IAS1162

1. IAS1162 2nd Lecture – The Psychoanalytic Approach (Freudian Theory)

2. Who is Sigmund Freud? • Born 1856 in Freidberg, Moravia (now in Czech Republic) • Spent most his life in Vienna, Austria • Very ambitious • Neurologist turned psychologist • ‘discovered’ the unconscious mind • Very close to his mother, although quite estranged to his father • His psychological theories are filled with sexual connotations – rebuffed by most academicians and physicians • Died 1938 in London

3. The Topographic Model • Freud maintained that there are 3 divisions in human personality • Conscious • Preconscious • Unconscious • Conscious • Contains the thoughts you are currently aware of • The material changes as new thoughts enter your mind and others pass out of awareness • This is when you say “something is on my mind” • Dealing with only a tiny percentage of all the information stored in your mind

4. … cont’d … • Preconscious • You could bring an uncountable number of thoughts into your consciousness fairly easily if you wanted to • Example: • What did you had for breakfast? • What did you do last Saturday? • Who taught you Programming Methodology? • This large body of retrievable information makes up the preconscious

5. … cont’d • Unconscious • The vast majority of thoughts • The most important from a psychoanalytic viewpoint • Materials to which you have no immediate access • Cannot bring unconscious material into consciousness except under certain extreme situations • Responsible for much of your everyday behavior

6. The Structural Model • Freud discovered the topographic model provided a limited description of human personality • He added the Structural Model that divides personality into 3 additional structures: • Id • Ego • Superego

7. Id • The only personality structure a human possesses at birth • The selfish part of you, concerned only with satisfying your personal desires • Actions taken by the id are based on pleasure principle • Concerned only with what brings immediate personal satisfaction regardless of any physical or social limitations • Like babies who don’t care for the world by throwing tantrums anywhere if they don’t get what they want or when they just take something that they want but don’t belong to them or that thing could be harmful • This reflexive action doesn’t go away as adults • Id impulses are ever present, but held in check by the other parts of healthy adult personality

8. … cont’d • Pleasure impulses would be frustrated most of the time if the id were to rely on reflexive action to get what it wants • Id uses wish fulfillment to satisfy its needs • If the desired object is not available, id will imagine what it wants • Freud argues that in adulthood, our dreams are a type of wish fulfillment • If you are skeptical about id impulses and wish fulfillment, Freud suggested that this is because the id is buried entirely in the unconscious • Tend to be socially unacceptable

9. Ego • As children interact with environment during the first 2 years of life, the second part of personality structure gradually develops • Actions of ego is reality principle • Primary job is to satisfy id impulses, but takes into account the realities of the situation • Ego will try to keep these impulses in the unconscious, what id wants can be threatening • Ego moves freely in the conscious, preconscious and unconscious minds

10. … cont’d • Ego’s function is not simply to frustrate the aims of id • Human behavior is directed toward reducing tension • Very young children might be allowed to take food off parents’ plates thus to reduce tension • As they grow and mature, they learn the physical and social limits on what they can and cannot do • The impulse is to grab food off someone’s plate when hungry but the ego understands that it is wrong to do it • The ego tries to satisfy the wants of the id to lessen tension, but in a way it considers the consequences of the action

11. Superego • It appears by the time children are about 5 years old • Represents society and in particular, parents’ values and standards • Places more restrictions on what we can and cannot do • Example: • You see a RM50 bill on the table and you KNOW it is your friend’s. What will you have done?

12. … cont’d • Doing something which is in a society unacceptable or morally decadent is a violation of society’s moral code, even if you don’t get caught doing it • Primary weapon of superego is guilt • Does not merely punish us for moral violation • Provides the ideals the ego uses to determine if a behavior is virtuous and therefore worthy of praise • Some children with poor early childhood lessons might fail to develop their superego and have little inward restraints about stealing or lying • But some could be their superego overly developed and can become too powerful or supermoral – making the ego overburden with impossible standards of perfection, leading to moral anxiety, an ever-present feeling of shame and guilt in failing to reach high standard of life

13. What the three do to you… • The id, ego and superego complement and contradict each other • A strong ego does not allow the id or the superego too much control over the personality • Never ending battle • In each of us, there exists an eternal state of tension between a desire for self-indulgence, a concern for reality and the enforcement of a strict moral code

14. Defense Mechanisms • Classic psychoanalytic cases involve some deeply embarrassing parts of life that can be threatening for own awareness • Hatred for one’s parents • Aggression toward one’s spouse • Incestuous thoughts • Memories of traumatic childhood experience, etc. • Ego attempts to reduce or avoid anxiety by keeping those materials out of consciousness • Among many strategies that ego has is defense mechanisms which include repression, sublimation, displacement, denial, reaction formation, intellectualization and projection

15. Repression • Freud called it “the cornerstone on which the whole structure of psychoanalysis rests” • The most important of all defense mechanisms • An active effort by the ego to push threatening material out of consciousness or to keep such material from ever reaching consciousness • To exclude (painful or disturbing memories, for example) automatically or unconsciously from the conscious mind.

16. Sublimation • Repression will drain our ability to function • Sublimation on the contrary, will make us more productive • Psychoanalysts often refer sublimation as the only truly successful defense mechanism • When using sublimation, ego channels threatening unconscious impulses into socially acceptable actions • Example, sportsmen involved in combat sports – the more aggressive you are, the more you are rewarded, loved, famous

17. Displacement • Also involve channeling our impulses to nonthreatening objects • Do not lead to social reward (unlike sublimation) • a defense mechanism that transfers affect or reaction from the original object to some more acceptable one • Example: you may be angry at me, but because I’m your lecturer, you are afraid that if you do something bad to me, you might fail this course. Therefore, instead of showing your anger to me, you ‘transfer’ your anger to your cat, your friend or others that is ‘less’ detrimental to you

18. Denial • Refuse to accept that certain facts exist • This is more than saying we do not remember (as in repression), but in this case we insist that something is not true despite all evidence to the contrary • An unconscious defense mechanism characterized by refusal to acknowledge painful realities, thoughts, or feelings • Example: your beloved cat died, but for certain reason, you do not want to accept that reality, so everyday you go to the kitchen and still prepare the kitty litter, the food for your dead cat • An extreme form of defense because the more we use it, the less in touch with reality we are, thus we could function with much difficulty • In some cases, ego will resort to denial rather than allow certain thoughts to reach consciousness

19. Reaction Formation • Hiding from a threatening unconscious idea or urge by action in a manner opposite to our unconscious desire • Example: someone who ticks off his friend for watching pornography is actually himself secretly (unconsciously) harbors deep interest in pornography • It is as if the thought is so unacceptable that the ego must prove how incorrect the notion is

20. Intellectualization • Removing the emotional content from the thought before allowing it into awareness • a defense mechanism that uses reasoning to block out emotional stress and conflict • Examples: • A person told they have cancer asks for details on the probability of survival and the success rates of various drugs. The doctor may join in, using 'carcinoma' instead of 'cancer' and 'terminal' instead of 'fatal'. • A woman who has been raped seeks out information on other cases and the psychology of rapists and victims. She takes self-defense classes in order to feel better (rather than more directly addressing the psychological and emotional issues). • A person who is in heavily debt builds a complex spreadsheet of how long it would take to repay using different payment options and interest rates.

21. Projection • Sometimes we attribute an unconscious impulse to other people instead of to ourselves • By projecting the impulse onto another person, we free ourselves from the perception that we the one who actually holds this thought • Example: someone who tells that everyone in his house like to steal something from the neighbors, could be the one who is actually stealing from everybody else

22. That’s all folks! LET’S POCO POCO!!!