Psychoanalytic Theory

1
Psychoanalytic Theory

• Personality According to
• Sigmund Freud

2
Personality

• An individuals unique and relatively consistent
  patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving

3
Personality Theory

• Attempt to describe and explain how people are
  similar, how they are different, and why every
  individual is unique

4
Personality Perspectives

• Psychoanalyticimportance of unconscious
  processes and childhood experiences
• Humanisticimportance of self and fulfillment of
  potential
• Social cognitiveimportance of beliefs about self
• Traitdescription and measurement of personality
  differences

5
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

• Founder of psychoanalysis
• Proposed the first complete theory of personality
• A persons thoughts and behaviors emerge from
  tension generated by unconscious motives and
  unresolved childhood conflicts.

Learn more about Freud at www.freud.org.uk www.lc
web.loc.gov/exhibits/freud
6
Psychoanalytic Approach

• Developed by Sigmund Freud
• Psychoanalysis is both an approach to therapy and
  a theory of personality
• Emphasizes unconscious motivation the main
  causes of behavior lie buried in the unconscious
  mind

7
Psychoanalysis as a Therapy

• A therapeutic technique that attempts to provide
  insight into ones thoughts and actions
• Does so by exposing and interpreting the
  underlying unconscious motives and conflicts

8
Psychodynamic Perspective

• A more modern view of personality that retains
  some aspects of Freudian theory but rejects other
  aspects
• Retains the importance of the unconscious mind
• Less emphasis on unresolved childhood conflicts

9
The Psychodynamic PerspectiveFreuds View of
the Mind
10
Free Association

• Freudian technique of exploring the unconscious
  mind by having the person relax and say whatever
  comes to mind no matter how trivial or
  embarrassing

The Couch
11
Conscious Mind

• All the thoughts, feelings, and sensations that
  you are aware of at this particular moment
  represent the conscious level

12
Preconscious Mind

• A region of the mind holding information that is
  not conscious but is easily retrievable into
  conscious awareness
• Holds thoughts and memories not in ones current
  awareness but can easily be retrieved (childhood
  memories, phone number)

13
Unconscious Mind

• A region of the mind that includes unacceptable
  thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories
• Not aware of these thoughts, wishes, etc but
  they exert great influence over our conscious
  thoughts behavior.
• Freud felt that dreams were The royal road to
  the unconsciousness behind the surface image
  (manifest content) lied the true hidden meaning
  (latent content).
• Can also surface as slips of the tongue or
  Freudian Slips.

14
(No Transcript)
15
Psychoanalytic Approach

• Conscious all things we are aware of at any
  given moment

16
Psychoanalytic Approach

• Preconscious everything that can, with a little
  effort, be brought into consciousness

17
Psychoanalytic Approach

• Unconscious inaccessible warehouse of
  anxiety-producing thoughts and drives

18
The Psychodynamic PerspectiveThe Id, Ego, and
Superego
19
Psychoanalytic Divisions of the Mind

• Idinstinctual drives present at birth
• does not distinguish between reality and fantasy
• operates according to the pleasure principle
• Egodevelops out of the id in infancy
• understands reality and logic
• mediator between id and superego
• Superego
• internalization of societys parental moral
  standards
• Ones conscience focuses on what the person
  should do
• Develops around ages 5-6.
• Partially unconscious
• Can be harshly punitive using feelings of guilt

20
Freuds Concept of the Id

• The part of personality that consists of
  unconscious energy from basic aggressive and
  sexual drives
• Operates on the pleasure principle - the id
  demands immediate gratification
• Is present from birth

21
Id The Pleasure Principle

• Pleasure principledrive toward immediate
  gratification, most fundamental human motive
• Sources of energy
• Eroslife instinct, perpetuates life
• Thanatosdeath instinct, aggression,
  self-destructive actions
• Libidosexual energy or motivation

22
Freuds Concept of the Ego

• The part of personality that mediates the demands
  of the id without going against the restraints of
  the superego
• Follows the reality principle

23
Ego The Reality Principle

• Reality principleability to postpone
  gratification in accordance with demands of
  reality
• Egorational, organized, logical, mediator to
  demands of reality
• Can repress desires that cannot be met in an
  acceptable manner

24
The Personality
Id I want Superego I should Ego I will
25
Psychoanalytic Approach
26
Defense Mechanisms

• Unconscious Self-Deceptions

27
Defense Mechanisms

• Unconscious mental processes employed by the ego
  to reduce anxiety by unconsciously distorting
  reality.

28
Repression

• Puts anxiety-producing thoughts, feelings, and
  memories into the unconscious mind
• The basis for all other defense mechanisms

29
(No Transcript)
30
Denial

• Lets an anxious person refuse to admit that
  something unpleasant is happening

31
(No Transcript)
32
Regression

• Allows an anxious person to retreat to a more
  comfortable, infantile stage of life

33
(No Transcript)
34
Reaction Formation

• Replacing an unacceptable wish with its opposite

35
(No Transcript)
36
Projection

• Reducing anxiety by attributing unacceptable
  impulses or problems about yourself to someone
  else

37
(No Transcript)
38
Rationalization

• Displaces real, anxiety-provoking explanations
  with more comforting justifications for ones
  actions
• Reasoning away anxiety-producing thoughts

39
(No Transcript)
40
Displacement

• Shifts an unacceptable impulse toward a more
  acceptable or less threatening object or person

41
(No Transcript)
42
Sublimation

• A form of displacement in which sexual urges are
  channeled into nonsexual activities that are
  valued by society

43
(No Transcript)
44
Undoing

• Unconsciously neutralizing an anxiety causing
  action by doing a second action that undoes the
  first.

45
(No Transcript)
46
(No Transcript)
47
(No Transcript)
48
The Psychodynamic PerspectiveFreuds
Psychosexual Stages
49
Psychosexual Stages

• In Freudian theory, the childhood stages of
  development during which the ids pleasure
  seeking energies are focused on different parts
  of the body
• The stages include oral, anal, phallic, latency,
  and genital
• A person can become fixated or stuck at a stage
  and as an adult attempt to achieve pleasure as in
  ways that are equivalent to how it was achieved
  in these stages

50
Oral Stage (birth 1 year)

• Mouth is associated with sexual pleasure
• Pleasure comes from chewing, biting, and sucking.
• Weaning a child can lead to fixation if not
  handled correctly
• Fixation can lead to oral activities in adulthood

51
Freuds Stages of Development
52
Anal Stage (1 3 years)

• Gratification comes from bowel and bladders
  functions.
• Toilet training can lead to fixation if not
  handled correctly
• Fixation can lead to anal retentive or expulsive
  behaviors in adulthood

53
Freuds Stages of Development
54
Phallic Stage (3 5 years)

• Focus of pleasure shifts to the genitals
• Sexual attraction for opposite sex parent
• Boys cope with incestuous feelings toward their
  mother and rival feelings toward their dad
  (Oedipus conflict). For girls it is called the
  Electra Complex.

• Child identifies with and tries to mimic the same
  sex parent to learn gender identity.

55
Oedipus Complex

• Boys feel hostility and jealousy towards their
  fathers but knows their father is more powerful.
  This leads to
• Castration Anxiety results in boys who feel their
  father will punish them by castrating them.
• Resolve this through Identification imitating
  and internalizing ones fathers values,
  attitudes and mannerisms.
• The fact that only the father can have sexual
  relations with the mother becomes internalized in
  the boy as taboo against incest in the boys
  superego.

56
Electra Complex

• Girls also have incestuous feelings for their dad
  and compete with their mother.
• Penis Envy Little girl suffer from deprivation
  and loss and blames her mother for sending her
  into the world insufficiently equipped causing
  her to resent her mother
• In an attempt to take her mothers place she
  eventually indentifies with her mother
• Fixation can lead to excessive masculinity in
  males and the need for attention or domination in
  females

57
Freuds Stages of Development
58
Latency Stage (5 puberty)

• Sexuality is repressed due to intense anxiety
  caused by Oedipus complex
• Children participate in hobbies, school, and
  same-sex friendships that strengthen their sexual
  identity

59
Freuds Stages of Development
60
Genital Stage (puberty on)

• Incestuous sexual feelings re-emerge but being
  prohibited by the superego are redirected toward
  others who resemble the persons opposite sex
  parent.
• Healthy adults find pleasure in love and work,
  fixated adults have their energy tied up in
  earlier stages

61
Freuds Stages of Development