Chapter 9 Psychoanalytic Approaches to Personality PDF

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CHAPTER 9 Psychoanalytic Approaches to Personality

Fundamental Assumptions of Psychoanalytic Theory Psychic energy: a source of energy that is within each person. Wellspring(원천) of motivation. Freud believed that psychic energy operated according to the law of conservation of energy: “The amount of psychic energy an individual possessed remained constant throughout his or her lifetime.”

Basic Instincts of Sex and Aggression Instincts: strong innate forces that provided all the energy in the psychic system. Initial categorization of Instincts influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution: 1. Self-preservation instincts 2. Sexual instincts Later, the two categories were combined into one instinct, life instinct (libido) and another category of instincts was developed: a death instinct (thanatos). ● Libido - generally considered as a sexual instinct but was also used for any needsatisfying, life-sustaining, or pleasure oriented ruge. ● Thanatos - any urge to destroy, harm, ir aggrees against others or oneself. Freud initially believed that the life and death instincts worked to oppose to another, he later argued that they could combine in various ways. E.g. Eating - obviously serves the life instinct but also involves acts of tearing, biting, and chewing (aggressive manifestations of thanatos), Rape - extreme death instinct directed to another person with sexual energy. According to Freud, due to the law of conservation of energy, the energy used to direct one type of behaviour is not available to drive other types of behaviours.

Unconscious Motivation: Sometimes we don’t know why we do what we do According to Freud, the human mind consists of three parts: The conscious mind: the part that contains all the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions that you are presently aware of. The preconscious mind: any piece of information that you are not presently thinking about, but that could easily be retrieved and made conscious. (memories, dreams, and thoughts that you can easily bring to mind if you so desired) The unconscious mind: the part of the mind holding thoughts and memories about which the person is unaware. The largest part of the human mind.

Psychic Determinism: Nothing happens by chance The Psychopathology of Everyday Life: the little “accidents” of daily life are often expressions of the motivated unconscious. Freud taught that most symptoms of mental illness are caused by unconscious motivations. I.e., Anna O.’s symptoms of hysteria (not being able to drink liquids, coughing, and limited movement in her body) were cured by Dr. Bruer with Frued’s consultation. To Beruer, and to Freud, hysterical symptoms did not occur by chance. Rather, they were physical expressions of repressed traumatic experiences. By the patient’s recalling the traumatic incident, an emotional catharsis or release can be achieved by having her or him express any feelings associated with that memory. This Then removes the cause of the symptom and hence the symptom disappears.

[A Closer Look] Examples of the Unconscious: Blindsight and Deliberation -without-Attention Blindsight: A condition of having the capacity to make a judgement about objects that they truly cannot see after losing one’s sight by damage in the primary vision centre in the brain. = taken as evidence of unconscious. Such condition illustrates that information that is unconscious is actually being processed somewhere in the mind. Emotional conditioning does not require a conscious representation in the mind. A conditioning procedure where a visual cue (circle) that the person could not see was accompanied by an unpleasant shock. => When the visual cue (circle) was presented the person, the person exhibited a fear response to the circle. Deliberation-without-attention: If a person confronted with a difficult decision can put it out of his or her conscious mind for a period of time, then the unconscious mind will continue to deliberate on it outside of the person’s awareness, helping him or her to arrive at a “sudden” and often correct decision sometime later. E.g. Deciding the best car experiment: With only 4 attributes to consider on each car, subjects who consciously deliberated made the best decisions. However, when the decision was complex, involving 12 different attributes of the cars, subjects in the “unconscious” deliberation condition made the best decisions.

Structure of Personality

Psychoanalytic personality theory - how people cope with their sexual and aggressive instincts within the constraints of a civilized society.

Id: Reservoir of Psychic Energy( 저수지) Something that we are born with. The source of all drives and urges. Id operated according to the pleasure principle, which is the desire for immediate gratification. Id operates with primary process thinking, which is thinking without logical rules of conscious thought or an anchor in reality. (e.g. dreams and fantasies) Wish fulfillment: something unavailable is conjured up and the image of ti is temporarily satisfying. (예: 상대한테 너무 화가나지만, 화를 표출 할 수 없을 때 복수하는 상상을 하는 것)

Ego: Executive of Personality Ego is he part of the mind that constrains the id to reality. Develops within the first 2 or 3 years of life. The ego operates according to the reality principle: The ego understands that the urges of the id are often in conflict with social and physical reality. The ego understands that direct expression of id impulses must be avoided, redirected, or postponed as it can lead to problems. The ego engages in secondary process thinking, which is the development of strategies for solving problems and obtaining satisfaction. (e.g. teasing one’s sister is more acceptable than hitting her.)

Superego: Upholder of Societal Values and Ideals Super ego is the part of the mind that internalizes the values, morals and ideas of society. Develops around the age 5. Freud suggested that the development of the superego was closely linked to a child’s identification with his or her parents. Super ego makes us feel guilty, ashamed, or embarrassed when we do something “wrong” and determine “what is right and what is wrong”: it sets moral goals and ideals of perfection. The emotion of guilt is the main tool of the superego in enforcing right and wrong. The superego is not bound by reality. It is free to set standards for virtue and for self worth, even if those standards are perfectionistic, unrealistic, and harsh.

[A Closer Look] Ego Depletion: Is Self-Control a Limited Resource? Psychic energy can be depleted by efforts toward self-control, leaving less energy available for subsequent self control situations. Interactions of the Id, Ego, and Superego

Id, ego and superego have different goals, provoking internal conflicts within an individual. Anxiety is an unpleasant state, which acts as a signal that things are not right and something must be done. It is a signal that the control of the ego is being threatened by reality, by impulses from the id, or by harsh controls exerted by the superego. A well balanced mind, one that is free from anxiety, is achieved by having a strong ego. If either of the two competing two forces (id and superego) overshelms the ego, then anxiety is the result.

Dynamics of Personality Objective anxiety (=fear): Occurs in response to a real, external threat to a person. Neurotic anxiety: occurs when there is a direct conflict between the id and the ego. The danger is that the ego may lose control over unacceptable desire of the id. Moral anxiety: occurs when there is a conflict between the ego and the superego. People who punish themselves, who have low self-esteem, or who feel worthless and ashamed most of the time are most likely suffering from moral anxiety from an overly powerful superego. Ego faces a difficult task in attempting to balance the impulses of the id, the demands of the superego, and the realities of the external world. According to Freud, such conflicts often are expressed in dreams. Discussion: What are the main types of anxiety experienced by Donald, past or present? A: Probably neurotic anxiety.

Defence Mechanisms Enable the ego to control anxiety, even objective anxiety. Serves two functions (1) to protect the ego (2) to minimize anxiety and distress ●

Repression:The process of preventing unacceptable thoughts, feelings, or urges from reaching conscious awareness. People tend to remember the pleasant circumstances surrounding an event more easily than the unpleasant ones.

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Denial: A person in denial insists that things are not the way they seem.

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Fundamental attribution error: the tendency to blame events outside one’s control for failure but to accept responsibility for success. ( A specific form of denial)

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Displacement: a threatening or an unacceptable impulse is channelled or redirected from its original source to non-threatening target.

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The process of displacement takes place outside awareness.

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Rationalization: generating acceptable reasons for outcomes that might otherwise appear socially unacceptable. Coming up with an explanation for an event that is easier to accept than the real reason.

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Reaction formation: a person may continually display a flurry of behaviour that indicates the opposite impulse. (e.g. a woman who is angry with her supervisor -> instead of displacing her anger, her ego unconsciously resorts to reaction formation, then she might go out of her way to be overly kind to her boss).

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Projection: “projecting” our own unacceptable qualities to others. ○ False consensus effect: the tendency many people have to assume that others are similar to them.

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Sublimation: the most adaptive defence mechanism. The channelling of unacceptable sexual or aggressive instincts into socially desired activities.

How do you know when the use of defence mechanisms is becoming a problem? 1. It begins inhibiting the ability to be productive 2. It begins limiting the ability maintaining relationships According to Freud, the hallmark of mature adulthood was the ability to work productively and to develop and maintain satisfying relationships.

Psychosexual Stages of Personality Development Psychosexual stage theory: According to the theory, children seek sexual gratification(만족감) at each stage by investing libidinal energy in a specific body part. If a child fails to fully resolve a conflict at a particular stage of development => fixation Oral stage: ● occurs during the initial 18 months after birth. ● The main sources of pleasure and tension reduction are the mouth, lips, and tongue. ● The main conflict during this stage is weaning(젖떼기), withdrawing from the breast or bottle ● Biological perspective: taking in nourishment and obtaining pleasure through the mouth. ● Psychological: excessive pleasure versus dependency, with fear of being left to fend for oneself. ● Also a conflict between the urge to bite and parental restrictions can occur. Personalities developed by fixation of the oral stage: overly dependent ( wants to be babied), hostile, quarrelsome, or mocking.

Anal state: ● occurs between the ages of 18 months and 3 years of age. ● The child obtains pleasure from first expelling feces and then, during toilet training, from retraining feces. ● Conflicts may arise around the issue of the child’s ability to achieve self-control ● Some children achieve too little control and grow up to be sloppy and dirty. ● Other children have the opposite problem: they develop too much self-control and begin to take pleasure in little acts of self-control Personalities developed by fixation of the anal stage: compulsive, overly neat, rigid, and never messy Phallic stage: ● Occurs between 3 and 5 years of age. ● The child discovers that either they have or do not have a penis. ● Discovery of their own genitals and the realization that some pleasure can be derived from touching them. ● Oedipal conflict: the unconscious with to have his mother all to himself by eliminating the father. ● Castration anxiety: the fear of losing one’s penis. Drives the little boy into giving up his sexual desire for mommy. ● Identification: The process of wanting to become like Daddy. ○ marks the beginning of the resolution of the Oedipal conflict - the successful resolution of the phallic stage of psychosexual development for boys. ○ The resolution of oedipal conflict - beginning of both the superego and morality, as well as the male gender role. ● Penis envy: Little girls desires for her father yet at the same time envies him for his penis. ● Carl Jung termed this stage the Electra complex ○ Rejected by Freud Latency stage: ● occurs from around the age of 6 until puberty. ● Mainly a period when the child is going to school and learning the skills and abilities necessary to take on the role of an adult. ● A period of psychological rest, or latency(). Genital stage ● Begins around one’s puberty and lasts through one’s adult life. ● Can be achieved if the Oedipus or Elecra complex has been resolved. ● It is not accompanied by a specific conflict The adult personality is dependent on how the conflicts that arise during infancy and childhood are resolved. We are all born with a drive for sexual pleasure (the id) but that the constraints of civilized society limit the ways we can satisfy that drive.

Personality and Psychoanalysis Psychoanalysis - besides being a theory of personality, is also a method of psychotherapy, a technique for helping individuals who are experiencing a mental disorder or even relatively minor problems with living.

Techniques for Revealing the Unconscious Two main aims of psychoanalysis: 1. to identify these unconscious thoughts and feelings. 2. to enable the person to deal with the unconscious urges, memories, or thoughts realistically and maturely. ●

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Free Association : ○ A patient saying whatever comes into one’s mind in a relaxed state. ○ By relaxing the censor the screens our everyday thoughts, the technique of free association allows potentially important material into conscious awareness. ○ Subtle signs that something important has just been mentioned - a slight quiver in the way a word is pronounced, a halting sentence, a nervous laugh and etc. Dreams: ○ Frued argued that the purpose of dreaming was to satisfy urges and to fulfill unconscious wishes and desires. ○ Dream analysis: a technique Freud taught for uncovering the unconscious material in a dream by interpreting the dream’s content. ■ Manifest content: what dream actually contains ■ Latent content: what the elements of the dream represent Projective techniques: ○ Projective hypothesis: the idea that what a person sees in an ambiguous figure reflects their personality ■ Inkblot test, asking the person to produce something, such as a drawing of a person.

The Process of Psychoanalysis: Toward the end of psychoanalysis, a psychologist offers interpretations of the psychodynamic causes of the problems. Insight: an intense emotional experience that accompanies the release of repressed material. When this material is reintegrated into conscious awareness, and the person experiences the emotions associated with that previously repressed material, then we say that some degree of insight has been achieved. Resistance: The forces that have worked to repress the disturbing impulse of trauma now work to resist that psychoanalytic process. E.g. As the therapist pokes at the unconscious material through free association and

dream analysis, and begins to offer interpretations, the patient typically feels threatened. Transference: Patients begins to reacting to the analyst as if he or she were an important figure from the patient’s own lie. The patient displaces past or present feelings toward someone from their life onto the analyst....