lecture 3- psychodynamic approaches Flashcards
(12 cards)
Freud key principles
Emphasis on role of internal mental process and early childhood experience
Based on belief that personality and psychological disorders are the outcome of a dynamic interaction among mental structures.
Psychopathology results from unconscious conflict in the individual
3 parts of the mind
1) The conscious mind
2) The pre-conscious mind- stores info recallable to consciousness
3) The unconscious mind- unacceptable, wishes, memories and feelings
○ We control unacceptable expression by keeping them in unconscious mind
3 parts of the psyche and explain
1) Id- most primitive structure, source of instinctual drives, operates on pleasure principle desiring for gratification and is the primary process of thinking with no rationality constraint
2) Ego- operates on rational thought, mediating between id and external world/ super ego. Finding solutions, secondary process thinking.
3)Super ego- the judicial branch and operates on morality principles and considers taboos and values of society.
Compromise formation and Capgras delusion
Compromise formation is used by the ego to find a balance between id and super ego, considering motivation, morality and practicality.
This can include Capgras delusion (Enoch and Ball 2001) believing a loved one has been replaced by an identical imposter, resolving ambivalent feelings of love and hatred towards a loved/ close one so you don’t feel guilty about hating them.
3 types of anxiety
1) Objective anxiety: fear of danger from real world which is proportionate and makes sense.
2) Neurotic anxiety: fear that instincts will get out of hand and cause you to do something you will be punished for
3)Moral anxiety: fear of own conscious (feeling guilty when doing something immoral)
Defence mechanisms against anxieties
1) Repression:
○ Blocking threatening material from consciousness such as impulses and memories. Similar to denial
2) Displacement:
○ Discharging pent-up feelings onto safer targets than arousing the feelings rather than on the cause
3) Projection:
○ Attributing one’s own unacceptable impulses or actions to another, thinking others want to do the unacceptable behaviour
4) Reaction formation:
○ Expressing the opposite of an unacceptable desire
5) Regression:
○ Relating to an earlier developmental stage involving less mature behaviour and responsibility. e.g. a child reverting to baby talk in time of stress
6) Undoing:
○ Entails a repetitive action which atones for unacceptable behaviour
7) Compensation:
○ Making up for feelings of inferiority feelings by developing other desirable qualities.
8) Sublimation:
○ Channelling frustrated sexual or aggressive energies into different areas which are more social acceptable (charity, sport, art)
9) Humour:
○ Using self-deprecation
○ Freud claimed it was easy to release aggressive and sexual impulses through humour
○ Nevo and Nevo 1983 asked high school students to write funny captions for pictures and responses were filled with aggressive and sexual themes
5 stages of psychosexual development
The emergence of the ego and superego are associated with 5 stages.
Erogenous zones are areas which are main focus of pleasure
Each successive stage represents a more mature mode of obtaining sexual gratification
1) The oral stage (birth to 18 months)
○ Erogenous zones are the mouth lips and tongue
○ The sucking, swallowing and exploring objects
○ Conflicts at this stage are associated with dependency on others
○ Those who are fixated on this stage often suffer from alcoholism, eating disorders and smoking.
2) Anal stage (18 months to 3 years)
○ Erogenous zone is the bowel and bladder
○ Obtain pleasure from expelling or retaining faeces.
○ Conflicts with self-control issues
○ Those who fixate
§ Retentive: organised, rigid, controlled, obsessive- compulsive
§ Expulsive: disorganised, messy, overly generous
3) Phallic stage (3 - 6 years)
○ Erogenous zone is genitals
○ Conflicts associated with Oedipus and Electra complexes (feeling sexual feelings towards mother and guilty thinking father will castrate him, and so carries values of father)- castration anxiety and penis envy
○ To solve this they identify with same-sex parent and develop super ego
4) Latent stage (6 yrs- puberty)
○ Sexual motivations are channels into age appropriate activities and hobbies
5) Genital stage (puberty on)
○ given two motivation forces: sex and aggression
○ Release this energy through socially appropriate channels like sexual intercourse, sports and career progressions
What is psychoanalytic therapy
The goal is insight, bringing unconsicious materials into conscious awareness- sufficient for curing psychological disorders
However new research find reliving traumatic experiences can worsen symptoms and embed them.
Tools used in psychoanalytic therapy
First tool: interpretation and finding hidden meanings in patients’ accounts and psychoanalysis must overcome the resistant people show when they try to deny the interpretation.
Second tool: neutrality, maintaining a distant stance to minimise therapists personal influence. For example standing behind as it facilitates transference, where patients transfer feelings about people in their life to analyst. However therapist bust be on guard for countertransference as the therapist themselves might project own feelings.
Can either be personal interference (angry because the patient reminds you of someone else)
Or clinical/ diagnostic (feeling positive towards them because you like the person)
3 main windows into the unconscious
1) Free association: verbalising what comes to mind without censoring
2) Slips of the tongue (parapraxis): saying the wrong name, missing an appointments or breaking something that belongs to someone else.
○ Nothing truly happens by accident and there is a reason, known as psychic determinism
3) Interpretation of dreams: when awake, aggressive and sexual impulses are censored by ego but when asleep, they are still censored but can be symbolically presented, known as the manifest content of the dream.
evaluation of freud
Unscientific:
- Redmond and Shulman (2008), 86% of psychoanalysis classes were taught outside of psychology departments like English and philosophy. Because it is a rich source of theorising but weak on science
- Findings were hard to falsify
Parsimony principles:
- This principle involves choosing the simplest scientific explanation that fits the evidence but Freud is over complicated.
- Should find a parsimonious explanations
Falsifiability
- For a theory to be scientific it must be proven false
- However it is hard to test the theories
- He also changed theories over time but did not reject previous ones
- He thought his ideas were so good there was no point in trying to prove them at all
- Many psychoanalysis’s can easily argue that any opposition to psychoanalytic ideas is a form of resistance and any intellectual opposition to it becomes further evidence for it
Sexism:
- Freud has been criticised for confusing women’s capacity based on the roles they are assigned in a male oppressive and dominating society.
Neutrality:
- Neutrality is not needed as there must be some form of alliance between patient and analysist and it is a positive predictor of positive clinical outcome according to modern research
Prohibitive cost:
- Analysist required frequent sessions over a period of many years, but today the prohibitive costs of such methods compels peoples to seek other forms of psychiatric care
- Women were mainly educated
He did record the interpretations he made, but not what the patient said themselves
He is innovative and revolutionary
Rich and insightful into importance of early childhood and psychological defence
Enduring contributions including insights into unconscious motives and conflicts.
