week 1 - freud

Question 1

who was freud?

[week 1 - freud]

Answer 1

austrian scholar/psychologist known for the development of an encompassing theory of the mind

Question 2

what was the significance of freud’s work?

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Answer 2

his work influenced how we think about every aspect of day to day life - development of children, mental illness, religion, war

Question 3

what was freud’s idea of the unconscious?

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Answer 3

• there are unconscious reasons for your feelings and actions
• notion of unconscious dynamics
• you are not one entity but many - the clash of these leads to consequences like dreams, speech errors, jokes, sense of humor, etc.

Question 4

what is the freudian concept of the id?

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Answer 4

• present at birth

- animal part - wants to eat, drink, poop, pee, get warm, get pleasure -> pleasure principle

Question 5

what is the freudian concept of the ego?

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Answer 5

• has some understanding of reality and logic
• works on reality principle: tries to pragmatically satisfy your desires or suppresses it
• deals with the way the world is and how to reconcile that with what you want
• your conscious self

Question 6

what is the freudian concept of the superego?

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Answer 6

• part of the mind that has internalized rules of parents and society
• moral conscience - internalized moral rules

Question 7

what distinguishes the id, ego, and superego?

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Answer 7

• id: raging animalistic desires
• superego: moral conscience grounded on prejudices and beliefs of the society in which you’re raised
• ego: you, conscious, intellectual awareness

Question 8

what are freud’s psychosexual stages? (5)

[week 1 - freud]

Answer 8

1. oral stage
2. anal stage
3. phallic stage
4. latency stage
5. genital stage
   each associated w/different parts of body, if you get into problem at a certain stage and don’t resolve, you could end up stuck there as an adult (fixation) & try to achieve pleasure in ways equivalent to the stage

Question 9

name and describe the first of freud’s psychosexual stages

[week 1 - freud]

Answer 9

oral stage (birth - 1 year):

• mouth is associated with pleasure
• problems - e.g. weaning child incorrectly
• oral fixation - eat too much, chew gum, smoke, be dependent or needy

Question 10

name and describe the second of freud’s psychosexual stages

[week 1 - freud]

Answer 10

anal stage (1 - 3 years):
-anus is associated with pleasure
e.g: toilet training
anal fixation - compulsive, clean, stingy

Question 11

name and describe the third of freud’s psychosexual stages

[week 1 - freud]

Answer 11

phallic stage (3 - 5 years):

• focus of pleasure shifts to genitals
• phallic fixation - excessive masculinity in males, need for attention or domination in females
• oedipus complex within this stage

Question 12

name and describe the fourth of freud’s psychosexual stages

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Answer 12

latency period (5 - puberty):

• sexuality is repressed
• children participate in hobbies, school, friendships

Question 13

name and describe the fifth of freud’s psychosexual stages

[week 1 - freud]

Answer 13

genital stage (puberty on):

• sexual feelings reemerge and are oriented toward others
• healthy adults find pleasure in love and work
• fixated adults are tied up in other stages

Question 14

what is the freudian idea of the oedipus complex?

[week 1 - freud]

Answer 14

• boys go through seeking an external object of affection within phallic stage
• turns attention to mother
• wants father to die, hates father
• fear of castration if found out
• child gives up plans to seduce mother/kill father, instead identifies with his father

Question 15

what are freud’s different defense mechanisms?

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Answer 15

• displacement
• sublimation
• projection
• rationalization
• regression
• reaction formation

Question 16

explain freud’s defense mechanism of displacement

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Answer 16

redirect shameful thoughts to more appropriate targets

e.g. kid hates father, so he turns anger/hatred toward kicking dog or bullying other kids

Question 17

explain freud’s defense mechanism of sublimation

[week 1 - freud]

Answer 17

take desires that are unacceptable and displace them to more valuable activities
e.g. strong sexual desires of ‘forbiddens’ devote a lot of energy to work/school instead

Question 18

explain freud’s defense mechanism of projection

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Answer 18

reducing anxiety by taking impulses you’re ashamed of and attributing them to somebody else
e.g. repressed same-sex attraction, believes other people of same sex are drawn to them; or dislikes someone they should like, believes the other person hates them

Question 19

explain freud’s defense mechanism of rationalization

[week 1 - freud]

Answer 19

reason away anxiety-producing thoughts into more acceptable reasons
e.g. father gets pleasure by physically punishing children, so he rationalizes that it’s for their own good

Question 20

explain freud’s defense mechanism of regression

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Answer 20

under certain forms of stress or stressful desires and stressful impulses from the Id, you retreat to a mode of behavior that’s characteristic of an earlier stage

Question 21

what is freud’s concept of hysteria?

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Answer 21

• ways in which we fail to properly repress the impulses from the Id -> manifest ‘improper’ ways of repressing
  ex: blindness/deafness without physical cause, paralysis, tremblings, panic attacks, gaps of memories, etc.

Question 22

what is freud’s concept of catharsis?

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Answer 22

-an explosive/emotional release of insight when repressed impulses/memories come to light

Question 23

what is the notion of falsifiability?

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Answer 23

what distinguishes science from non-science is that scientific predictions make strong claims about the world and run the risk of being proven false

Question 24

how do we distinguish falsifiable theories from unfalsifiable ones?

[week 1 - freud]

Answer 24

falsifiable theories have such specificity and testability that there are ways to prove their claims wrong

Question 25

how does the concept of falsifiability apply to freud’s psychodynamic theories?

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Answer 25

• main accusations of Freudian theory is that it’s unfalsifiable
• based on a lot of anecdotes and descriptions of clinical events
• therapeutic environment itself has a sort of unfalsifiability to it (e.g. client either agrees w/therapist, or therapist uses resistance as evidence they’re right)

Question 26

what components of freud’s theory that are still considered valuable today?

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Answer 26

• developmental theories are more falsifiable
• made specific claims about the origin of sexual preference
• influence on how psychologists and non-psychologists think about the mind
• idea of a dynamic unconscious is intact

Question 27

how does freud conceptualize defense mechanisms?

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Answer 27

• desires are repressed via defense mechanisms

- protect ego from id’s inappropriate desires

Question 28

explain freud’s defense mechanism of reaction formation

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Answer 28

• replace threatening wishes and fantasies with their opposites
  e. g. you hate someone, so instead you say “I love this person. This person is my favorite person.”