Chapter 2 Psychoanalytic Theory (1)

PSCHOANALYTIC

THEORY (1)

Note taken from Key Reference Text :
Theory & Practice of Counseling & Psychotherapy, Gerald
Corey 9th Ed.
Note taking by ONG SING YEE (KB, PA)

CHAPTER OVERVIEW (1)

Key Concepts of Psychoanalysis Theory
a. View of Human Nature
b. Structure of Personality
c. Consciousness and the Unconscious
d. Anxiety
e. Ego Defense Mechanisms
f. Development of Personality

SEMINAR OBJECTIVE

➢ View of Human Nature

▪ Understand the key terms libido, life instincts, and death
instincts.

▪ Structure of Personality

▪ Able to explain and apply the concept of Id, Ego and
Superego

➢ Consciousness and the Unconscious

▪ Able to differentiate Consciousness and Unconscious

➢ Anxiety

▪ Understand and apply the concept of 3 types of anxiety
(Reality anxiety, neurotic anxiety and moral anxiety).

➢ Ego Defense Mechanisms

▪ Explain and able to give example of the concept of all 11 Ego
Defense Mechanism.

➢ Development of Personality

▪ Explain and able to give example of 5 stages of psychosexual
development and 8 stages of psychosocial development.

KEY CONCEPTS :
View of Human Nature

 Deterministic
Our behavior is determined by irrational forces, unconscious motivations and
biological and instinctual drives as these evolve through key psychosexual stages in
the first years of life.

 Instincts are central of the Freudian approach
- Purpose: survival of the individual and human race
- Oriented toward growth, development and creativity.
A. Libido = sexual energy, the energy of all the life instincts.
- A source of motivation encompasses sexual energy but goes beyond it.
- All pleasurable acts.
- Life goal: gaining pleasure and avoiding pain
C. Death instinct = aggressive drive
- At times, people manifest through their behavior an unconscious wish to die or to

hurt themselves or others.

Sexual drive + aggressive drive = why
people act as they do.

KEY CONCEPTS:
Structure of Personality

 Id = all the untamed drives/ impulses that might be likened to
the biological component.

 Ego = attempts to organize & mediate between the id and the
reality of dangers posed by the id’s impulses

- Action of the ego may/ may not be conscious

 Superego = to protect ourselves from the dangers of our own
drives

- Internalized social component.

- Expectation of parental figures

- Punitive and demanding than the person’s parents really were.

 Orthodox perspective:

Humans = energy systems, dynamics of personality consist of
the ways in which psychic energy is distributed to the id, ego &
superego.

KEY CONCEPTS:
Structure of Personality

 Id : original system of personally.
- At birth a person is all id.
- Primary source of psychic energy
- Lacks of organization
- Blind, demanding & insistent.
- Can’t tolerate tension, discharge tension immediately.
- Ruled by pleasure principle; aims: reducing tension,

avoiding pain, & gaining pleasure.
- Illogical, amoral, driven to satisfy instinctual needs
- Never matures, remaining spoiled brat
- Wishes / acts
- unconscious/ out of awareness

KEY CONCEPTS:
Structure of Personality

 Ego: contact with external world of reality

- “Executive”:Governs, controls, regulates the
personality.

- “Traffic Cop”: Mediates between the instincts and
the surrounding environment.

- Controls consciousness and exercises censorship./

- Ruled by reality principle, does realistic and logical
thinking and formulates plans of action for satisfying
needs.

- Intelligence and rationality, checks and controls the
blind impulses of the id.

KEY CONCEPTS:
Structure of Personality

 Superego: judicial branch of personality
- person’s moral code
- Represents the ideal and strives for perfection
- Traditional values and ideals of society as they are

handed down from parents to children
- Functions: Inhibit the id impulses, to persuade the

ego to substitute moralistic goals for realistic ones,
and to strive for perfection
- The internalization of the standards of parents and
society = psychological rewards + punishments

KEY CONCEPTS:
Consciousness and the
Unconscious

 Unconscious is inferred from behavior

- Stores all experiences, memories and repressed material.

- All forms of neurotic symptoms and behaviors.
 Clinical evidence for postulating the unconscious includes

- Dreams = symbolic representation of unconscious needs,
wishes and conflicts

- Slips of the tongue and forgetting

- Posthypnotic suggestions

- Material derived from free association

- Material derived from projective techniques

- Symbolic content of psychotic symptoms
 Aim of therapy : make the unconscious motives conscious ---

then an individual exercise choice.
 Consciousness = thin slice of the total mind

KEY CONCEPTS:
Anxiety

 A feeling of dread that results from repressed
feelings, memories, desires and experience that
merge to the surface of awareness.

 A state of tension that motivates us to do
something.

 Function: Warn of impending danger

A. Reality anxiety: the fear of danger from the
external world.

The level of such anxiety is proportionate to the
degree of real threat.

B. Neurotic anxiety: the fear that the instincts will get
out of hand and cause one to do something for
which one will be punished.

C. Moral anxiety : the fear of one’s own conscience.

KEY CONCEPTS:
Ego Defense Mechanisms

 It helps the individual cope with anxiety and
prevent the ego from being overwhelmed.

 Normal behaviors that can have adaptive value
provided they do not become a style of life that
enables the individual to avoid facing reality.

 Characteristics:
1. They either deny or distort reality
2. They operate on an unconscious level

KEY CONCEPTS:
Ego Defense Mechanisms

 Repression

- Threatening / painful thoughts and feelings are excluded from
awareness

 Denial

- “Closing one’s eyes” to the existence of a threatening aspect of
reality

 Reaction formation

- Actively expressing the opposite impulse when confronted with a
threatening impulse.

 Projection

- Attributing to others one’s own unacceptable desires and impulses
 Displacement

- Directing energy toward another object or person when the original
object or person is inaccessible.

 Rationalization

- Manufacturing “ good” reasons to explain away a bruised ego.

KEY CONCEPTS:

Ego Defense Mechanisms

 Sublimation

- Diverting sexual or aggressive energy into other
channels.

 Regression

- Going back to an earlier phase of development when
there were demands.

 Introjection

- Taking in and “swallowing” the values and standards
of others.

 Identification

- Identifying with successful causes, organizations or
people in the hope that you will be perceived as
worthwhile.

 Compensation

- Masking perceived weaknesses or developing certain
positive traits to make up for limitations.

KEY CONCEPTS:
Development of Personality

Importance of early development
 3 early stages of development that often bring

people to counseling when not appropriately
resolved.

 Oral stage : the inability to trust oneself and others,
result in the fear of loving and forming close
relationships and low self esteem.

 Anal stage: inability to recognize and express anger,
leading to the denial of one’s own power as a
person and the lack of a sense of autonomy.

 Phallic stage: inability to fully accept one’s sexuality
and sexual feelings, and also to difficulty in
accepting oneself as a man or woman.

KEY CONCEPTS:
Development of Personality

Erikson’s psychosocial perspective
 Psychosocial stage = basic psychological

and social tasks, which individuals need to
master at intervals from infancy through old
age.
 Development in terms of the entire life
span.
 Crisis = a turning point in life when we have
the potential to move forward or to regress.

KEY CONCEPTS:
Development of Personality

 Classical psychoanalysis

- Based on Id psychology

- Instincts and intra psychic conflicts are the basic
factors shaping personality development (both
normal and abnormal)

 Contemporary psychoanalysis

- Based on ego psychology

- Does not deny the role of intra psychic conflicts but
emphasizes of the striving of the ego for mastery and
competence throughout the human life span.

KEY CONCEPTS:
Development of Personality

PERIOD FREUD ERIKSON
OF LIFE
Infancy:
First year of Oral Stage Trust vs Mistrust
life - Personality problems:
Mistrust of others, rejecting Early Childhood:
others; love and fear of / Autonomy vs Shame
inability to form intimate and doubt
relationships.
Preschool age:
Age 1-3 Anal Stage Initiative vs Guilt
Main developmental tasks :
learning independence,
accepting personal power,
learning to express negative
feelings.

Age 3 -6 Phallic Stage
Oedipus complex & Electra
complex.
Impact on sexual attitudes &
feelings that child develops.

KEY CONCEPTS:
Development of Personality

Period of Life Freud G Erikson
Ages 6 – 12
Latency Stage School Age:
Ages 12- 18 Socialization and Industry vs Inferiority
Ages 18 – 35 forms relationships
with others.

Genital Stage Adolescence:
continues Identity vs Role
Confusion

Genital Stage Young Adulthood:

continues Intimacy vs isolation

Freedom to love and

to work.

Ages 35 - 60 Genital Stage Middle Age:
Ages 60+tage continues Generativity vs
Stagnation
Genital Stage
continues Later Life:
Intergrity vs Despair

Question & Answer