Chapter 8 The Psychoanalytic Perspective Flashcards

Question

Anxiety

Answer 1

* Freud (1936/1926): didn’t view anxiety as a drive per se but as a warning signal to the ego that something bad is about to happen. Nonetheless, people seek to avoid or escape anxiety. * If your ego did its job perfectly, you would never feel anxiety - Id impulses would be released at appropriate times and places, preventing neurotic anxiety. - You would never let yourself do anything (or even want to do anything) that your superego prohibited, preventing moral anxiety - No one’s ego works this well

Answer 2

*arises from a danger in the world; rooted in reality; we deal with it by fixing, avoiding, or escaping from the situation that creates the feeling

Answer 3

* unconscious fear that your id impulses will get out of control and make you do something that will get you punished * Not a fear of expressing the id impulses but a fear of the punishment that will result from expressing them * Has a kind of basis in reality * The danger is rooted inside, in the urges of the id * Harder to deal with than reality anxiety

Answer 4

*fear people have when they have violated (or are about to violate) their moral code *Felt as guilt or shame Its source is internal, in your conscience *You can’t escape your id, your can’t run away from your conscience

Answer 5

* tactics it develops to help avoid the other kinds of anxiety - When defenses work well, they keep anxiety away - Operate unconsciously - Distort or transform reality in one way or another

Answer 6

*central mechanism of defense *A certain amount of energy available to the ego is used to keep unacceptable impulses out of consciousness *Can be done consciously *Anna Freud called suppression Person tries to force something out of awareness *Block from awareness not only id impulses but also information that’s painful or upsetting- sometimes this is the memory or impulses you already expressed *Repression need not be total *Simply avoid retrieving it- you haven’t forgotten it *If reminded of it, you’re still aware it’s here. But you’d just as soon not be reminded of it. This would be a partial repression. *Concerning your faults/weakness (Self Enhancement Theory) *Concerning your inevitable death (Terror Management Theory) *Conflict with moral standards (Cognitive Dissonance Theory)

Answer 7

* Dan Wegner: conducted a program of *studies on thought suppression * Trying not to think about something can actually make that thought become more likely later on, especially if the thought is an emotionally arousing one * Wegner's White Bear experiment * By lowering your defenses -> reduce the pressure of unwanted thought -> it will go away on its own

Answer 8

* refusal to believe an event took place or a condition exists * Denial resembles repression in many ways - Both keep from awareness what the person feels unable to cope with - Differ in the source of the threat - Repression deals with threats that originate within the dynamics of the mind. - Denial deals with threats with other sources. - They save you from pain or anxiety - Create problems in the long run - Take up energy that could be used in other ways - Other defenses develop and operate in combination with repression - Free up some of the energy, while keeping unacceptable impulses, thoughts, or feelings from registering in your consciousness

Answer 9

* reduce anxiety by ascribing your own unacceptable qualities to someone else * Project traits, impulses, desires, or even goals onto another person * Allows expression of fear- so releases tension, unlike denial or repression - Ex: "Amanda is so fake" (Maybe the person saying this is fake) * Provides a way to hide your knowledge of a disliked aspect of yourself while still expressing that quality, though in a highly distorted form * Helps to get true desires into the open in one form or another, releasing some of the energy required to repress them * The desire emerges in such a way that the ego and superego don’t recognize it as belonging to you. Thus, the threat is sidestepped.

Answer 10

* reduce anxiety by finding a rational explanation (or excuse) for a behavior that you're really did for unacceptable reasons, wrong for morally correct reasons * Protects against other kinds of threats * In responses to success and failure * Take credit for good performances and blame bad performances on forces outside their control

Answer 11

* tendency to think about threats in cold, analytical, and emotionally detached terms * Allows people to dissociate their thoughts from their feelings * Separates and isolates the threatening event from the feeling that normally would accompany it * Ex: By focusing on the disease intellectually and compartmentalizing that information, she shields herself from distress

Answer 12

* shifting an impulse from one target to another * When intended target is threatening * Substituting a less threatening target for the original one reduces anxiety

Answer 13

* lets impulses be expressed, by transforming them to an acceptable form. * Anxiety goes down when a transformed impulse is expressed, instead of the initial one. * Reflect maturity- Freud * Keeps problems from occurring, rather than functioning after anxiety is aroused.

Answer 14

* Freud believed that early experiences are critical in determining adult personality * Freud viewed personality development as movement through a series of stages * Each is associated with an erogenous zone

Answer 15

an area of the body that’s the focus of sexual energy in that period

Answer 16

* if the conflict isn’t well resolved, too much energy gets permanently invested in that stage * Can occur for two reasons - A person who’s overindulged in a stage may be reluctant to leave it and move on, and a person whose needs are deeply frustrated in a stage can’t move on until the needs are met - Personality stuck at this stage - The stronger the fixation, the more libido is invested in it - In a very strong fixation, the person is so preoccupied- albeit unconsciously- that little energy is left for anything else

Answer 17

* from birth to roughly 18 months * Interaction occurs through the mouth and lips, and gratification focuses in that area * The mouth is the source of tension reduction (eating) and pleasurable sensations (tasting, licking, and sucking) * Completely dependent on others for their survival * Children are under increasing pressure to let go of their mother and become less reliant on her * First Substage (6 months) - Oral incorporative phase: more or less limited to taking things in - Several traits develop here, depending on what the infant was exposed to - If exposed to a benign world -> optimism and trust - Less supportive world -> pessimism and mistrust - Too helpful world -> strong dependency on others * Second Substage - Starts with teething - Oral sadistic phase - Sexual pleasure comes from biting and chewing (even inflicting pain- thus sadistic) - Weaned from the bottle or breast and begins to bite and chew food - Determine who will be verbally aggressive later on and who will use “biting” sarcasm * Oral individuals should relate to the world orally - More preoccupied than others with food and drink - When stressed -> more likely to smoke, drink, or bite their nails - When angry -> verbally aggressive - Concerned with getting support from others - Do things to ease interactions with people * Joseph: tests of oral imagery relate to both obesity and alcoholism - Orality -> measures of interpersonal interest and social skills - Oral imagery -> need to nurture others and to interpersonal effectiveness * People high in oral imagery -> volunteer readily for interpersonal tasks and rely on other people’s judgments during ambiguous tasks - People who display oral imagery seem highly motivated to gain closeness and support from others and are sensitive to others’ reactions - React physically to social isolation and to cues of rejection - Use more physical contact during social interaction and are more self-disclosing

Answer 18

18 months and continues *into the third year * The anus is the key erogenous zone * Pleasure comes from defecation * Toilet training- first time that external constraints are systematically imposed on their satisfaction of internal urges * When toilet training starts, children can no longer relieve themselves whenever and wherever they want. They must learn that there’s an appropriate time and place for everything. * Urging the child to eliminate at a desired time and place and praising the child for success. - Provides a basis for adult productivity and creativity * Rather than praise for a job well done, the emphasis is on punishment, ridicule, and shame for failure. - If the child adopts an active pattern of rebellion, eliminating forcefully when the parents least want it, a set of anal expulsive traits develop. - Tendencies to be messy, cruel, destructive, and overtly hostile. * Anal retentive

Answer 19

*if the child tries to get even by withholding feces and urine Rigid, obsessive style Anal triad: stinginess, obstinacy, and orderliness Stinginess reflects the desire to retain feces Obstinacy: the struggle of wills over toilet training Orderliness: reaction against the messiness of defecating

Answer 20

*begins during the third year and continues through the fifth year *Focus shifts to the genital organs *Most children begin to masturbate, as they become aware of the pleasure that results *Autoerotic awakening sexual desires *Self-stimulation -> sexual pleasure Libido shifts toward the opposite-sex parent *Fixation result in personalities that reflect the Oedipal conflicts -Men: Seduce as many women/ father many children; assert their masculinity through expressing symbolically by great career success- fail sexually and professionally because of guilt the feel over competing with their father for their mother’s love -Women: Relating to men in a way that’s seductive and flirtatious but with a denial of the sexuality; excites men with her seductive behavior and is then surprised when they want sex with her *Holds great turmoil: love, hate, guilt, jealousy and fear *Determines their attitudes toward sexuality, interpersonal competitiveness, and personal adequacy

Answer 21

* boys’ desire to possess their mothers and replace their fathers * Electra complex: for girls * Boys - His love for his mother transforms into sexual desire and his feelings for his father shift toward hostility and hatred- rival for his mother’s affection - Over time, jealousy and competitiveness toward father may become extreme -> guilt * Girls - Abandon their love relationship with their mother for a new one with their father- when the girl realizes she has no penis - Withdraw affection from her mother and blame her for her castrated condition because her mother has no penis either - Affection is drawn to her father because he has a penis - Penis envy - Female counterpart of castration anxiety in boys - Resolve conflicts through identification- by becoming more like her mother

Answer 22

* the boy also fears that his father will retaliate against him; fears that his father will castrate him to eliminate the source of his lust * Repress his desire for his mother * Identify with his father

Answer 23

* tendency to develop feelings of similarity to and connectedness with someone else * Gives the boy a kind of “protective coloration”- being like his father makes it seem less likely that his father will harm him * By identifying with the father, the boy reduces his ambivalence toward him * Paves the way for development of the superego, as the boy introjects his father’s values * By identifying with the father, the boy gains vicarious expression of his sexual urges toward his mother- gain symbolic access to his mother through his father * The more the boy resembles the father, the more easily he can fantasize himself in his father’s place

Answer 24

* wish that her father would share his penis with her through sex or that he would provide her with the symbolic equivalent of a penis- a baby * Female counterpart of castration anxiety in boys * Resolve conflicts through identification- by becoming more like her mother

Answer 25

* age 6 to the early teens * Sexual and aggressive drives are less active results partly from the emergence of ego and superego * Children turn their attention to other pursuits- often intellectual or social in nature * Onset of puberty, sexual and aggressive urges again intensify- toward end of latency period * Adolescents- adult sexual desires but sexual intercourse isn’t socially sanctioned for them- ego’s coping skills are severely tested

Answer 26

* later adolescence and adulthood * If earliers stages have been negotiated well, the person enters this stage with libido still organized around the genitals and it remains focused there throughout life. * A desire develops to share mutual sexual gratification with someone * Capable of loving others not just for selfish reasons * Ability to share with others in a warm, caring way and to be concerned with their welfare * Freud believed that people don’t enter the genital stage automatically and that this transition is rarely achieved in its entirety. - Less control over their impulses than they should - Difficulty in gratifying sexual desires in a completely satisfying and acceptable way - Genital personality is an ideal to strive for, rather than an end point to be taken for granted

Answer 27

*provide insights into a person’s true desires Freudian slip: an error in speech that seems to suggest an unconscious feeling or desire *Ex: forgetting= keep something unconsciousness- motive *Ex: slips of the tongue= expresses all or part of the unconscious thought or wish, despite the effort to keep it hidden- related to anxiety *Motley (1985): shock-related slips and sexual slips

Answer 28

Expose will of unconscious through manifest content

Answer 29

*sensory images- what most of us think of as the dream

Answer 30

* the unconscious thoughts, feelings, and wishes behind the manifest content * Tells why a dream takes the form it does

Answer 31

* Sensory stimulation that bombards us as we sleep- prompt dreams and be absorbed into them * Current concerns: thoughts, ideas, feelings connected to waking life * Unconscious impulses: blocked from expression while you’re awake and are often related to core conflicts; infantile in form and primitive in content; reveals the most about a person’s personality

Answer 32

* formal ways of assessing unconscious processes * Confront people with ambiguous stimuli * No obvious response, responses are believed to reflect unconscious feelings, attitudes, desires, and needs * Using the defense mechanism of projection, people perceive aspects of themselves in the stimulus. What’s projected presumably reflects the unconscious.

Answer 33

* Hermann Rorschach (1942) * Each inkblot is bilaterally symmetrical * Link on five of them is all black, but the intensity is uneven (solid black to light gray) * Two have both black and red ink * Three have pastel colors: blue, green, yellow, pink and orange * One person at a time in a two-stage procedure * Views the inkblots in a predetermined order and indicates what he or she sees in them- or what the inkblot resembles or suggests * Views all ten cards again. * Examiner reminds the person what he or she said earlier and asks what it was about the card that made the person say that. * Serious psychometric problems * Data suggested that it is better at identifying depressed and psychotic persons than the MMPI-2 * Psychometric criteria are irrelevant * Its value is in the insights it gives the examiner * Not to be viewed as clinical aid

Answer 34

* The responses are first compared against those of people with known personalities * Responses are examined at a progression from one card to the next * Responses are analyzed in terms of location (where to focus), determinants (form, color, shading, or perceived movement), and content (response’s subject) * Reveal information about person’s unconscious motivations and feelings

Answer 35

* Childhood experiences: overinvestment of energy in a fixation- prevents flexible adult functioning by depleting energy the ego needs * Broad repression of basic drives and urges - Too many urges to be buried -> person’s basic nature will be distorted and denied - Repressed needs will be able to squeeze their way past the repression only in twisted forms - Required to keep the needs hidden is a constant drain on energy available to ego * Buried trauma

Answer 36

* the person was simply to say aloud whatever came to mind * Enabled material hidden in the unconscious to gradually emerge * Helped convince Freud that what emerged often wasn’t literally true - Led him to rethink how he viewed the content of free association * Producing something important, but it wasn’t quite what it had seemed to be * Symbolic form: less threatening, letting it emergy * Creates a jumble of symbols that makes no sense on the surface * Partial context * Uncover the conflicts and loose the restrained energy * Allows symbolic access to the problem * Rarely gets to the heart of the problem due to the threat in the repressed material

Answer 37

*people in therapy sometimes actively fight against becoming aware of repressed conflicts and impulses *Conscious or unconscious *Sign that something important is nearby *Close to revealing something sensitive Illustration of how emotionally wrenching psychoanalytic therapy can be *Uncover distressing truths- truths that have been buried in the unconscious precisely because they’re too painful to admit

Answer 38

* set of displacement * Feelings toward other people in the patient’s life are displaced (transferred) onto the therapist * Love or hatred * Another defense- therapist provokes less anxiety than do the original objects of the feelings * Help point out the significance of the feelings that are being displaced * Its interpretation is an important part of the therapy process

Answer 39

* re-experiencing of the emotional reality of repressed conflicts, memories, or urges, previously unconscious parts of one’s personality * No power to change the person * Come in the context of an emotional catharsis, a freeing of pent-up energy * Emotional release doesn’t help unless there is also reorganization

Answer 40

* Highly symbolic * Metaphorical flexible - Difficult to measure and directly test * Heavy reliance on case studies- don't necessarily generalize to population as a whole * The importance and function of the unconscious