Sigmund Freud

Question 1

Life Instincts

Answer 1

Oriented toward survival (food, water, air, & sex)
Libido (drive towards pleasurable behavior and thoughts )
Cathexis (investment of psychic energy in an object or person)
Sex (love) as our primary motivation

Question 2

Death Instincts

Answer 2

Unconscious drive towards decay, destruction, and aggression
Aggressive drive
Compulsion to destroy, conquer and kill

Question 3

LEVELS OF PERSONALITY

Answer 3

Conscious - ego

• Experiences in awareness
• Limited aspect of personality
• Only a small portion of our thoughts, sensations and memories exist in consciousness

Preconscious - super ego

• Storehouse of memories, perceptions, & thoughts
• Can call into consciousness

Unconscious - ID

• Home of the instincts
• Major driving power behind all behaviors

Question 4

ID

Answer 4

Id – Reservoir for the instincts and the libido
Pleasure principle – Increase pleasure and avoid pain
Strives for immediate satisfaction of needs (selfish)
Primary process thinking (childlike)
Reflex action and wish-fulfilling fantasy experience

Question 5

Ego

Answer 5

Ego – Directing and controlling the instincts
Reality principle – functions to provide appropriate constraints on the expression of the id instincts
Secondary process thinking – Mature thought process needed to deal rationally with the external world

Question 6

Super ego

Answer 6

Superego – Moral aspect (ideas of right and wrong)
Internalized parental and societal values and standards
Conscience – punished behaviors of the child
Ego-ideal – moral behaviors a person should strive for

Question 7

Reality Anxiety:

Answer 7

Tangible dangers (fires, earthquakes…)
Positive purpose – escape or to protect ourselves
Carried to an extreme beyond normality (not leaving the house)

Question 8

Neurotic Anxiety: Id vs. Ego

Answer 8

Unconscious fear of displaying id-dominant behavior

Fear of what might happen from gratifying the instincts

Question 9

Moral Anxiety: Id vs. Superego

Answer 9

Fear of one’s conscience
An instinctual impulse that is contrary to you moral code, causing shame and guilt
The stronger the inhibiting conscious the greater the anxiety

Question 10

Defense Mechanisms

Answer 10

Ego strategies to defend against anxiety
Provoked by everyday conflicts
Always in operation
Denials or distortions of reality
They operate unconsciously
Lying to ourselves
Keeps threatening/disturbing material out of awareness

Question 11

Repression

Answer 11

Unconscious removal from awareness

E.G., A man can so strongly repress the sex drive that he becomes impotent

Question 12

Denial

Answer 12

Denying the existence of a threat
E.G. A person with a terminal illness may deny their death
Reaction Formation

Question 13

Reaction Formation

Answer 13

Expression of the opposite ID impulse

E.G. A person threatened by sexual longings may reverse them and become a rabid crusader against pornography

Question 14

Projection

Answer 14

Attribute a disturbing impulse to someone else

E.G. “I don’t hate him, he hates me”

Question 15

Regression

Answer 15

Retreat to an earlier period of life

E.G. A person who suffers a mental breakdown assumes a fetal position, rocking and crying.

Question 16

Rationalization

Answer 16

Reinterpreting behavior to make it more rational and acceptable
E.G. A person who is fired may say the job wasn’t a good one anyway

Question 17

Displacement

Answer 17

Shifting id impulses to a suitable object

E.G. Replacing hostility towards one’s boss with hostility towards ones child

Question 18

Sublimation

Answer 18

Displacing id impulses into socially acceptable behaviors

E.G. An aggressive impulse channeled into a career in MMA

Question 19

PSYCHOSEXUAL STAGES

Answer 19

Oral
Anal
Phallic 
Latent 
Genital

Question 20

Free Association

Answer 20

Saying whatever comes to mind, daydreaming out loud

Question 21

Catharsis:

Answer 21

Expressing emotion to reduce negative symptoms

Question 22

Resistances:

Answer 22

Blocks to expression indicating proximity to the source of the problem

Question 23

Dream Analysis

Answer 23

Interpreting unconscious content
Manifest content: Actual dream events
Latent content: Symbolic meaning

Question 24

Contributions

Answer 24

“Inescapable force”
Contemporary psychology absorbed many Freudian ideas
E.G. Role of the unconscious and childhood experiences
Stimulated the development of other viewpoints Pioneer in personality theory

Question 25

Criticisms

Answer 25

Psychoanalysis is too long and costly
Too much emphasis on biology, determinism, & sex + aggression
Too much emphasis on past behavior to the exclusion of our goals and aspirations (future concerns)
Ambiguous definitions