Chapter 4

1. Chapter 4 PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY: APPLICATIONS, RELATED CONCEPTS, AND CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH

2. QUESTIONS TO BE ADDRESSED IN THIS CHAPTER • According to psychoanalysis, what are the causes of psychopathology and methods for treating it? • How can one assess personality from a psychodynamic perspective? • Why did some of Freud’s followers break with his approach, and what novel theories did they advance? • What recent developments in personality psychology were inspired by Freud? • What does contemporary scientific evidence conclude about the psychoanalytic perspective?

3. PSYCHOPATHOLOGY PERSONALITY TYPES • At any given developmental stage, a person may experience unresolved psychosexual conflict - fixation and regression • Fixation = too much or too little gratification during a developmental stage that stops development • Regression = return to an earlier mode of instinctual gratification • Fixation and regression lead a person to seek gratification in a form that reflects the unresolved conflict of a specific developmental stage • Oral fixation  gratification in eating, smoking, or drinking • Regression tends to occur under conditions of stress

4. PSYCHOPATHOLOGY PERSONALITY TYPES • Oral personality • Themes of taking things into and for oneself • Narcissistic • No clear recognition of others as separate and valued entities • Others seen in terms of what they can give (symbolic “feeding”) • Always needing or demanding something

5. PSYCHOPATHOLOGY PERSONALITY TYPES • Anal personality • Dynamic processes at the anal stage concern the link between bodily functions and interpersonal relationships • Excretion / Withholding = power • Toilet = throne • Anal triad = orderliness and cleanliness, parsimony and stinginess, and stubbornness • "Cleanliness is next to godliness"

6. PSYCHOPATHOLOGY PERSONALITY TYPES • Phallic personality • Different implications for men and women • Pattern for the phallic male = hypermasculinity • Competitive and aggressive qualities are expressive of castration anxiety • Pattern for the phallic female = hyperfemininity • Over-identifies with mother and femininity • May attract men via flirtatious behavior, but deny sexual intent • Naively idealizes life, partners, and romantic love

7. PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT: PROJECTIVE TESTS • Psychological assessments • Should be reliable and valid • Should be efficient • Challenges from the psychoanalytic perspective • Relevant mental material is often unconscious and its mere mention may activate defense mechanisms that prevent such material from reaching consciousness • Most people do not want to reveal threatening aspects of their personalities • Freud’s approach to assessment - free association • Not efficient • Freud’s adherents sought new assessment methods, including projective tests

8. PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT: PROJECTIVE TESTS RATIONALE FOR PROJECTIVE TESTS • Defining feature – ambiguity • The person being assessed is asked to respond to unfamiliar and unclear stimuli • In order to respond, the person must interpret the stimulus • The person will “project” aspects of his or her personality onto the stimulus in order to make sense of it • Projection may reveal underlying, unconscious psychodynamics • Contemporary view: a person’s interpretation indicates how ambiguous circumstances of everyday life are viewed

9. PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT: PROJECTIVE TESTS RORSCHACH INKBLOT TEST AND THEMATIC APPERCEPTION TEST (TAT) • Related to psychoanalytic theory in 3 ways: • Psychoanalytic theory emphasizes the complex organization of personality and its functioning • Psychoanalytic theory emphasizes a holistic approach to understanding personality • Psychoanalytic theory emphasizes the importance of the unconscious and defense mechanisms

10. PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT: PROJECTIVE TESTS THE RORSCHACH • Herrmann Rorschach put ink on paper and folded it so that symmetrical, but ill-defined forms were produced • Showed images to hospitalized patients and identified inkblots that elicited different responses from different psychiatric groups • Settled on 10 cards • The respondent looks at each card and tells the examiner what s/he sees represented • The examiner then asks the respondent to explain in what way a given card represents what s/he said it did

11. PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT: PROJECTIVE TESTS THE RORSCHACH • When interpreting responses, the examiner is interested in • How the response, or percept, is formed • Reasons for the response • Organized and unified perceptions that match the structure of the inkblot suggest healthy psychological functioning oriented toward reality • Poorly formed responses that do not fit the inkblot suggest unrealistic fantasies or potentially bizarre behavior • Responses are used to hypothesize about the respondent’s personality and are tested against other clinical data

13. PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT: PROJECTIVE TESTS THE TAT • Consists of cards depicting ambiguous scenes • The examiner presents these ambiguous scenes and asks the respondent to write a story based on each • Since scenes are ambiguous, the respondent’s personality is projected onto the stimuli (defenses are bypassed) • Responses can be scored quantitatively according to Henry Murray’s needs and press or interpreted qualitatively in terms themes

15. PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT: PROJECTIVE TESTS • Why don't projective tests “work”? • Problems with inter-examiner reliability • No guarantee that the respondent's unconscious dynamics will manifest when confronted with ambiguous stimuli • What do the limitations of projective tests say about Freud's psychoanalytic theory? • Freud did not develop or use projective tests - only free association • Psychological assessment and prediction are not strengths of the psychodynamic tradition

16. PSYCHOLOGICAL CHANGE FREE ASSOCIATION AND DREAM INTERPRETATION • More than a simple recovery of memories is required to help people grow; clients need emotional insight into their unconscious wishes and conflicts • Therapeutic change = understanding and resolving unconscious wishes and conflict in a safe environment

17. PSYCHOLOGICAL CHANGE FREE ASSOCIATION AND DREAM INTERPRETATION • If fixated, psychoanalysis frees the client to resume healthy psychological development • If defensive, psychoanalysis redistributes psychic energy so that more is available for adaptive and socially appropriate forms of gratification • If dominated by the unconscious or by the id or superego, psychoanalysis makes conscious what was unconscious and strengthens the ego so that it can assume control of personality

18. PSYCHOLOGICAL CHANGE THE THERAPEUTIC PROCESS: TRANSFERENCE • Transference = client attitudes and feelings toward the therapist that are based on unresolved childhood experiences with parents • The client becomes emotionally tied to therapist, yet knows little about therapist • The therapist is a “blank screen” onto which the client projects unconscious wishes and unresolved conflicts • Responses to the therapist largely reflect unconscious wishes and unresolved conflicts • The client duplicates in therapy significant dynamic interactions with parents • Psychoanalysts uses transference as a vehicle for achieving insight

19. PSYCHOLOGICAL CHANGE THE THERAPEUTIC PROCESS: TRANSFERENCE • Transference neurosis = the client plays out unresolved conflicts within the therapeutic relationship • Therapeutic change occurs due to the 3 factors: • Conflict is less intense than it was in childhood • The therapist assumes a different attitude and role than that of parents • The client is older and more mature psychologically • The goal is to gain from the therapist what the client did not receive in childhood

20. RELATED THEORETICAL CONCEPTIONS CHALLENGERS TO FREUD - ADLER • To Alfred Adler, “it is the feeling of inferiority, inadequacy, insecurity, which determines the goal of an individual’s existence” (Adler, 1927, p. 72). • For example, Freudians view an aggressive woman as expressing penis envy • Adlerians view such women as rejecting the stereotypic feminine role of weakness and inferiority • How a person copes with inferiority becomes a distinctive dimension of his or her personality functioning

21. RELATED THEORETICAL CONCEPTIONS CHALLENGRES TO FREUD - JUNG • Carl Jung emphasized the evolutionary foundations of the human mind • The collective unconscious holds the accumulated experiences of past generations and is universal • It contains universal images or symbols, called archetypes • Archetypes can be seen in fairy tales and myths as well as in dreams and some psychotic thoughts • The mother archetype is expressed in different cultures as life giver, as all-giving and nurturant, and as the witch or threatening punisher

22. RELATED THEORETICAL CONCEPTIONS CHALLENGERS TO FREUD - JUNG • Jung also emphasized people’s struggle with opposing forces • Struggle between persona and the shadow (private or personal self) • Struggle between the masculine and feminine aspects of ourselves (i.e., anima and animus) • Fundamental personal task: integrate opposing forces of the psyche (e.g., introversion and extraversion) • Self = an aspect of the collective unconscious that serves as an organizing hub • Mandalas = symbols of the struggle for knowledge of our opposing selves

24. RELATED THEORETICAL CONCEPTIONS SELF PSYCHOLOGY AND OBJECT RELATIONS • Self Psychology and Narcissism • Object relations theorists believe that the central events of early childhood involve mental representations of the child’s relationships with others • In self psychology, developmental experiences determine mental representations of oneself • Narcissism = an investment of mental energy in the self

25. RELATED THEORETICAL CONCEPTIONS SELF PSYCHOLOGY AND OBJECT RELATIONS • Self Psychology and Narcissism • Heinz Kohut – all people seek self-development, control over the self, and a positive self-image • In healthy development, individuals respond to their own needs while being responsive to others’ needs • However, if developmental experiences inhibit maturity, narcissism may become a predominant feature of personality • Grandiose sense of self-importance • Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success and power • Lack of empathy • Vulnerability to blows to self-esteem

26. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS ATTACHMENT THEORY • John Bowlby was interested in the effects of early separation from parents on personality development • Bowlby’s attachment behavioral system (ABS) • A stable bond that motives the infant to be close to a caregiver, especially when there is threat • The infant clings to the caregiver for comfort and security • As the infant gains a greater sense of security, the proximity of an adult attachment figure provides a secure base for exploring the environment

27. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS ATTACHMENT THEORY • Key prediction of attachment theory - effects of developmental processes related to attachment are long-lasting • Infant-caregiver relations create internal working models (i.e., mental representations of self-other relationships) • These mental representations endure • There are individual differences in attachment styles

28. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS ATTACHMENT THEORY • Strange situation procedure of Mary Ainsworth is designed to identify individual differences in attachment styles • Psychologists observe infants' responses to the departure and return of a caregiver in a laboratory setting

29. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS ATTACHMENT THEORY • Secure (70%) = sensitive to the departure of the caregiver, but greet the caregiver upon being reunited, are readily comforted, return to exploration and play • Anxious-Avoidant (20%) = little protest over separation from the caregiver and, upon return, show avoidance (e.g., turning, looking, moving away) • Anxious-Ambivalent (10%) = difficulty separating from and reuniting with the caregiver (e.g., mixed pleas to be picked up with squirming and insistence to be let down)

30. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS ATTACHMENT THEORY • Attachment Styles in Adulthood • Hypothesis - individual differences in emotional bonds in infancy predict individual differences in emotional bonds established later in life • Hazan & Shaver (1987) had participants complete a "love quiz“ through which they were matched to one of three attachment styles • Also measured participants’ style of romantic love on 12 love-experience scales

31. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS ATTACHMENT THEORY • Attachment Styles in Adulthood • Secure attachment style was associated with happiness, friendship, and trust • Avoidant style was associated with fears of closeness, emotional highs and lows, and jealousy • Anxious-ambivalent style was associated with obsessive preoccupation with the loved person, a desire for union, and extreme sexual attraction

32. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS ATTACHMENT THEORY • What dimensions best capture individual differences in attachment styles? • A model of individual differences in the internal working models of the self and others (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991; Griffin & Bartholomew, 1994) • Attachment patterns can be defined by 2 intersecting dimensions: • the internal working model of the self • the internal working model of others • Each dimension has a positive pole and a negative pole

33. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS ATTACHMENT THEORY • Bartholomew et al.’s model leads to the addition of a fourth attachment style: dismissing • Those with a dismissing attachment style are not comfortable with close relationships and prefer not to depend on others, but retain a positive self-image