THE PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH

PSYCHOANALYSIS

Sigmund Freud (1856- 1993)

 Born in 1856 in Freiburg, Moravia
 Neurosis refers to an emotional disturbance.
 Breuer and Freud worked together in writing up some of their cases in Studies in
Hysteria.
 1900 Freud published “The Interpretations of Dreams”
 Freud published works fill twenty-four volumes in the Standard English Edition.
 He died in London in 1993 at age eighty-three.
 He was the Founder of psychoanalysis, which emphasizes the importance of
unconscious force.

Hysteria - An earlier term for an illness in which there are physical symptoms, such as paralysis,
but no organic or physiological basis for the problem.

The Origin of Psychoanalysis

An Outline of Psychoanalysis(1940), which he began in 1938

The Discovery of Unconscious Forces

Conversion disorder - A reaction to anxiety or stressed expressed through physical symptoms;

the modern term for hysteria.

Anna gratefully called the cure the “talking cure” or referred to it jokingly as “chimney
sweeping”.

Catharsis -Refers to emotional release.

Resistance - A force within the patient from becoming aware of them and kept the memories
unconscious.

Unconscious processes - A forces which person is unaware because they have been repressed
or never permitted to become conscious.

Wishes - A desire may be rendered unconsciously if they go against a person’s ego-ideal.

Repression - The blocking of wish or desire from consciousness.

Best known as the first patient treated by psychoanalysis, Anna O. (Bertha Pappenheim in
real life) later become one of the first social workers.
The Psychoanalytic Method of Assessment and Research

Free Association

Free Association - A technique in which a person verbalizes whatever comes to mind. Based on
the premise that no idea is arbitrary and insignificant.

The Interpretation of Dreams and Slips

Slips - A bungled acts, such as slip of tongue, a slip of pen, or memory lapse.

Cause - Implies the action of a material, impersonal force that brings something about.

Motive - Refers to personal agency and implies an emotion.

Freud reports in The Psychopathology Everyday Life (1901). Freud recognized the quotation
and cited it correctly. “Exoriarealiquisnostris ex ossibusultor”(“Let somenone arise from my
bones as an avenger”). The forgotten word was aliquis (“someone”).

For Freud, the dream is the royal road to the unconscious.

Manifest dream - The dream as it is remembered the next morning.

Latent dream - The real morning or motive that underlie the dream that we remember.

Dream work - The process that disguises unconscious wishes and converts them into manifest
dream.

The Interpretations of Dreams may help to illustrate the procedure of dream analysis.

The Germanword Vogel, which means“bird”.

In his famous dreams, Freud saw tall figures with birds beaks (such a statue) carrying his
mother, whowas sleeping with a calm expression on her face. The analysis of his dream led
Freud to the Discovery of the Oedipus complex.

The Dynamics and Development of Personality

According to Freud, the nature of our repressed wishes and desires is erotic.

The Importance of sexuality

Freud viewed sexuality as a bodily processthat could be totally understood under a model of
tension reduction.

Libido - Refer to the emotional and psychicenergy derived from the biological drive of
sexualities testifies to this shift in his thought.
Drive - A psychological or mentally representation of an inner source of excitement.

A drive characterized by four features:

Source - The bodily stimulus or need.

Impetus - The amount of energy or intensity of the need.

Goal and purpose (to reduce the excitation)

Object - The person or object in the environment through which the aim may be satisfied.

Freudused Germanverb besetzen (translated as “cathect”) to refer to investing libidinal

energy in amental representation of an object that will satisfy a desire; aperson cathects an object
that he or she wants.

Psychosexuality - Used to indicate the totality of elements included in the sexual drive.

2 groups of impulsive drives

Eros - Refers to life impulses or drives, those forces thatmaintain life processes and ensure
production of the species. The key of these forces is the sexual drive, whose energy forceis
“libido”.

Thanatos - Encompassing death impulses or drives, is biologically reality and the source of
aggressiveness, and reflects the ultimate resolution of all of life’s tension indeath. Although
Freud emphasized the importance of the death drive, his discussion of the development of
personality centers around the sexual drive.

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) argued in Summa Theologica that according to natural law the
primary purpose of sexuality was reproduction of these species. Other purposes of sexual
activity were secondary and should be submissive to the primary of reproduction.

Freud suggested that the primary purpose of sexual behavior is pleasure.

Polymorphousperverse- Who actively seeks pleasure from many areas of the body.

Autoerotic- They seek pleasure from their own bodies rather than from the body of another
person.

The Psychological Stages of Development

Erogenous zones - Areas of the body provides pleasure.

Psychological stages - A developmental stage through which all people pass as they move from
to infancy to adulthood.
Freud outlined psychosexual stages that children travel as they progress from autoerotic sexual
activity to mature reproductive activity. During oral stage, that the infant meets are typically
explored with the mouth.

Oral stage (from birth to 18 months)

A psychological stage in which the major source of pleasure and potential conflict is the mouth.
The two main types of oral activity: ingestion and biting.

Anal stage (18 months and three years)

A psychological stage in which the major source of pleasure and conflict is the anus. The two
primarymodes of anal expression, retention and expulsion.

Phallic stage(three to six years of age)

A psychological stage in which pleasurable and conflicting feelings are associated with the
genital organs.

Seduction theory - Which held that adult neurosis, was caused by actual incidents of sexual
abuse in childhood, in favor of a theory that saw childhood sexual fantasy and immature
cognitive structures as primary contributors to neurosis.

Oedipus complex - An unconscious psychological conflict in which the child loves parent of the
oppositesex.

Castration anxiety - The child’s fear of losing the penis.

Electra complex - A term that some critics have used to feminine counterpart to the male
Oedipus complex.

Penis envy - The concept women view themselves as castrated males and penis.

Latency period(from the age of seven to puberty)

A psychological stage of developmentwhich thesexual drive is thought to go underground.

Genital stage(begins at puberty)

The genital stage emerges at adolescence when the original organs mature.

The hallmark maturity can be summed up in German expression lieben und areiten, “to love
and to work.”

The Effects of thePsychosexual Stages

Fixation - Creates excessive needs characteristic of an earlier stage.

Sadism- A sexual disorder in which a person obtains pleasure by inflicting pain.

Masochism - A sexual disorder which a person obtains pleasure by receiving pain

Homosexuality - Primary attraction to the same sex.

Freud also viewed neurosis as the outcome of inadequate sexual development, in particular an
unsuccessfully resolved oedipal conflict.

Sexuality - A model for a person’s style.

The Structure of Personality

The Id, Ego, and superego

Id(“it”)- The oldest and original function of the personality, which includes genetic inheritance,
reflex capacities, instincts, and drives.

Pleasure principle - Refers to seeking immediate tension reduction.

Primary processes - Hallucinating or forming an image of the object that would satisfy its
needs.

Wish fulfillment - It is present in newborns, in our dreams, and in the hallucination psychotics.

Ego (“I”) - A function of the personality that follows reality principle and operates according to
secondary processes and reality testing.

Reality principle - Satisfying the id’s impulses in an appropriate manner in the external world.

Secondary processes - The cognitive and perceptions skills that help an individual distinguish
between fact and fantasy.

The ego is a “faithful servant” of the id and tries to fulfill its needs realistically. The ego is the
primary executor. It controls and governs both id and superego, mediating between their
demands and external world.

Superego (“above I”) - A function of the personality that represents interjected and internalized
values, ideals, and moral standard.

Conscience- Is the capacity for self-evaluation, criticism, and reproach. It scolds the ego and
creates feelings of guilt when moral codes are violated.

Ego-ideal- Is an ideal self-image consisting of approved and reward behaviors. It is the source of
pride and concept of who think we should be.
 The Relationship of the Id, ego, and Superego to Consciousness

The Structure of personality

Freud used this metaphor of an iceberg to deficit the psyche, or personality, in order to
emphasize that nine-tenths of it lies submerged in the realm of consciousness. Whether
unconscious or conscious, the three functions of personality--id, ego, and superego--interact at
many levels as the go tries to control and moderate the drives of the id and superego.

The Ego’s Defense Mechanisms

Reality anxiety - Refers to fear of a real danger in the external world.

Neurotic anxiety - Refers to fear that one’s inner impulses cannot be controlled.

Moral anxiety - Refers to fear of the retributions of one’s own conscience.

Defense mechanisms - A procedure that wards off anxiety and prevent our conscious perception
of it.

Repression - It involves blocking a wish or desire from expression so that it cannot be

experienced consciously or expressed directly in behavior.

Defense Mechanisms

MECHANISM CHARACTERISTIC EXAMPLE

Repression Blocking a wish or desire
from conscious expression.
Denial Refusing to accept an
unpleasant reality.
Being unaware of deep-seated
hostilities toward one’s
parents.
Refusing to believe that one
has AIDS or a terminal cancer.
Projection Attributing conscious impulse,
attitude, or behavior to
another.
Reaction formation Expressing an impulse by its
opposite.
Regression Returning to an earlier form of
expressing an impulse.
Rationalization Dealing with an emotion
intellectually to avoid
emotional concern.
Identification Modeling one’s behavior after
the behavior of someone else.
Displacement Satisfying an impulse with a
substitute object.
Sublimation Rechanneling an impulse into
a more socially desirable
outlet.
Blaming another for your act
or thinking that someone is
out to get you.
Treating someone whom you
intensely dislike in a friendly
manner.
Resuming bedwetting after
one has long since stopped.
Arguing that “Everybody else
does it, so I don’t have to feel
guilty”.
Imitating one’s mother or
father.
Scapegoating
Satisfying sexual curiosity by
researching sexual behaviors.

Psychoanalysis

Transference

Transference - A process whereby the patient transfers to the analyst emotional attitudes felt as
a child toward important persons.

Positive Transference - Friendly, affectionate, feelings toward the physician.

Negative Transference - Characterized by the expression of hostile, angry feelings.

Insight - A form therapeutic knowing that combines intellectual and emotional elements and
culminates in profound personality change.

The Analytic Process

The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) - Is a structured technique for organizing and analyzing
complex decisions, based on mathematics and psychology.

The goal of psychoanalysis is an ambitious one--a full understanding, reorganization, and basic
change of the personality structure. Freud (1917) once wrote, “A neurotic who has been cured
has reallybecome a different person… he has become his best self, what he would have been
under the most favorable conditions.”

EmpiricalValidation of Psychoanalytic Concepts

LloydSilverman (1976) designed an experiment to test the hypothesis that depression arises
from aggressive feelings that have been turned inward against the self.

Defining unconscious as unable to be verbalized enables such processes to be subjected to

experimental study.

Freud’s Theory

MacIntyre (1958) suggested that Freud’s theoretical work denoted a “kind of creative
untidiness.”

Freud’s aim was to develop a comprehensive theory of humanity.

Freud’s original theory was revolutionary and formed the basis for much theoretical expansion
and current reflection. His later writings on the dynamics and necessary tensions of political life
tellingly warn us against our “fundamental urge” to seek premature dogmatic solutions in an
era of terrorist behavior.