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6 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back

The Psychoanalytical Approach to Personality


Freud's Theory of Personality

- It believes that all of our behaviour is driven by subconscious motives


- It makes it difficult for us to truly know ourselves


- Makes us behave in ways that we have difficulty explaining


- It explains how much of our psychological energy is taken up with suppressing our unconscious thoughts or finding socially acceptable ways of expressing them



Many current psychologists dismiss Freud as a historical figure

- Freud did not invent the theory of the unconscious.


- Unconscious ideas were said to be weaker ideas that had been pushed from consciousness by stronger conscious ideas.


- Freud disagreed with this, he believed that there were different levels of consciousness

Levels of Consciousness - Freud's Theory



Conscious mind - material that we are actively aware of at any given time


Preconscious mind - thoughts that are unconscious at this moment but can easily be brought to mind.


Unconscious mind - material that we cannot access that is supressed


- There is no clean cut definition between each level and sometimes thoughts can slip between the levels.


- Repression may weaken and allow unconscious thoughts to move into the conscious mind.


- Unconscious thoughts usually appear in a modified form, dreams, at stressful times in symptoms of illness and psychological disturbances, impulses whilst under the influence of drugs and alcohol

Iceberg Theory



Conscious and Preconscious on the small section on the surface.


Unconscious the large section under the water.

Dreams


- Dreams are made to preserve sleep


- This is done by showing wishes as fulfilled


- Worries and problems are solved/disappear in dreams


- Desires that are unacceptable to our conscious mind are expressed in our dreams.


- Freud believes that dreams are the route into patients unconscious.


- There were two elements to dreams, manifest content and latent content

Manifest Content


- This is the description of the dream.


- However Freud believed that this wasn't an accurate representation of the dream


Latent Content


- What the analyst believed the dream to represent


- Usually linked to a sexual nature

Primary process thinking


- Irrational mental activity


- Events are often oblivious to categories of time and space and are displayed and condensed in impossible ways.


- The logically impossible becomes possible.


Pleasure Principle


- The urge to have drives met


- This is not a desire to actively seek pleasure but more to avoid displeasure, pain and upset.

Secondary process thinking


- Rational though which is logical and organised


- A characteristic of conscious and preconscious thought



Reality Principle


- We operate according to the actual situation in the external world and the facts as we see them


Pleasure principle is an innate, primitive instinct driving our behaviour (nature)


Reality principle is learnt as we grow up (nurture)

Daydreaming, imagination, creative activities and emotional thinking involve both primary and secondary thinking.