PSYC TEST #1-Reading Notes 28/02/2010 17:31:00

← Chapter 1: Freud
• History/Background
o born 1856
o favored by mother
o very smart
o went into medicine
o used cocaine during medical school and published article
about its benefits
o influenced by Charcot that neurosis were always based on
sexual conflicts
o women patients who said they had been abused first believed
by Freud but then denied bc of social acceptability (would
anyone believe that all these fathers and uncles were abusing
little girls?)
o Freud thought sex was negative and degrading
o resented his wife Martha for ruining his sex life
o experienced neurosis as a result of his frustrations w/ sex
o formulated much of his theory around his dreams and
personal experiences w/ sex
o died of cancer in 1939
• Instincts
o the basic elements of the personality, the motivating forces
that influence behavior and determine its direction
 mental representations of internal stimuli, like hunger,
that drive a person to take certain actions
o Freud said we always experience a certain amount of
instinctual tension and continually act to reduce it and there
are different ways to satisfy the need
o TYPES OF INSTINCTS
 Life= drive for ensuring survival of the individual and
the species by satisfying the needs for food, water, air,
and sex
 Libido= the form of psychic energy manifested by the
life instincts, that drives a person toward pleasurable
behaviors and thoughts
  sex=most important life instinct
 cathexis=an investment of psychic energy in an
object or person
 Death= unconscious drive toward decay, destruction,
and aggression
 Aggressive drive= the compulsion to destroy,
conquer, and kill
 didn’t catch on, his followers didn’t really agree
• Levels of Personality
o conscious-sensations and experiences of which we are aware
of at any given moment
 contains a small portion of our thoughts, sens, and
memoriestip of iceberg
o preconscious- store house of memories, perceptions and
thoughts of which we are not consciously aware at the
moment but that we can easily summon into consciousness
 memories of the other day or last night or two years
ago, not always there but we can get to them
o unconscious-home of instincts, part of iceberg below water,
not easily accessed
• Structure of Personality
o Id= aspect of personality allied with instincts, source of
psychic energy; operates according to the pleasure principle
 pleasure principle=maximize pleasure, minimize pain
 Primary-process thought=childlike thinking by which the
id attempts to satisfy the instinctual drives
o Ego=rational aspect of personality responsible for directing
and controlling the instincts according to the reality principle
 reality principle= provides appropriate constraints on
the expression of the id instincts
 Secondary-process thought= mature thought processes
needed to deal rationally with the external world
o Superego= moral aspect of personality, the internalization of
parental and societal values and standards
 conscience= component of the superego that constrains
behaviors for which the child has been punished
  ego-ideal=component of the superego that contains the
moral or ideal behaviors for which a person should
strive
• Anxiety= a feeling of fear and dread without an obvious cause
o reality anxiety= a fear of tangible dangers
 protect or escape from actual dangers
o neurotic anxiety= conflict btw id and ego
 basis in childhood conflict btw instinctual gratification
and reality
 an unconscious fear of being punished for
impulsively displaying id=dominated behavior
o moral anxiety= conflict btw id and superego
 when you are motivated to express an instinctual
impulse that is contrary to your moral code, superego
makes you feel guilt or shame
o Freud said we are born into a state of anxiety bc as we leave
the womb we have to adapt and soon our instincts will not be
satisfied on demand
o when we are in a state of helplessness, we are anxious, and
vice versa
o anxiety causes tension and then we must relieve it
• Defense Mechanisms
o Strategies the ego uses to defend itself against the anxiety
provoked by conflicts of everyday life, involving denials or
distortions of reality
 Repression=unconscious denial of the existence of
something that causes anxiety
 Denial=denying the existence of an external threat or
traumatic event
 Reaction Formation= expressing an id impulse that is
the opposite of the one that is truly driving the person
 Projection= attributing a disturbing impulse to someone
else
 Regression= retreating to an earlier, less frustrating
period of life and displaying the childish and dependent
behaviors characteristic of that more secure time
  Rationalization=reinterpreting behavior to make it more
acceptable and less threatening
 Displacement=shifting id impulses from a threatening
or unavailable object to a substitute object that is
available
 Sublimation= altering or displacing id impulses by
diverting instinctual energy into socially acceptable
behaviors (e.g. artistic behaviors as a way to release
sexual energy)
o When defenses fail, overwhelming anxiety occurs
• Psychosexual Stages of Personality Development
o Oral—Birth-1: mouth is primary erogenous zone; pleasure
derived from sucking; id is dominant
o Anal—1-3: toilet training (external reality) interferes with
gratification received from defecations
o Phallic—4-5: incestuous fantasies; Oedipus complex; anxiety;
superego development
o Latency—5-Puberty: Period of sublimation of sex instinct
o Genital—Adolescence-Adulthood: development of sex-role
identity and adult social relaitonships
 28/02/2010 17:31:00
←
 28/02/2010 17:31:00
←