Unit 2️⃣ Part 2️⃣ Flashcards
(25 cards)
What is the Neo Analytic Movement?
It refers to a modern re-interpretation of classical psychoanalysts theories (freud 1900). Contemporary psychoanalysts have modified and updated these theories to make them more relevant to today’s understanding of psychology and human behavior.
What are some key points of Neo-analytic movement?
- Broad role of the unconscious but not as much as Freud maintained.
- Behavior often reflects conflicts between emotions, motivations, and thoughts.
- Important role of childhood in the development of adult relationships (and in the development of personality, though again, not as much as Freud claimed.)
- Mental representations of self and relationships guide our interactions
- Personality development is not only controlling aggressive and sexual impulses but also relating to others in a mature and independent way.
In what are contemporary psychoanalysts interested and not interested in?
Contemporary psychoanalysts not so interested in Id, superego or repressed sexuality, nor do they consider the treatment as an archaeological expedition in search of memories. But they are interested in child development, relationships and conflicts among other issues.
What is repression, and how does it relate to memory recovery?
There is an ongoing debate about whether people can push painful memories out of their conscious mind (repression) and later recover them. Some believe that these hidden memories can resurface after years, especially in therapy. Others argue that these “recovered memories” might actually be false—created by suggestion rather than real experiences.
Key Ideas:
* Repression: The idea that the mind can block out traumatic memories to protect itself. These memories might later be recovered through therapy or other triggers.
* False Memories: The belief that outside influences—such as therapy techniques, hypnosis, or self-help books—can accidentally create memories of events that never actually happened.
What are two ways false memories can be created?
- Self-Help Books: These books offer comfort but may unintentionally suggest that if someone feels emotional pain, they might have repressed memories of abuse. This can lead people to believe something happened, even if it didn’t.
- Therapist Influence: If a therapist strongly believes in repression, they might use techniques like hypnosis, leading questions, or assumptions that can distort real memories or even create false ones.
What is the contemporary view of the unconscious?
They also believe in unconscious but from another point of view.
They believed that the unconscious can influence our behavior but not everyone agrees with freud that the unconscious can have its own motivation.
This generate two different approaches:
- Unconscious cognition: Information can enter our memories without us being aware of that information. The content of the unconscious mind operates like the conscious one, but they are not in the conscious not because of repression or because they represent unacceptable impulses or desires, but because of how they have been encoded;
- Unconscious motivation: Influence on behavior.
What is Ego psychology?
Is a branch of psychoanalytic theory that focuses on the role of the ego in human development and functioning. At first, the Freudian version, very focused on the “id” and almost on how the ego and superego responded to these impulses. Later psychoanalysts considered giving more importance to the Ego.
What are the Erikson’s eight stages of development?
This stages outlines the different task that individuals face at each stage of life. He believed that developing a strong sense of identity was crucial for psychological well-being and that individual who do not successfully navigate this stages may experiences an “identity crisis”, which can lead to feeling of desperation and confusion.
For Erikson, personality development lasted until old age. He summarized this development in 8 stages through which all people with an identity crisis or psychosocial conflicts (not sexual like Freud’s) to pass through at each stage, maintaining the idea of fixation..
Which are the 8stages of Erikson?
- Infancy (first year) (0-18m)
- Toddler (2-3y)
- Pre-schooler (3-5y)
- Grade-schooler (6-11y)
- Teenager (12-20y)
- Young adult (until mid 20s)
- Middle-age adult (until 60 years)
- Older stage (till death)
1 stage: Infancy (0-18m)
The central conflict is Basic Trust versus Mistrust, basically the child depends on other to meet his/her basic needs.
Trust:
- Development of a sense of security and confidence (sleeps well, eats easily, and has regular bowel movements).
- Caregivers can leave the child alone for short periods of time, without distress, they have learned to trust that they will return.
- Caregivers: caring and affectionate.
Mistrust:
▪ Irregular sleep, protests when being fed,
constipation and increased separation anxiety.
▪ Caregivers: changing treatment, emotional
unavailability, rejection, etc..
This stage:
▪ It provides the basis for believing that the world is predictable.
▪ Hope that wishes/desires are achievable.
▪ Optimistic view of life.
- Stage Toddler (2-3y)
The central conflict is Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt, The child tries to gain control over his actions.
Autonomy:
▪ Bladder and bowel control: attain
adequate self-control with respect to
toilet training.
▪ By interacting efficiently with others.
Shame & Doubt:
▪ If the child’s efforts to interact with
others lead to failure, ridicule, or
criticism.
▪ Fail to meet parental expectations.
▪ Parents don’t let them act on their own.
This stage: becomes decisive for love, cooperation, willfulness, freedom, self-expression.
- Stage Pre-scholer (3-5y)
The central conflict is Initiative vs. Guilt
Here the child explore their environment taking initiative, and developing a sense of purpose.
Initiative:
▪ They develop curiosity.
▪ They explore and manipulate the world.
▪ They ask about things that happen and what can happen
Guilt:
▪ This initiative can be punished, lead to disapproval.
▪ Asking a lot of questions can be boring for some adults.
This stage: Well-managed conflict: the child will obtain the courage to
pursue worthwhile goals without fear of punishment.
- Stage Grade-schooler (6-11y)
The central conflict is Industry vs Inferiority. This stage focuses one the child developing competence in social and academic activities while also comparing themselves to others.
Industry (feeling as if they can work to achieve what they want):
▪ They prefer activities that are based on reality.
▪ High ability to distinguish the role of effort in producing results.
▪ Children with better grades.
▪ They show agreement and conformity with socially desirable statements
Inferiority:
▪ They prefer activities that are based on fantasy.
▪ Feeling that they do not have sufficient capacity to perform the tasks that are required to them.
▪ Other people make them believe that they are not performing their activities well.
▪ Morally wrong performance.
In this stage: the child Develops the feeling that they have mastered tasks in a way that is acceptable to those around him/her.
- Stage Teenager (12-20y)
The central conflict is Identity vs. Role confusion.
This stage is characterized by physical changes, breaking with the past…
Identity:
▪ It reflects the integrated sense of self.
▪ Consolidate the self-perceptions of the previous stages and integrate them.
▪ Join to this self-perception the perceptions contributed by others.
▪ Identity is something built with others
Role of confusion:
▪ No role seems to correspond to our identity.
▪ Inability to select a career, further educational goals, overidentification with popular heroes.
▪ It now extends beyond adolescence.
In this stage: The capacity for truthfulness or fidelity is developed: the ability to live up to who we are despite the contradictions that may occur in one’s own values.
- Stage Young adult (until mid 20s)
Central conflict Intimacy vs.Isolation
In this stage there is the Importance of establishing a close and warm relationship with someone, with a feeling of commitment.
Intimacy:
▪ Commit to a relationship without losing identity.
▪ Careful and open approach to relationships.
▪ Willing to share our most important aspects with others. And be open and receptive to the revelations of the other.
▪ Moral strength to commit even if it takes effort.
▪ You can only intimate if you have a strong sense of identity.
Isolation:
▪ Feeling separated from others and unable to commit.
▪ Tendency of some people by choice (relationship threatens the sense of independent identity).
▪ Social isolation or non-integration; Emotional isolation or loneliness.
▪ Withdrawal: self-absorbed people, they are not able to establish intimate relationships.
In this stage the young adult develop the capacity to love.
- Stage Middle-age adult (until 60 years)
The central conflict is Generativity vs Stagnation.
This. Is the longest stage. Crisis focused on being able to generate and raise
Generativity:
▪ Create things in the world that transcend us.
▪ Create and guide the growth of the next
generation.
▪ Create ideas, objects, teach young people who are
not our children and anything that influences the
future.
▪ Related to having a vision of “me” as a role model.
Stagnation:
▪ They worry only about their own
affairs.
▪ Self-centeredness or complacency that
does not allow them to get involved in
the world around them.
▪ Personally impoverished.
This stage provides the capacity for care: it involves expanding concern
for what we have generated in our lives.
- Stage Older adult (till death)
The central conflict is Ego integrity vs Despair.
This stage is the Closing of people’s lives. Moment in which they look back and review the options they had, reflect on their achievements and their lives changes.
Ego integrity:
▪ Life has had order and meaning.
▪ Accepts the decisions made and the things
accomplished.
▪ Feeling of satisfaction: most of the things
done in life, he/she would do the same
again.
Despair:
▪ Feeling that life was wasted.
▪ Wish to have done things differently,
knowing that it is too late.
▪ Feeling bitter for not being able to change
things
This stage:
▪ Provides the capacity for “wisdom.”
▪ It involves creating meaning and benevolence.
▪ Active concern for life and personal growth, even when it is at the end of life.
Who is Karen Horney?
Karen Horney was a psychologist who challenged some of Freud’s ideas, especially those that reflected male-centered views of personality. She believed that social and cultural factors, not just biology, shape personality.
What was Karen Horney’s main criticism of Freud’s theory?
Horney disagreed with Freud’s idea of penis envy (the belief that women feel inferior because they lack a penis). Instead, she argued that women envy the social power and status that men have, not the physical trait itself.
What did Karen Horney believed?
She believed that personality is shaped by culture and history, not just unconscious desires. For example, she introduced the idea that fear of success affects women differently because society often discourages them from being too competitive.
What is the difference between gender differences and sex differences according to Horney?
She was one of the first to make a distinction between gender differences (social roles and expectations) and sex differences (biological traits).
What is Object relations theory?
Is a psychoanalytic theory that focuses on the importance of social relationship, particularly in childhood, in shaping our adult personality. It suggests that how we interact with and perceive our parents, plays a significant role in forming our sense of self and our relationship with others. The theory emphasizes the internalization of others, particularly the mother or primary caregiver, as mental object that influences our perceptions and behaviors.
John Bowlby focused on the study of what?
Focused on the study of the attachment bond with the mother. (He began by
observing what happened if the baby was separated from his mother for a short time.):
- Some babies seemed confident that the mother would return (and they were happy when she came back)
- Others become overagitated and react with distress to that separation: separation anxiety. (They calmed down with the return)
- Others seem depressed when the mother leaves (even when they return, they seem to remain separated or angry)
These first experiences, great importance when developing adult
relationships. Importance on how unconscious expectations are
internalized in relationships: trust, affection…
Adult relationship
A lot of research into how the attachment in childhood styles were related
to the styles of the adult relationships.
- Secure Relationship Style
- Ambivalent Relationship Style
- Avoidant Relationship Style
First relationships can also serve as a prototypical example for later
relationships.
