PROBLEM 1. FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY
TOPOGRAPHICAL MODEL: 3 levels of awareness CONSCIOUS: aware of. PRECONSCIOUS: aware of if we
attend to them.
UNCONSCIOUS: Unaware of = thoughts or drives, so anxiety provoking, traumatic and socially unacceptable
that forces oppose them to enter the awareness.
Motivated (Motivational determinism): stores ideas that would otherwise cause psychological
pain. Seek pleasure, avoid pain principle. (Aggression, sexual desires)
Constantly influencing conscious thoughts
DREAMS: Manifest content storyline, wish fulfillment
Latent content unconscious ideas, emotions, drives that go in the storyline. Unconscious
wishes that may be impossible to realize in the real life. It’s alogical and it disregards time and space.
SYMBOLIZATION
EX: - Perception without awareness (duck experiment, Eagle) stimuli not consciously perceived but
influences imaginary and thoughts
- Perceptual defense: process by which an individual defends against the anxiety that accompanies
actual recognition of a threatening stimulus (Erderlyi)
- Subliminal psychodynamic activation (Silverman)
- Bargh ex. Puzzle achievement/affiliation
DIFFERENCE: Freud’s psychoanalytic unconscious: traumatic sexual and aggressive conscious / Modern:
mundane feelings and thoughts.
Freudian Slip: mistake in speech or writing that suggests an unconscious feeling or desire.
PERSONALITY COMPONENTS: ID, EGO, SUPEREGO
ID: (18 months) original source of all drive energies. PLEASURE PRINCIPLE. Immediate, no frustration,
inhibition. Fantasy = reality. UNCONSCIOUS Wish fulfillment: brain imagining of the desire.
SUPEREGO: (5yo) moral aspects of social behavior, ideals, ethical standards, internal representation of
external. Identification with parents’ norms. Controlling behavior with rewards or punishments. PERFECTION.
Incapable of reality testing. CONSCIOUS PRECONSCIOUS UNCONSCIOUS
Subsystems: INTROJECTION: Incorporating values
EGO IDEAL: Good behavior, rewards
CONSCIENCE: Wrong values you want to avoid, punishments.
EGO: REALITY PRINCIPLE. Express and satisfy desires of ID in accordance with opportunities and constraints of
the real world and on the demands of the SUPEREGO. Distinguishes fantasy from reality, capable of reality
testing. No sense of morality. CONSCIOUS, PRECONSCIOUS, UNCONSCIOUS.
EGO DEPLETION: limited amount of energy for self-control
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