sexual trauma ? anxiety ? repression
  (denial) ? strangulated affect ? neurotic
  symptoms
• The patient is the victim of the effects of
  childhood sexual trauma.

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• Freud held this theory for only a year
• He saw problems with the degree of implausibility
  and inconsistencies in patients stories
• The new theory
• Unconscious wishes/fantasies ? anxiety/revulsion
  ? repression other defences ? formation of
  neurotic symptoms
• The patient is the victim of wish- and fantasy-
  induced anxiety and guilt.

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• Psychological conflict between insistent wishes
  and fantasies, the kinds of things children think
  of, and the terrible anxiety and guilt they will
  cause
• The content of the unconscious is not passive.
• There are inevitable reminders in our lives.
• Unconscious wishes demand expression.

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• Maintaining repression
• Energy expenditure
• Symbolic expression of the unconscious
• Slips of the tongue
• A Freudian slip
• Accidents which arent really accidents at all

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Two Questions to Think About

• What do you think of the seduction theory?
• Consider its evidence
• Weaknesses?
• Strengths?
• What was the influence of Freuds time and
  culture on the development of psycho-analysis?

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Take-Home Messages

• Freuds history and times Did they influence the
  theory?
• Freud had brilliant promise but no academic
  career
• Exposure to Charcot, the most famous neurologist
  of his day
• Hysteria and hypnosis
• A corrective view of hypnosis

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• Breuers famous patient, Anna O., and the
  talking cure
• The basis of neurosis in the sexual motive
• Two theories of neurosis
• The seduction theory (note its modern version)
• Wish/fantasy/guilt theory, which lays the basis
  for psychoanalytic theory

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• Discoveries
• Resistance and repression
• Psychological conflict
• Symptom irrationality
• The role of childhood in the development of
  neurosis (and personality)

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• The sexual basis of neurosis
• An imperative unconscious
• Symbolic expression of conflict