Freudian recap

1.“Structure”– Id The pleasure principle / immediate

gratification– Ego the mediator part of the personality that

balance the demands between the id, superego and reality. The reality principle.

– Superego The voice of conscience. Internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience

2.Stages of personality development– Oral, anal, phallic, latency

3.Methods to access the unconscious– Free association and other projection tests

The Unconscious• Believed the mind is like an iceberg, a little

visible at the top, but mostly hidden.• Began using hypnosis while encouraging

them to talk freely about their circumstances.

• Decided that problems might be caused by intense anxiety that has been repressed (or blocked).

• Free association is a technique that explores the unconscious. The patient is to relax and say whatever comes to mind.

• This would bring about a chain of thoughts leading into the patient’s unconscious, which would release painful unconscious memories. This theory/method is called psychoanalysis.

“Unacceptable Passions”• But Freud cared more about the unacceptable passions that he believed we repress from our consciousness because they are painful.

• Freud believed though they are hidden from our conscious awareness, they still influence us, and they get expressed in disguised forms like the work we choose, our beliefs, habits, words and our dreams. To Freud, there were no accidents. Ex "Freudian slips.“

• Freud believed that Dreams were the Royal Road to the Unconscious, that they could reveal the nature of people’s inner conflicts and released their inner tensions.

• Personality arises from a conflict between our aggressive, pleasure-seeking biological impulses and the social restraints against them. We want to express our impulses to get satisfaction without also bringing guilt or punishment.

Defense Mechanisms

•Definition: When unacceptable urges of the id edge into your consciousness and begin too overpower the ego, one experiences anxiety. This state is uncomfortable so the ego brings on its “big guns,” called defense mechanisms, who purpose is to prevent the id’s forbidden impulse from entering consciousness.

•Let’s meet some of these “Big Guns”

• Repression. “Motivated forgetting.” Unpleasant thoughts are not gone, but since they are repressed, they cannot produce anxiety.

• Ex. A woman’s sexual feelings about her father.• Discovered? Dreams, free association, slips of tongue, actions• Regression: Causing the person to retreat to the behavior of an

earlier stage of development that was less demanding as safer.• Ex. Jealous child regresses to using earlier speech patterns, bottle,

bed-wetting• Projection: Seeing your unconscious urge’s in other people’s

behavior.• Ex. Husband who is experiences impulses to be unfaithful to his wife

wards off his anxiety by projecting his desires onto his wife and becomes intensely jealous and accuses her of having affairs.

• Reaction Formation: Blocking anxiety by adopting attitudes and behaviors that demonstrate outwardly a complete rejection of the id’s true desires.

• Ex. The husband who unconsciously desires other woman may become obsessively devoted to his wife and shower her with gifts and promises of his unwavering love.

• Sublimation: Seen as “normal.” Finding socially acceptable ways of discharging energy that is the result of unconscious forbidden desires. Freud believed that since everyone’s id contains these desires, sublimation is a necessary part of a productive and healthy life.

• Ex. Unacceptable Aggressive feelings may be made acceptable and purposeful by sublimating them by engaging in football or other contact sports.

Projection tests

•Clouds…

AP Psych OQ

1. Name two projective tests used to assess personality.

2. Give a critique of the Rorschach ink blot test.3. Give two examples of contradictory evidence

against Freud’s perspective.4. According to the research, is repression a

myth? Give an example.5. Give an example where Freud was closer to

what we now believe.