Class 3
Psychoanalytic Theory
Freud and His Background
Born 1856 in Moravia, currently Czech Republic
Jewish roots
a. Anti-Semitism as spur to P-A
b. P-A emphasis on symbols, hidden meanings, text
c. Role of ego as “Fiddler on the Roof” btwn ID, Superego
Trained as a neurologist
Association with Josef Breuer – hypnosis and hysteria
Freud and Sex
Sex and sexual urges are central to P-A
Reasons:
a. Freud’s self-analysis
b. Era in which Freud lived was sexually repressed
Ms. Steinway, have you no
shame!
How Does Psychoanalysis Relate to
Social Psychology?
1. Levels of consciousness
2. Overt social behavior driven by unconscious drives, motives, emotions,
memories
3. Importance of language, and especially self-to-self language
4. Importance of inner life
5. Struggle to coordinate private needs with social, societal demands
6. Connection between psychological life and physical health
7. Effort to achieve integrated self: self at peace with itself
“Genetic” System of
Psycho-sexual Development
a. Oral phase (Birth - 1 Yr): self vs. non-self
b. Anal phase (1-3 yrs): control vs. release
c. Phallic phase (3-4 yrs): explore vs. inhibit, Oedipus/Electra
complexes.
d. Latency phase (5 to puberty):consolidation of phases a – c
e. Genital phase: accommodation vs. fear/hostility
Each stage presents "conflict".
Failure, or over-success, at stage leads fixation on it.
Personality shaped by these stages.
Additional Features of Freud’s Theory
Structural System of Psyche
Analogues to Psychic Triad?
a. Id – pleasure principle
Mob
Congress
Motor
b. Ego – accommodator/negotiator
Governor
President
Driver
c. Superego – rule writer/moralist
Priest
Defenses of Ego
a. Resistance
b. Repression
Personality = interaction of all three systems
Developmental + Structural + Defenses
Supreme
Court
GPS
Lecture 1: Introduction to P-A
Opens with warning to audience
Method of P-A: Free association
“Data” of P-A:
a. Unobservable
b. Like history
c. Learned first on oneself
Mind-body problem
Lecture 1: Introduction to P-A, cont.
Psychoanalysis is denigrated by other psychologists, society.
Why?
a. Promotes notion of unconscious
b. Champions non-rational (aka feminine?)
c. Addresses sexuality
1. Sex is central to unconscious
2. Sex is key to culture
3. Sex is motor that drives civilization
Lecture 2: Psychology of Errors
Freudian slip: When you say one thing but mean your mother.
1. Secrets of psyche found in language errors
a. Slips of the tongue
b. Mis-readings
c. Forgetting, misplacing objects, damaging things
2. Deterministic – there are no coincidences, nothing random
in behavior.
3. Errors represent conflicted motives
a. Between private desires, public rules
b. Errors are way of disclosing, venting desires.
Lecture 2: Psychology of Errors, cont.
4. Hidden meaning of errors facilitated by fatigue, verbal
associations, etc. -- occur when defenses are relaxed.
5. Scientific problems of P-A approach to errors
a. Falsifiability
b. Tautology
6. Note Freud's argument style:
Voices hearer's distain, resistance,
Creates counterarguments to hearer,
Then challenges his own counterarguments.
"Motoric" Freudian Slip:
Paul Ekman's Emotional Leakage
Ekman & Friesen, 1969
"Motoric" Freudian Slip:
Paul Ekman's Emotional Leakage
Ekman & Friesen, 1969
On-Air Freudian Slips
''For seven and a half years I've
worked alongside President
Reagan. We've had triumphs.
Made some mistakes. We've had
some sex...uh...setbacks.''
George W. Bush, 1988
More slips:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEIslG2
McpA
Lecture 3: Resistance and Repression
1. Free association should be easy. Is it?
2. Resistance to free association reflects repression;
resistance serves repression.
3. Why repress?
Defense against threatening thoughts/wishes
4. Architecture of Psyche
a. Unconscious = large ante-chamber
b. Narrow passage with gate-keeper
c. Smaller room = consciousness/preconscious
d. “Spotlight of attention"  consciousness.
Lecture 3: Resistance and Repression, cont.
5. Repression occurs at narrow passage, but repressed
material sneaks through via back doors, in disguise. How?
Neurotic symptoms
Neurotic symptoms serve two functions:
1. Guide to what is repressed
2. Sustain repression
6. "Let There Be Light", John Huston
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid
=7324838937417972680#
Lecture 4: Anxiety
1. Statement on normal anxiety = mini thesis on emotion
2. Normal anxiety
a. Response to expected harm
b. Intensity = nature of threat + ability to handle threat.
c. Functions:
1. Draw attention to threat
2. Readies body for action
3. Where do all emotions come from?
a. Memories of past events
b. Anxiety first learned at birth trauma
Neurotic Anxiety
Free-floating anxiety:
a. Appears to have no cause, but must have a cause
b. Cause is hidden
1. Freud: hidden cause is forbidden, e.g., sex. urges
2. Modern POV: Cause is any dangerous meaning
c. Anxiety arises when encountering cue related to
forbidden /threatening meaning or inclination.
Neurotic Anxiety, cont.
Free-floating anxiety:
d. Neurotic symptoms:
1. Serve as escape hatch by which impulse is
expressed.
2. Serve as cue to nature or impulse
e. “Sublimation” is motor of civilization.