freud & psychoanalysis

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FREUD & PSYCHOANALYSISIS PSYCHOANALYSIS REALLY THAT INFLUENCIAL?

MAJOR INFLUENCES ON FREUD’S THINKING

KEY NOTIONS IN PSYCHOANALYSISPSYCHOLOGICAL DETERMINISMCONFLICTUNCONSCIOUS

PSYCHOSEXUAL STAGES

STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY ID, EGO, SUPEREGO

ANXIETY & DEFENSE MECHANISMS

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PSYCHOANALYSIS = the single most influential school of

thought of the XX century

3Surrealism -- Salvador Dali (1904-1989)

PSYCHOANALYSIS AND THE ARTS

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Buñuel (1900-1983) --Un Chien Andalou

A man. A woman. A knife. An eye. A moon. A cloud. The man slices open the woman's eye as a cloud slices across the moon.

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PSYCHOANALYSIS AND LITERATURE

Broken Glass by (UM alumnus)Arthur Miller

Set in 1938, during the rise of Nazism and government-sanctified anti-Semitism, a Brooklyn couple are forced to deal with the wife's psychosomatic paralysis. This affliction could exist for many disparate reasons, such as the couple's bitter marriage, her husband's futile attempted assimilation into the Gentile world, her obsessionwith Hitler's assault on German Jews, or just as a plea for attention. It is up to the couple's doctor to discover the root of this illness.

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Question for the class:

In your view, why were Freud’s ideas and psychoanalysis so shocking to society?

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Freud’s view of the human psyche as ridden by unconscious and uncontrollable forces of sexual origin.

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MAJOR INFLUENCES ON FREUD’S THINKING:

3 historical phenomena2 relationships

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ROMANTICISMCelebration of the emotional and irrational aspects of human nature

Delacroix (1798-1863)

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RATIONALISM & EMPIRICISMProviding a scientific account for all phenomena

Ramon y Cajal (1852-1934)

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RATIONALISM & EMPIRICISMProviding a scientific account for all phenomena

e.g., providing a scientific explanation for hysteria? (paralysis with no apparent physical cause)

FREUD’S MECHANISTIC VIEW OF THE MINDmind = machine that uses psychological energy; this energy can only be displaced or transformed (never destroyed)

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WW1Self-destruction as part of human nature

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CHARCOT (1825-1893)

Hypnosis as a research method and therapeutic tool

Hysteria: paralysis with no apparent physical cause

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BREUER (1842-1925)

Talking-cure: unstructured talk about fantasies, dreams, symptoms, fears ---> release of psychic energy

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KEY NOTIONS IN PSYCHOANALYSIS

•PSYCHOLOGICAL DETERMINISM

•CONFLICT

•UNCONSCIOUS

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There is not such thing as random behavior; all our acts are determined by internal forces (wishes, fears) related to two basic instincts

INSTINCTS: LIFE (libido) & DEATH (aggression)Mental representation of a biological need; Energy of the psyche

MENTAL ENERGYBiological need Increase in Psychological need Socially acceptable (e.g., sex) tension/arousal -INSTINCT- expression

(e.g., sexual dream)

PSYCHOLOGICAL DETERMINISM

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CONFLICT

•Our lives are a constant negotiation of opposing impulses (desire/fear; love/hate)

•Such conflicts produce anxiety (realistic, neurotic, moral)

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TOPOGRAPHIC MODEL OF THE MINDUNCONSCIOUS

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FREUD’S PSYCHOSEXUAL STAGES

Personality development is very much influenced by sexual development

STAGES: Oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital

(see textbook for this topic)

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STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITYID EGO SUPEREGO

ORIGINS Present at birth Develops from Develops from society & life experience parental standards

AWARENESS? Unconscious Both Both

CONTENT Instincts Reasoning Moral imperatives &Ideal Self

NATURE Biological Psychological Social

GUIDING Pleasure Principle Reality Principle GuiltPRINCIPLE

Different personalities result from the different interactions among these structures (which compete with each other for the psych energy available).

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Question for the class:

Main difference between Ego and Superego?

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Ego: guided by reality, postpones but does not prohibit (is pragmatic, rational)

Superego: guided by morality, inhibits (is moralistic, perfectionist)

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TOPOGRAPHIC MODEL OF THE MINDTOPOGRAPHICAL MODEL OF THE MIND

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ANXIETY & DEFENSE MECHANISMS

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EGO’S DEFENSE MECHANISMS‘it’= ANXIETY PROVOKING, UNACCEPTABLE THOUGHT OR IMPULSE

•DENIAL: refusal to acknowledge its existence•REPRESSION: pushing it out of awareness

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EGO’S DEFENSE MECHANISMS‘it’= ANXIETY PROVOKING, UNACCEPTABLE THOUGHT OR IMPULSE

•DENIAL: refusal to acknowledge its existence•REPRESSION: pushing it out of awareness

•PROJECTION: attributing it to someone else•REACTION FORMATION: overemphasizing its opposite•REGRESSION: retreating to an earlier (immature) stage of development•IDENTIFICATION: identifying oneself with a feared person•RATIONALIZATION: giving excuses for it•INTELLECTUALIZATION: distancing oneself from it by ‘studying it’

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EGO’S DEFENSE MECHANISMS‘it’= ANXIETY PROVOKING, UNACCEPTABLE THOUGHT OR IMPULSE

•DENIAL: refusal to acknowledge its existence•REPRESSION: pushing it out of awareness

•PROJECTION: attributing it to someone else•REACTION FORMATION: overemphasizing its opposite•REGRESSION: retreating to an earlier (immature) stage of development•IDENTIFICATION: identifying oneself with a feared person•RATIONALIZATION: giving excuses for it•INTELLECTUALIZATION: distancing oneself from it by ‘studying it’

•DISPLACEMENT: shifting it to a nonthreating, neutral object•SUBLIMATION: displacement that is productive, socially useful

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POSSIBLE TOPIC FOR EXTRA-CREDIT PAPER

Modern and empirical work on Ego’s functioning:

EGO-CONTROL & EGO-RESILIENCEJack & Jeanne Block (1980)

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CLASSIFICATION OF DEFENSE MECHANISMS

•Hysteria grouping•Obsessive grouping

(Table 3.3 in the textbook)