Psychodynamic Theories of Personality

Question 1

What were the three conditions of Frueds ‘hysteria’?

Answer 1

1. Physical symptoms in absence of known pathology
2. Symptoms fulfil some psychological function (primary gain)
3. Amnesia of some significant events, trauma

Question 2

What is catharsis and abreaction?

Answer 2

• Catharsis: The relief gained from the discharge of emotion from a previously repressed experience
• Abreaction: the emotional discharge attached to the suppressed experience to make the reaction non-pathogenic
• Carthartic Method: Discharge of pathogenic affect by reliving the traumatic event

Question 3

What were some of the key concepts in Freuds theory of psychoanalysis?

Answer 3

• Repression of memories: psychological defence mechanism
• Division of mind: conscious and unconscious (dynamic)
• Dissociation: split of mind between hypnoid and normal state
• Intra-psyhcic conflict: opposition between seemingly incompatible forces within the individual
• Symptom formation and Conversion: Conversion of energy from psychic conflict results in physical response
• Symbolic Meaning (of conversion symptoms): symptom expresses repressed idea

Question 4

What was Freuds Seduction (trauma) hypothesis?

Answer 4

• Freud’s Seduction (Trauma) Hypothesis
  
  • Initially believed all neuoticism resulted from repressed sexual trauma (usually involving parents) in childhood
• Reasons for Abandoning Hypothesis
  
  • Lack of success completing analysis/ full treatment success
  • High improbability of universal sex abuse
  • Examples of severe psychosis without abuse
• Updated:
  
  • Discovered unconscious mental processes are often fantasy
  • came to believe false memory/wishful thinking of abuse was sufficient

Question 5

What was Freuds Theory of Psychosexual development?

Answer 5

1. Proto-sexuality; sexuality develops rather than suddenly appearing
2. Psycho-sensual: based on touch and senses rather than sexual pleasure
3. Pleasure

Question 6

What were the 4 elements of Freuds Theory of Dreams?

Answer 6

• All dreams are wish fulfillments
  
  • by having the dream the wish may be gratified
  • nightmares are the result of wishes that are unacceptable to the waking brain
• All dreams have manifest and latent content
  
  • the manifest = result of sensor (sugerego) disguising wish
  • latent = conflicted desires (true wish)
• All dreams exemplify the processes of symbolisation, condensation and displacement
  
  • The primary processes
• All dreams can be understood through technique of free association
  
  • patient speaks thoughts spontaneously without sensoring/leading

Question 7

What is the experimental evidence regarding Freuds Theory of Dreams?

Answer 7

• The idea that dreaming is meaningful is still highly contested
• Dreaming is not random; cross-cultural nightmares indicate some level of meaning
• Dream content represents conscious and unconscious preoccupations
  
  • Not all dreams involve censorship only censorship if anxiety provoking conflict
• Recurrent dreamers have higher anxiety and impaired performance during day compared to those who do not have recurring dreams
• Dreaming region of brain is same as ‘seeking system’

Question 8

What was the difference between Freuds 1st and 2nd tomographies?

Answer 8

• Freud’s First Typography:
  
  • Pre-conscious & Conscious
  • Unconscious
• Freud’s Second Typography ; 3 agencies
  
  • Ego -> Super-ego
  • Id

Question 9

What was Freuds concept of the Id?

Answer 9

• Contents are unconscious expressions of instincts; physiological
• most material results from repression, (some inherited)
• ‘reservoir’ of libido and energy
• conflicts with ego and superego
• organised according to primary processes
  
  • i.e. condensation and displacement
• expresses itself in terms of symbols

Question 10

What was Freuds concept of the Ego?

Answer 10

• The portion of id modified by reality through perception
• Mostly unconscious
• Does not have its own energy (drawn from the id)
• Lower portions merge into id
• The repressing agency
  
  • protects from anxiety using defense mechanisms
• Organised according to secondary processes
  
  • i.e. attention, judgement, reasoning, planning, controlled action

Question 11

What was Freuds concept of the Super-ego?

Answer 11

• Grows as the oedipal stage ends
• emerges from the ego and comes to dominate it
• made of internalisation of parental prohibitions
  
  • initially constructed on model of parents’ super-ego
  • ‘vehicle of tradition’
• The critic and controller
  
  • prohibition of wishes
  • self reproach
  • formation of ideals

Question 12

What are some issues with Freuds theory of the unconscious?

Answer 12

• Reification: The idea of separate entities rather than different styles of cognition
• Personality ≠ conscious domain: both conscious and unconscious are important
• Unconscious processes are pre-verbal: no language of the unconscious
  
  • What people say about themselves and their actions dont correlate
• Evidence for the existence of unconscious material
  
  • Resistance: opposition to information that threatens repressed ideas
  • transference: transfering repressed issues onto another

Question 13

What are the four factors that make up a drive according to Freud?

Answer 13

• The aim of the drive:
  
  • Satisfaction
  • to be in homeostasis to remove endogenic stimulation
• The object of the drive;
  
  • the thing through which the drive is satisfied
• The source of the drive;
  
  • what defines the drive,
  • the nervous system excitation, physiological source
  • unvavoidable (must be gratified to remove)
• The pressure of the drive;
  
  • the pressing nature of the drive, urgency

Question 14

What changes did Freud make to his drive theory?

Answer 14

• 1915
  
  • Intra-psychic conflict between the sexual (id) and self-preservative (ego) drives​
    
    • conflict between sex and self-presevatory desires
• 1920
  
  • Switched from endogenic source to a conflict source​
    
    • conflict between death and life
    • changed aim, object and source of sex drive

Question 15

What are Freuds stages of libidinal development?

Answer 15

• Oral phase
  
  • mouth is the first experience of satisfaction as a baby
• Anal phase
  
  • age 1-2 as child becomes controlled, aware
• Phallic phase
  
  • source of pleasure, points for expression, all areas of body
  • masturbation
• Genital phase
  
  • source of pleasure is someone elses body
  • sexual intercourse/reproduction

Question 16

What are the causes and responses to interruptions to stages of libidinal development?

Answer 16

• Causes
  
  • overgratification;
  • undergratification; ideational sex drive not expressed, libido attaches to pre-genital area
• Responses
  
  • fixation; libido ‘stuck’ in area, self-gratification
  • regression; stress induced regression to a previous psychosexual stage
  • Fixation and regression are complementary; stronger fixation = more likely regression (like leaving troops to guard an occupied post)

Question 17

What is Object Relations Theory?

Answer 17

• A shift of thinking marking modern psychodynamics
• The child is not motivated by competing drives (instincts) but by a need for a close relationship with primary caregiver
  
  • If need is thwarted -> fear and anger
  • Therefore child is object related NOT self-related
• Key shifts
  
  • from repression to a range of defence mechanisms
  • emphasis moves from drive to defence

Question 18

What are the key aspects of Fairbairns ORT?

Answer 18

• A child is born with blank slate ego
  
  • If early needs for closeness are thwarted the object becomes internalised and splits the ego
• Rejecting object; becomes erotically exciting, becomes an internalised object as either anti-libidinal or libidinal ego
• Anti-libidinal Ego; internalised object manifests as guilt, anger and anxiety, aggression results from repressed sadness
• Libidinal Ego; the internalisation of the rejecting object, characterised by hope and longing for the objecy
• Central ego; the rest of the ego, capable of sustaining healthy relationships (depleted by fracturing into above egos)

Question 19

What are the main differences between ORT and Freudian psychodynamics?

Answer 19

• Child is object related
  
  • child is self related
• There is no id
  
  • there is an id
• The ego is its own source of energy
  
  • draws energy from id
• Libido = general desire
  
  • libidio = portion of id providing energy
• Child anxiety = separation anxiety
  
  • child anxiety = oedipus complex
• Agression is reaction
  
  • Aggression is the death instinct/conflict

Question 20

What is Freuds concept of transference, and what evidence exists for it?

Answer 20

• Transference is the experience of attitudes to the person in the present moment that more appropriately apply to a person of the past
  
  • Fundamentally unconscious process that influences how we respond to present encounters with new people
• Freud: ‘displaced energies’, ‘false connections’ & ‘stereotype plate’
• Evidence
  
  • When a new individual resembles a significant other from the past
    views and expectations tend to mirror those of their significant other
  • People are more motivated to approach a new person when they resemble a positively evaluated significant other
  • Awareness of Transference can lead to its reduction

Question 21

What was Freuds theory of nacissism?

Answer 21

• Self-centredness
• Arises from failure to distinguish the self from external object
• Occurs in very young babes or as a mental disorder

Question 22

What is the ORT view of narcissism?

Answer 22

• Depleted self
  
  • vague falsness, shame, envy, emptiness/incompleteness, ugliness, inferiority
• Grandiose self
  
  • self-righteous, pride, contempt, defensive self-sufficiency, vanity, superiority

Question 23

What do jokes signify according to Freud?

Answer 23

• Jokes are social
• Jokes are defined by verbal expresion not the thought it represents
  
  • There is a ‘tendency to economy’ significant abbreviation
• Two types
  
  • Innocent : puns, insights
  • Tendentious (promoting a view): hostile, obscene, cynical and/or sceptical. These are more enjoyable since it relieves repression of hostility and aggression
• Jokes come from the id - repressed hostile impulses, carthasis = pleasure
• There is commonality between jokes and dreams
  
  • symbolism/dream work is used to create jokes

Question 24

What does humour signify according to freud?

Answer 24

• Humour is asocial - depends on self reflection and self deprecation
• There is no release of emotion
  
  • Pleasure at the cost of release of emotion (masking)
• Humour is the highest defensive process
  
  • dark humour replaces despair
• Humour comes from the superego
  
  • sugerego declares itself above feeling despair/being upset
  • protects the ego from negative emotions