The Psychoanalytic Perspective

4. The Psychoanalytic Perspective • Freud • Neo-Freudians • Carl Jung • Alfred Adler • Karen Horney • Erik Erikson

5. Carl Jung • Shared Freud’s emphasis on unconscious processes • But libido is all life forces not just sexual ones • Unconscious is positive source of strength • Development comes to fruition by middle age

6. Carl Jung • Personal unconscious • That part of the unconscious mind containing an individuals repressed thoughts and feelings • Collective unconscious • The part of the unconscious that is inherited and common to all members of a species

7. Archetypes – Thought forms or collective memories • Examples of archetypes • Persona • Our public self • Anima • Female archetype as expressed in male personality • Animus • Male archetype as expressed in female personality

9. Attitude/Personality Types • Extroverts • Focus on external world and social life • Introverts • Focus on internal thoughts and feelings • Jung felt that everyone had both qualities, but one is usually dominant

10. Personality Types • Rational individuals • People who regulate their actions through thinking and feeling • Rational and logical people who decide on facts • Acts tactfully and has a balanced sense of values • Irrational individuals • People who base their actions on perceptions, either through their senses or intuition • Relies on surface perceptions – little imagination • Beyond the obvious to consider future possibilities

11. Alfred Adler • Didn’t see the conflict between the id and superego • People have innate positive motives that make them strive for personal/social perfection • The unique mix of personal and social perfection creates unique directions and beliefs that become our style of life • This emerges by 4 or 5

12. Alfred Adler • Compensation • Our efforts to overcome real or perceived weaknesses while we strive for that perfection. • We try to overcome feelings of inferiority • Inferiority complex • Fixation on feelings of personal inferiority that can lead to emotional and social paralysis • Would focus on our drive toward superiority and perfection – father of Humanistic Psychology

13. Karen Horney • Environmental and social factors important, especially those we experience as children • Viewed anxiety (reaction to real or imagined dangers) as a powerful motivating force • seen as being as important as unconscious sexual conflict

14. Karen Horney • Neurotic trends • Irrational strategies for coping with emotional problems and thus minimizing anxiety • Submission (Moving toward people) • Feels the need to give in to other and only feels safe when receiving protection and guidance. • Friendliness is superficial and masks true resentment • Aggression (Moving against people) • Hides inner feelings of insecurity while they lash out • Detachment (Moving away from people) • If I withdraw nothing can hurt me

15. Erik Erikson • Eight stages of personality development • Trust vs. mistrust • Autonomy vs. shame and doubt • Initiative vs. guilt • Industry vs. inferiority • Identity vs. role confusion • Intimacy vs. isolation • Generativity vs. stagnation • Ego integrity vs. despair

16. Evaluating Psychodynamic Theories • Culture-bound ideas • Freud made no connection between women’s subordinate status in society and their sense of inferiority • Psychodymanic theories are largely untestable in any scientific way • Most of its concepts arise out of clinical practice, which are the after-the-fact explanation.

17. Evaluating the Psychoanalytic Perspective • Personality develops throughout life and is not fixed in childhood. • Freud underemphasized peer influence on the individual, which may be as powerful as parental influence. • Gender identity may develop before 5-6 years of age. Modern Research

18. Evaluating the Psychoanalytic Perspective • There may be other reasons for dreams besides wish fulfillment. • Verbal slips can be explained on the basis of cognitive processing of verbal choices. (capture effect) • If suppressed sexuality leads to psychological disorders. Sexual inhibition has decreased, but psychological disorders have not. Modern Research

19. Evaluating the Psychoanalytic Perspective Freud's psychoanalytic theory rests on the repression of painful experiences into the unconscious mind. The majority of children, death camp survivors, and battle-scarred veterans are unable to repress painful experiences into their unconscious mind.

20. Freud and the Unconscious Mind Modern research shows the existence of non-conscious information processing. • Schemas that automatically control perceptions and interpretations • Parallel processing during vision and thinking • Implicit memories • Emotions that activate instantly without consciousness