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Week
Topic
Learning Objectives
1. describe Freud’s main assumptions about people and relate them
to the issues of his times
2. describe the topographical and structural models of the mind
Freud and
psychoanalytic
6
perspective.
(pp. 129-16)
3. identify the specific conflicts between the individual and external
reality that are embodied in each of the psychosexual stages
4. explain the significance of different types of anxiety and relate
these to defence mechanisms
5. describe the major forms of defence mechanisms with examples
6. explain the importance of slips of the tongue, dreams, etc, as
evidence of the unconscious
7. describe the process of personality through psychoanalytic
therapy and projective techniques of assessment.
1. DESCRIBE FREUD’S MAIN ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT PEOPLE AND RELATE THEM TO THE
ISSUES OF HIS TIMES

Psychodynamic: the idea that personality is a set of processes that are always in motion.

Pressures within the personality can conflict with each other.

Defence as a key aspect of human functioning: everyone experiences threats about aspects of
himself or herself.
o
defensive processes keep it from overpowering you. This idea of continual defence is an
important aspect of psychoanalytic thought.

Human experience is suffused with qualities of lust and aggression, sexuality and death.
o

Link to evolutionary theory (reproduction).
Perspective on personality is extremely metaphorical.
o
concepts of life and death instincts resemble the dual processes of metabolic functioning—
continually tearing down and building up.
o
Compares the mind to a sociopolitical system, making reference to cen- sors, economics,
compromises, and repression
2. DESCRIBE THE TOPOGRAPHICAL AND STRUCTURAL MODELS OF THE MIND
Topographical (3 levels)

Conscious: the part of the mind that holds what you’re now aware of.
o
The part of the mind representing ordinary memory he called preconscious.
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
Things in the preconscious can be brought to awareness easily. For example, when
you think of your phone number or the last movie you saw, you’re bringing that
information from the preconscious to conscious.

Unconscious: a part of the mind that’s not directly accessible to awareness (where the core
operations of personality take place).
o
The source of desires and as a repository for urges, feelings, and ideas that are tied to
anxiety, conflict, or pain
o
These things aren’t gone. They exert a continuing influence on later actions and conscious
experience.
Structural model

ID: present at birth – inherited, instinctive, primitive aspects of personality. Entirely in the
unconscious. Closely tied to biological processes.
o
Pleasure principle: all needs should be satisfied immediately
o
Primary process: needs satisfied by forming an unconscious mental image of an
object/event that would satisfy the need (wish fulfilment).

Ego: tries to make sure the id’s impulses are expressed effectively.
o
Reality principle: weigh up the risks of an action before acting.
o
Goal is to delay the discharge of the id’s tension until an appropriate object/context is found.
o
Secondary process: matching the unconscious image of a tension-reducing object to a real
object.
o
Reality testing: forms plans of action then tests the plans mentally to see whether they will
work.

Has an “executive” role as it mediates between the desires of the id and constraints
of the external world.
o

No moral sense, entirely pragmatic.
Superego: develops while the person resolves a particular conflict during development.
o
The embodiment of parental and societal values.
o
Introjection: the avoidance of pain, punishment by taking in the values of the parents and
society.
o
Two subsystems:

Ego ideal: comprises rules for good behaviour/standards of excellence. Reflects
things you strive for.

Conscience: comprises rules about what behaviours parents disapprove of and
punish. You are punished with guilt. Reflects things to avoid.
o
Operates at all levels of consciousness, with three interrelated goals

Tries to prevent any id impulse that would be frowned upon by parents.

Tries to force the ego to act morally, rather than rationally.
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
Tries to guide the person toward perfection in thought, word and deed.
3. IDENTIFY THE SPECIFIC CONFLICTS BETWEEN THE INDIVIDUAL AND EXTERNAL REALITY
THAT ARE EMBODIED IN EACH OF THE PSYCHOSEXUAL STAGES

Called ‘psychosexual stages’ because each stage is associated with an erogenous zone (area
associated with sexual activity in that period).

Oral stage: mouth is the source of tension reduction (eating) and pleasurable sesnations (tasting,
licking sucking. Infants are totally dependent on others for survival.
o
Conflict trigger: when this arrangement ends – weaning – and children are under
increasing pressure to be less reliant on the mother.
o
Personality association: if infant experiences the world as benign, optimism and trust
emerge. If not, then traits such as pessimism and mistrust emerge. If the world is too helpful,
strong dependency on others may occur.

Anal stage: starts about 18 months and continues to 3rd year. Pleasure comes from defecation. Big
event = toilet training.
o
Conflict trigger: external constraints are systematically imposed on their satisfaction of
internal urges.
o
Personality association: if approach to training is reward, child makes an association of
producing things at the right time and place. Freud linked this to adult productivity and
creativity. If approach is harsh, anally retentive traits (rigid, obsessive) appear.


Anal triad – stinginess, obstinacy and orderliness.
Phallic stage: begins during the third year. Focus is on genital organs. Period when most children
begin to masturbate. Oedipus complex and Electra complex.
o
Conflict triggers

Boys: love for mother turns into sexual desire and feelings for father turn to hatred
and hostility (jealousy). Such thoughts induce feelings of guilt and fear of retaliation
from father (castration anxiety). This in turn causes boy to repress his desire for
mother. Identification = developing feelings of similarity to and connectedness with
someone else – this makes him feel more like father and less likely to be harmed,
reduces the ambivalence, the superego develops injected with the father’s values,
and boy gains vicarious expression of sexual expression towards mother.

Girls: she realises she has no penis, withdraws love from mother and blames her for
lack of penis. She comes to wish her father would share his penis with her through
sex or a baby (penis envy). Identification - by becoming more like mother, she gains
vicarious access to father and increases the chances of marrying someone just like
him. The conflict is displayed by relating to men seductively and flirtatiously but with
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a denial of the sexuality. She excites men and then is surprised when they want to
have sex with her.

Latency period: from 6 yo to early teens. Sexual and aggressive drives are less active, partly as a
result of the emergence of ego and superego. Attention is turned to other intellectual and social
pursuits.
o
Conflict trigger: onset of puberty – sexual and aggressive urges intensify again.
Adolescents have them but are not socially sanctioned to act on them. The ego’s coping
skills are severly tested.

Genital stage: a desire develops to share mutual sexual gratification with someone. The genital
personality is an ideal to strive for – the ability to share with others in a warm, caring way and
concerned with their welfare. Stage goes on throughout life and rarely perfected.
4. EXPLAIN THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF ANXIETY AND RELATE THESE TO
DEFENCE MECHANISMS

Anxiety: a warning signal to the ego that something bad is about to happen. People seek to escape
anxiety.

Reality anxiety: arises from a danger in the world. Experienced when you are about to get bitten by
a dog, crash car, fail exam. Dealt with by fixing, avoiding or escaping the situation.

Neurotic anxiety: an unconscious fear that your id impulses will get out of control and make you do
something that will get you punished – fear of the punishment.

Moral anxiety: the fear people have when they have violated (or are about to violate) their moral
code. Felt as guilt or shame.
When anxiety arises, the ego responds in two:

It increases problem-oriented coping efforts by trying to consciously deal with the source of the
threat – good for reality anxiety.

Engages defence mechanisms: tactics to help avoid the other two types of anxiety which operate
unconsciously and distort/transform reality.
5. DESCRIBE THE MAJOR FORMS OF DEFENCE MECHANISMS WITH EXAMPLES

Repression: the ego is used to keep unacceptable impulses out of consciousness. Deals with
threats that originate within the dynamics of the mind.

Denial: refusal to believe an event took place or condition exists. Deals with threats from external
sources.

Projection: ascribe your own unacceptable qualities to someone else. Helps get true desires out
into the open in a way that the ego and superego don’t recognise it as belonging to you.
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
Rationalisation: find a rational explanation for your unacceptable behaviour. Also maintains selfesteem – common response to success and failure.

Intellectualisation: tendency to think about threats in cold, analytical, detached terms. Enables you
to dissociate from your feelings.

Displacement: more adaptive. Shifting an impulse from one target to another. Substituting a less
threatening target for the original one reduces anxiety.

Sublimation: more adaptive, more mature response. Lets impulses be express, by transforming
them into an acceptable form. It’s something about the impulse, rather than the target, that creates
the threat. Anxiety reduces when a transformed impulse is expressed instead of the initial one.
6. EXPLAIN THE IMPORTANCE OF SLIPS OF THE TONGUE, DREAMS, ETC, AS EVIDENCE OF THE
UNCONSCIOUS

Psychopathology of everyday life: unconscious impulses are revealed in everyday events.

Parapraxes: e.g. memory lapses, slips of speech and accidents – provide insights into a person’s
true desires (Freudian slip).

o
Forgetting – attempts to keep something from consciousness.
o
Slips of tongue – failing to keep something from consciousness.
Dreams: reveal the unconscious.
o
Content types

Manifest – sensory images

Latent – unconscious thoughts, feelings and wishes behind the manifest content.
Tells why a dream takes the form it does.

Three sources: sensory stimulation, current concerns and unconscious
impulses.

Reveals the most about a person’s personality.
7. DESCRIBE THE PROCESS OF PERSONALITY THROUGH PSYCHOANALYTIC THERAPY AND
PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES OF ASSESSMENT.

Projective techniques
o
People are confronted with ambiguous stimuli (e.g. Rorschach inkblots, no obvious response
so responses are believed to reflect unconscious feelings, desires, attitudes and needs.
Using the defence mechanism of projection, people perceive aspects of themselves in the
stimulus. What is projected presumably reflects the consciousness.

Origins of problems
o
Childhood experiences
o
Broad repression of basic drives and urges
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o


Buried trauma
Behaviour change – psychoanalytic therapy
o
Hypnosis
o
Free association – the person says out loud whatever comes to mind.
o
Symbolism
o
Resistance – can be conscious or unconscious
o
Transference
o
Insight
Criticisms - page 154.
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