Psychology 139 Final Chapter 3

• The relationships between the id, ego, and superego. -The Id: The part of our psyche that is unconscious, reflects a wish for immediate
• self-gratification. Operates along the pleasure principle. The Ego: develops later as a result of interaction with the social environment. Operates along the Reality Principle. The ego mediates between the wishes of the Id and the constraints of society. It wishes to satisfy the Id in a socially-acceptable way. The Superego: Develops even later, and reflects the internalization of social values and mores. The Superego reflects our sense of morality.

• This is an important part of the Freudian theory. Those are mental operations employed by the ego in order to protect us from the emergence of unpleasant, unacceptable urges or drives.
• Repression is the cornerstone of the defenses. Note issue of “repressed memories”.

• A complete removal from
• awareness. Sublimation: the only “positive” defense: channeling mental energy
• into socially-desirable direction

• Displacement: Directing
• undesirable feelings toward a target (person) that is weaker that the original
• target (you are angry at your boss and you hit your wife).

• Denial: You may remember
• the event, but deny its meaning (someone spits on you and you claim it is
• raining).

• Intellectualization: You
• invest a lot of mental energy in the intellectual analysis of what had
• happened, until there is no energy for the emotion.

Rationalization: The fox could not reached the grapes and claimed they were sour….

• Projection: You cannot
• accept your negative traits, so you assign them to someone else.

• Reaction Formation: You
• cannot express negative feelings toward someone, so you show him/her an
• exaggerated opposite attitude.

The Stockholm Syndrome

• Our personality develops during the first 5 or 6 years of life along five stages. During each of the stages, sexual energy is tied to another area in the body: Erogenous Zone. If needs are not appropriately met, fixation occurs, and adult personality reflects it. Oral, anal, phallic, latent, and genital stages. During the phallic stage (age 3-5). Boy: Develops an erotic attraction to mother and wants to eliminates father. Becomes afraid of father’s potential punishment, develops
• castration anxiety. Resolves the conflict by starting to form identification with father. Assumes father’s characteristics, including
• the male gender role. Girl: Develops Penis Envy as she lacks this organ and is jealous. Identifies
• with mother to get married, have a baby. “Anatomy is Destiny” said Freud. No shred of empirical evidence for the Oedipus and Electra Complexes.

Freud regarded the dream as the royal road tothe unconscious. The ego’s defenses are down when we sleep, said Freud,and this enables the unconscious material to surface. Each dear has a“manifest content” – the story of the dream and a “latent content”- theunderling symbolic meaning

• Projective tests: They present ambiguous
• stimuli, facilitating the “projection” of material from the unconscious.

• Psychoanalysis is a term
• used to describe Freud’s theory of personality as well as his method of
• psychotherapy. The goal of psychoanalysis is to bring unconscious material to
• the surface.

• Free Association: A technique introduced by
• Freud, where a person is instructed to day whatever comes to mind.

• -Freud was a pioneer in
• uncharted territory
• -He attempted to explore the human
• mind
• -He developed the first talk therapy
• -However, his concepts do not lend
• themselves to empirical investigation
• -His ideas were based on case
• studies that may have reflected a specific historical/cultural period
• -His theory portrayed a pessimistic
• view of human nature.