Personality and The Psychoanalytic Perspective

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Personality and The Psychoanalytic Perspective

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Warm Up

• What is your personality? Choose at least 5 words
  that you think describe your personality

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Personality and the Four Perspectives

• What is personality?
• Thinking
• Feeling
• Acting
• Theories of Personality
• 1. Psychoanalytic
• 2. Trait
• 3. Humanistic
• 4. Social Cognitive

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The Psychoanalytic Perspective

• Sigmund Freud
• Personality
• unconscious conflicts motivations
• early childhood sexuality experiences.
• Reviewwhat is repression?
• Two main motives
• Sex
• Aggression.

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The Psychoanalytic Perspective

• Psychoanalysis
• Freuds theory unconscious motivations influence
  personality
• techniques used to uncover unconscious
  motivations which may be causing a psychological
  disorder.
• Freud must understand your unconscious to fix
  psych. problems (depression, anxiety, etc.)

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Unconscious vs. Preconscious

• Unconscious
• Freud unconscious stash of mostly unacceptable
  thoughts, wishes, feelings and memories.
• Repressed! We are unaware of it.
• Source of dreams
• Contemporary viewpoint unconscious information
  processing of which we are unaware.

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Unconscious vs. Preconscious

• Preconscious info that isnt conscious, but is
  retrievable into conscious awareness.
• NOT repressed.
• Ex memories we can call up at any time - phone
  number, best friends last name, etc.

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Structure of Our Personality According to Freud

• Iceberg analogy
• Conscious v. Unconscious
• Three parts to our psyche
• Ego
• Id
• Superego

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Parts of Personality According to Freud

• Id
• biggest part of unconscious
• drives and instincts (biological, sexual, and
  aggressive)
• immediate gratification
• pleasure principle seeks pleasure, avoids pain

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Parts of Personality According to Freud

• Superego conscience, morality, right wrong,
  socially acceptable
• Do whats right vs. what is selfish
• Mostly unconscious
• We have unconscious ideals, but are also aware of
  our conscience
• Pushes you towards perfection.
• Develops around 4 or 5

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Parts of Personality According to Freud

• Ego the boss
• mostly conscious part
• mediates conflict between id and superego
• Judgment, planning, control, long-term
  consequences
• Reality principle
• satisfying the ids desires in ways that will
  bring pleasure rather than pain.
• e.g. you might want this NOW but what are
  long-term effects?

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Pleasure Seeking Impulses (Id) vs.Internalized
Social Restraints (Superego) personality
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Personality Development

• Freud
• personality develops during your first few years.
  
• adults conflicts come from unresolved conflicts
  from early childhood (often related to conflicts
  in psychosexual development.)
• Psychosexual Stages childhood stages of
  development when (according to Freud,) the ids
  pleasure-seeking energies are focused on distinct
  erogenous zones.

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Know the Psychosexual Stages
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Personality Development and Conflict

• Fixation
• a lingering focus of the Id (pleasure-seeking) at
  an earlier psychosexual stage.
• Occurs when those sexual needs are overindulged
  or deprived.
• Ex Anal Retentive, oral fixation, etc.

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Conflict/Fixation in the Oral Stage

• Oral stage
• sexual pleasure infant gets from sucking,
  biting, and chewing.
• Conflict?
• when child is weaned off of breast or bottle
• traumatic separation anxiety.
• Fixation in this stage leads to
• 1. Oral dependent personality gullible,
  passive or dependent.
• 2. Oral aggressive personality sarcastic,
  argumentative personality.
• Adults with oral fixation may smoke, drink,
  chew pens, etc. when they get anxious.

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Conflict/Fixation in the Anal Stage

• Anal stage
• sexual pleasure child receives from being able
  to control defecation (pooping) at the anus.
• Conflict?
• during toilet training
• training is too strict and inflexible or too
  lenient ? child becomes fixated at that stage
• Fixation in this stage leads to
• 1. Anal retentive personality compulsive
  cleanliness, orderliness, etc. OR
• Anal Expulsive personality disorganized, messy,
  hot temper. The Anal Retentive Chef

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Conflict/Fixation During the Phallic Stage (Focus
on Genitals)

• The Oedipus Complex boys develop
• sexual desires --gt mother
• feelings of jealousy and hatred --gt father
• Schick Commercial
• Castration anxiety
• boys become afraid Father will cut off their
  genitalia as punishment for desiring mother.
  Father rival
• Leads toeventual repression of feelings towards
  mother and identification with rival parent
  (father).
• Identification process by which children
  incorporate their parents values into their
  developing superegos.
• Electra Complex
• Girls version (desire father, compete with
  mother).
• Penis envy - analogous to castration anxiety

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Latency Stage

• Ages 6 to 12
• sexual feelings are repressed.
• Freud said
• this is when children put energy into forming
  social relationships and learning new tasks.
• If child does not fulfill their own expectations
  they may feel inferior.

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Genital Stage

• Adolescence.
• One develops warm feelings towards opposite sex
  and sexual attraction and intimate relationships
  with opposite sex.
• Freud a smooth period for those with little
  energy fixated in previous stages.

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Personality and Dealing with Anxiety

• The ego has to deal with anxiety from unconscious
  conflicts between id and superego.
• At times to avoid anxiety it protects itself by
  using

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Defense Mechanisms

• methods that the ego uses to reduce anxiety.
• Involves unconsciously distorting reality to
  make itself (you!) feel better.

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10 Examples of Defense Mechanisms

• 1. Repression banishes anxiety-arousing
  thoughts, feelings, and memories from
  consciousness.
• Ex Child sexual abuse is forgotten.
• 2. Regression when an individual returns to an
  earlier psychosexual stage, where some psychic
  energy remains fixated.
• Ex When stressed someone may smoke or drink
  more (oral fixation).

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Examples of Defense Mechanisms

• 3. Reaction Formation ego unconsciously switches
  unacceptable impulses into their opposites.
  People will express opposite of their anxiety
  arousing feelings.
• Ex Those with unacceptable homosexual impulses
  may become gay bashers.
• 4. Projection when people disguise their own
  threatening impulses by attributing them to
  others.
• Ex Husband who is cheating may suspect his
  wife of cheating and accuse her.

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Examples of Defense Mechanisms

• 5. Rationalization offering self-justifying
  explanations in place of the real, more
  threatening, unconscious reasons for ones
  actions.
• Ex Justifying cheating on taxes by saying the
  government would only waste the money.
• 6. Displacement shifting ones sexual or
  aggressive impulses to a more acceptable or less
  threatening object or personredirect anger at
  safer outlet.
• Ex Angry at boss or supervisor and you take it
  out by yelling at spouse, who might take it out
  on the child, who then might kick the dog.

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Examples of Defense Mechanisms

• 7. Sublimation when people re-direct their
  unacceptable impulses into socially approved
  activities.
• Ex Playing football to rechannel aggressive
  impulses.
• 8. Intellectualization separating oneself from
  the emotions of a situation by focusing on the
  problem in a systematic factual way or in the
  abstract.
• Ex A wife who learns her husband is dying of
  cancer tries to learn all she can about the
  disease, prognosis, treatment options, etc. She
  looks at it in a scientific way to avoid dealing
  with the emotions.

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Examples of Defense Mechanisms

• 9. Denial when a person denies threatening
  behavior or events are taking place.
• Ex Person who is paralyzed in a horrible
  accident states emphatically I will walk again!
  
• 10. Undoing idea that if you have unacceptable
  impulses/behavior you can undo or make it up by
  doing something.
• Ex After cheating on wife, husband buys her
  jewelry.

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DEFENSE MECHANISM SKIT ACTIVITY

• Instructions
• You will work with a partner for this activity.
  Each pair will be given two defense mechanisms.
• Your task is to write and perform a short (30
  -60 second) skit in which you show a defense
  mechanism in action. Write skits for both defense
  mechanisms. Everyone will perform at least one.
• Dont use the name of the defense mechanism in
  the skit, and dont tell us what it is. Make it
  clear enough that we can figure it out.
• Be creative! One person should be clearly
  exhibiting the defense mechanism, while the other
  person interacts with them in some way or
  provokes them or talks about them etc. etc.

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Methods for Tapping Into the Unconscious

• Hypnosis Hypnotized patients would talk freely
  which allowed Freud access to unconscious
  conflicts.
• Freud eventually turned away from hypnosis since
  not all patients reacted to it.
• Hypnotic regression The therapy people often
  undergo to remember alien abductions, or other
  repressed memories.

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Methods for Tapping Into the Unconscious

• 2. Dreams considered the royal road to the
  unconscious.
• Freuds book The Interpretation of Dreams was
  important
• Manifest content (dream sequence or story)
  censored expression of the dreamers unconscious
  wishes.
• Latent content - the unconscious, real meaning
  of the dream.
• Psychoanalysis can uncover this latent content.

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Methods for Tapping into The Unconscious

1. Free Association patients relax, say whatever
   comes to their mind, no matter how trivial or
   embarrassing.

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Methods for Tapping into The Unconscious

• To Freud nothing you did or said was ever
  accidental Everything offered insights into the
  unconscious.
• 4. Freudian Slips slips of the tongue or
  actions which may illustrate unconscious
  motives/feelings.
• Ex Accidentally calling your wife mom
• Ex Man sending a post card to his wife while
  on vacation which reads Wish you were her.
• Freudian Slip
• Freudian Slip 2

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Psychoanalytic Personality Tests Assessing the
Unconscious

• Projective Tests test which presents ambiguous
  (unclear) stimuli
• How you interpret it reveals your unconscious
  (according to psychoanalysts)

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Types of Projective Tests

• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) people express
  inner feelings/unconscious, through the stories
  they make up about ambiguous scenes.
• Examiners look at
• Content of stories
• Emotion of stories
• Other behavior/body language
• Try it!
• o What has led up to the event showno What is
  happening at the momento What the characters are
  thinking and feeling, ando What the outcome of
  the story was

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House-Tree-Person

• Draw a house, a tree and a person.
• Lets interpret!
• The house represents your feelings about your
  family
• The tree portrays how weak/strong you feel
• The person is youwhat is your self-concept? How
  do you see yourself?

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Types of Projective Tests

• Rorschach Inkblot Test most widely used
  projective test, looks to identify peoples inner
  feelings by analyzing their interpretations of
  blots.

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Neo-Freudians

• Alfred Adler emphasized SOCIAL tensions in
  childhood rather than sexual tensions to explain
  personality.
• Proposed idea of inferiority complex
• inferiority during childhood causes individuals
  to overcompensate
• significant achievements or antisocial
  tendencies.

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Neo-Freudians

• Carl Jung Came up with several important
  Psychoanalytic ideas including
• Collective Unconscious idea that humans have a
  shared reservoir of memories from our species
  history.
• Inherited memories were known as archetypes and
  can be seen in the common themes in religions,
  cultures, literature, etc.
• Trickster- often represented by a clown or a
  magician
• Hero fights the shadow archetype, or evil
  (dragon, monster)
• Wise old man - guides the hero, reveals the
  collective unconscious to him

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Neo-Freudians

• Karen Horney brought a feminist perspective to
  psychoanalytic theory and sharply attacked the
  male bias she saw in Freuds work.
• Argued against Freuds concept of penis envy.
• She said Men experience womb envy jealous of
  female ability to give birth, reason men try to
  dominate women.