P s y c h o a n a l y s i s
-------------- Week 3 --------------
Learning Objectives:
- Identify & discuss the core concepts (personality structures, drives,
defense mechanisms, stages of human development, therapeutic
techniques) relating to classical Psychoanalysis.
- Discuss the development of contemporary Psychoanalysis.
- Discuss the relevance of Psychoanalysis in the South African context.
What is Psychoanalysis?
- Technique helps patients overcome psychic defenses, making the
unconscious, conscious. When this is done, the patient is then further
able to explore their unconscious, even when unpleasant.
Classical Psychoanalysis:
- Sigmund Freud, medical doctor, known for research on cocaine.
- Shifted Psychology from a philosophy to a science.
- One of the founders of modern psychotherapy.
- Treated people troubled by nervous problems (irrational fears,
obsessions, anxieties)
- This theory attempts to explain personality, motivation & psychological
motivation and psychological disorders by focusing on the influence of
early childhood experiences on unconscious motives or conflicts and on
the methods people use to cope with their sexual, aggressive urges.
- Involved lenghty interactions with patients where he probed into their
lives.
- Structures of our personality largely in the subconscious.
- Freudian slips & dreams = unconscious revealing itself. Freud argued
that the unconscious reveals itself through parapaxes, slips, dreams,
jokes & processes.
- Behaviour influenced & motivated by drives / instincts. Conflict between
drives (ID) and social norms (superego/ego) = defense mechanisms.
Drives
- Drives = “Appetitive internal force”
Body constantly strives for homeostasis. When this state is disturbed,
body forms drives (instincts) as a reaction.
- Freud says drives are: “mental representations of unspecified nervous
system excitation in response related in some way to sexual or aggresive
urges.” Ex: thirst, hunger, sex, need for warmth. Drives can create an
unpleasant state which the body then seeks to rectify (eg: drinking water
KEY POINTS: 1
, when thirsty) / Encourage person to function & determine direction of
behaviour.
- Biological determinism = most human characteristics/behaviour,
physical & mental, hereditary/genetic/physiological.
- Psychic determinism = Mental processes not spontaneous, but
determined by the unconscious or preexisting mental drives.
- Drives can be split into 2: Life Drives & Death Drives.
- Life Drives = Sexual Drives & Ego Drives | Death Drives = Intrapsychic
explanation for destructive behaviour.
Drives:
Eros = Life Drives
Thanatos = Death Drives
Life Drives= preserve life
Ego Drives= basic survival
Sex Drives= Erotic pleasure
Death Drives= Intrapsychic explanation for destructive behaviour
Structure of the Psyche / Personality
- Freud believed human personality can be divided into 3 parts:
Conscious & Unconscious, Preconscious
- Conscious: thoughts & perceptions in contact with the outside
world.
- Preconscious: memory & stored knowledge - info just below the
level of awareness; can be retrieved.
- Unconscious: fears, drives - well below level of awareness; difficult
to retrieve.
KEY POINTS: 2
-------------- Week 3 --------------
Learning Objectives:
- Identify & discuss the core concepts (personality structures, drives,
defense mechanisms, stages of human development, therapeutic
techniques) relating to classical Psychoanalysis.
- Discuss the development of contemporary Psychoanalysis.
- Discuss the relevance of Psychoanalysis in the South African context.
What is Psychoanalysis?
- Technique helps patients overcome psychic defenses, making the
unconscious, conscious. When this is done, the patient is then further
able to explore their unconscious, even when unpleasant.
Classical Psychoanalysis:
- Sigmund Freud, medical doctor, known for research on cocaine.
- Shifted Psychology from a philosophy to a science.
- One of the founders of modern psychotherapy.
- Treated people troubled by nervous problems (irrational fears,
obsessions, anxieties)
- This theory attempts to explain personality, motivation & psychological
motivation and psychological disorders by focusing on the influence of
early childhood experiences on unconscious motives or conflicts and on
the methods people use to cope with their sexual, aggressive urges.
- Involved lenghty interactions with patients where he probed into their
lives.
- Structures of our personality largely in the subconscious.
- Freudian slips & dreams = unconscious revealing itself. Freud argued
that the unconscious reveals itself through parapaxes, slips, dreams,
jokes & processes.
- Behaviour influenced & motivated by drives / instincts. Conflict between
drives (ID) and social norms (superego/ego) = defense mechanisms.
Drives
- Drives = “Appetitive internal force”
Body constantly strives for homeostasis. When this state is disturbed,
body forms drives (instincts) as a reaction.
- Freud says drives are: “mental representations of unspecified nervous
system excitation in response related in some way to sexual or aggresive
urges.” Ex: thirst, hunger, sex, need for warmth. Drives can create an
unpleasant state which the body then seeks to rectify (eg: drinking water
KEY POINTS: 1
, when thirsty) / Encourage person to function & determine direction of
behaviour.
- Biological determinism = most human characteristics/behaviour,
physical & mental, hereditary/genetic/physiological.
- Psychic determinism = Mental processes not spontaneous, but
determined by the unconscious or preexisting mental drives.
- Drives can be split into 2: Life Drives & Death Drives.
- Life Drives = Sexual Drives & Ego Drives | Death Drives = Intrapsychic
explanation for destructive behaviour.
Drives:
Eros = Life Drives
Thanatos = Death Drives
Life Drives= preserve life
Ego Drives= basic survival
Sex Drives= Erotic pleasure
Death Drives= Intrapsychic explanation for destructive behaviour
Structure of the Psyche / Personality
- Freud believed human personality can be divided into 3 parts:
Conscious & Unconscious, Preconscious
- Conscious: thoughts & perceptions in contact with the outside
world.
- Preconscious: memory & stored knowledge - info just below the
level of awareness; can be retrieved.
- Unconscious: fears, drives - well below level of awareness; difficult
to retrieve.
KEY POINTS: 2
