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PSYCHOLOGY OF LITERATURE

DR. M. MANUGEREN, M.A

UNIVERSITAS SUMATERA UTARA

MEDAN
2021
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CONTENTS

CHAPTER I 4
Psychology and Literature: An Interdisciplinary Relationship 4
The Study of the Creative Process 5
The Study of the Types and Laws Present in Literary Works 6
The Study of the Effects of Literature on the Readers. 7
The Creative Process: Reception and Response to the Environment 7
CHAPTER II 10
Freud and Jung on Literature 10
The Relationship between Freud’s Theory and Literary Criticism 10
Freud’s Psychoanalytic Explorations 11
Freud’s Tripartite Model a and Psychoanalytic Criticism 11
1. Id 11
2. Ego 11
3. Superego 12
Role of Dreams in Freud’s Theory 12
Freud’s Work in the Eyes of Critics 12
Jung 13
Jung and Freud 13
Jung and Collective Unconscious 13
Psychology and Literature 13
The work of art [the creative process] 14
The Psychological mode 14
The Visionary mode 14
Obscurity of Source Material in the Visionary Mode 15
Jung’s Views of the Visionary 15
The Night Side of Life 15
Collective Unconscious 16
The Poet 16
Jung on Artist 17
Notes 18
CHAPTER III 20
Systems of Psychology 20
Psychology is commonly defined as the science of behavior and mental processes 20
Early Systems 0
Perspectives 21
CHAPTER IV 24
Foundation 24
CHAPTER V 27
Psychoanalysis Elaboration 27
The Founder of Psychoanalysis: Sigmund Freud and His Concepts 27
Models of the Mind 27
Defense Mechanisms 28
The 5 Psychosexual Stages of Development 29
The Interpretation of Dreams 29
Jungian Psychology: Carl Jung 29
Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Jacques Lacan 30
The Real 30
Symbolic Order 30
Mirror Stage 31
The Approach: Psychoanalytic Perspective 31
Methods and Techniques 31
Interpretation 31
Transference Analysis 31
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Technical Neutrality 32
Countertransference Analysis 32
Transference and Other Forms of Resistance in Psychoanalysis 32
Psychoanalysis vs. Psychotherapy 33
A Psychoanalyst vs. a Psychotherapist: Is There a difference? 34
CHAPTER VI 35
Evaluation 35
A. Choice Quiz 35
B. Questions 52
Sources 53
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CHAPTER I
Psychology and Literature:
An Interdisciplinary Relationship

By understanding interdisciplinarity as the proximity established by fields of knowledge with one

another in order to exceed the discursive principles of one field in the intersection with the theoretical
perspectives and functioning modes of the other, it can be seen that interdisciplinarity is opportune for
the break of the specialized character of the disciplines, a break that can be verified on different levels
and in different degrees. This opportunity arises, of course, without detracting from any of the advances
that interdisciplinary studies have made possible for mankind, but rather in an attempt to reverse the
situation of modern man, and of specialists in particular, whereby one understands increasingly more
about increasingly less, especially at present, when in general the new open access media make
available to everybody, without distinction, all the world knowledge with a simple touch on a liquid
crystal screen. Within this context, what is the proximity of Psychology, which deals with specificities
such as knowing and interpreting human beings and the world, to Literature, which deals with the
possibility of imagination freeing itself from rules?

Psychology values logic, a situation that is substantially opposed to Literature, even though the latter
may be based on likelihood. Psychologists prefer observations that can be replicated, whereas a serious
writer deals with analogy, metaphor, and perhaps intentional ambiguity”. Nevertheless, both share the
objective of understanding the development of their subjects, real/fictional characters, respectively,
through the conflicts and problems they face in life or in the plot. This quality, again according to
Russel, leads to the fact that knowledge of one field can contribute to the other in at least four
categories: the psychology of the writer, the psychology of the creative process, the study of behavior,
and the responses to literature.

In the psychology of the writer there is the presence of the psychological interpretation of biographies
and autobiographies of other writers, which help him learn about the authors. In turn, the psychology of
the creative process focuses both on the personality of the writer and of his characters regarding how the
latter function (i.e., whether they are corrected, rewritten and and reelaborated according to the change
of the way of being of their creator). Psychological studies of the process of creation of literary works
usually involve the stages that all creative processes go through, respecting the peculiar variations in the
style of each author. Within this context, based on psychological logic, the study of the behavior
described seeks to delineate the character and the registration of the attitudes that human subjects make
explicit or leave implied when performing them. Similarly, the readers also respond, in their own way,
to what they read, a fact that renders the responses to literature “effects” that determined plots have on
the readers.

Psychology of Literature is (a) the psychological study of the writer as a type and an individual, (b) the
study of the creative process, (c) the study of the types and laws that are present in literary works, and
(d) the study of the effects of literature on the readers. According to these authors, the psycholgical
study of a writer as an individual and a type, as well as the study of his creative process, is an action of
interest for the Psychology of Art, an area of Psychology that describes and explains the psychological
experience of a being in the behaviors related to art, either by appreciating, creating and executing it or
by interacting with the public and listening to their criticisms.

The study of how people think, act, influence and relate to each other is part of the context of Social
Psychology, a branch of Psychology that, in the 20th century, has been devoted to an attempt to
dialogue with the Social Sciences, also dealing with the social experience acquired by the individuals
who participate in different social movements. The denominations of the following type: “man-who-
perceives”, “man-who-needs” and “man-who-solves-problems” only represent a tripartition that acts as
a didatic artifice for the study of man. In other words, according to the author, in psychology “there
exists only one individual - who perceives and struggles and thinks” (i.e., an individual who is
characterized by having a “pattern of perceptions, motives, emotions and adaptive behaviors” that “is
unlike the pattern of anybody else”). Within this context, the writer, as an individual, is a unique being
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highlighted in the uniqueness that conjugates the human ensemble of individuals. His world is made up
of what he perceives, feels, sees, thinks and imagines in a manner that cannot be identically reproduced
by any other person. The world, perceived in this manner, precedes the writer's linguistic creation,
primarily making him think with his senses. As a consequence, the individual perception of a writer is
his thought, his invention, an observation about what is perceived.

The Study of the Creative Process

The term “creation” is defined, among other meanings, as the process or effect of conceiving, inventing
and generating by means of a human, divine or similar superior force what does not exist, and to give a
new form and a new use and to improve something that alreday exists. An intellectual product par
excellence since it requires the exercise of reasoning and of the skills needed to execute complex tasks,
creation, utilizes the imagining of types of consciousness which, united in a logical sequence, “will
produce a sort of life for the object as an image”, appearing in one aspect or another according to what
man perceives through his senses:

The descriptions of types, environments, sensations and emotions detectable in literary texts place us in
front of a symbolic system whose understanding is a movement that is never concluded but in which the
symbologies are continuously sought for the progress of knowledge. However, this imaginary conceived
by common sense differs from the collective imaginary, in which it is the subjectivity of a person that is
presented to the unconscious, and differs from the personal imaginary in which the images of a people
and of a culture are presented to the reader. In turn, the collection of subjectivities and cultural images
of a people is conceived by as a response to the human anguish in the face of the finitude of life (i.e.,
man needs to delineate an athropological path that will constantly reaffirm for him his ability to create
and perceive realities).

The “imagination” entry derives from the Latin imaginatio, which in turn replaces the Greek phantasía.
According to Ceia, imagination, as early as stated by Aristotle (trans. 2006) in the De Anima (428a 1-4),
consists of the mental process through which we conceive an image (phantasma) since, according to
Aristotle, the human mind is unble to think without images, representing with them what does not exist
in our immediate world. As explained by Ceia, the original Greek meaning of the concept, maintained
in the German term Phantasie, refers to what is present in the first great theoreticians of the
subconscious, Freud and Jung, corresponding to how they always used the term. In turn, literary studies
of the 18th century emphasized the creative power of imagination as an essential activity of artistic
creation, in clear opposition to its meaning in Antiquity (i.e., an exercise considered similar to feelings
of melancholia, nostalgia, fear, and boredom). This idea that it is necessary to feel to be able to imagine
will not represent for Plato a way to achieve knowledge, but rather a way to obtain a sort of second-
hand copy of reality.

With the European romanticism, which attributed to imagination the status of a subjective alternative in
order to achieve less pragmatic forms of knowledge, and with the questions raised by Kant, which
admitted imagination as the synthesis of human perceptions to which the images that represent them are
proposed, a new theory of imagination was established, whereby imagination was proposed as a
privileged pathway towards subjective knowledge at the expense of pragmatic knowledge. Within this
context, Coleridge, one of the creators of romanticism in England, by admitting that the full vitality of
the senses can be experienced only through imagination, elevated the latter to the creative power of
God. This opinion was shared by the German philosopher Schlegel, who understood imagination as the
ability to associate images at the consciousness level, in contrast to fantasy, which appears to operate
with images arising from the frontier with the unconscious. The 20th century, however, revealed a
greater interest in the product originating from the creative imagination, highly approximated to
personal experience, than in its theorization.

It is the task of creative imagination to enable man to translate the physical appearance of objects into
appropriate forms for given contexts, this being due to the psychological reason that, in the human
perception and thinking, the similarity is not based on a meticulous identity, but rather on the
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correspondence of essential structural characteristics. However, according to the author, something new
is only valid up to the point it serves to interpret a universal topic of human experience. Using works of
art as examples of what can be perceived by man through his vision, we could see that since it is
dynamic and not static, an image does not represent arrangements but rather interactions of its own
tensions, leading to the reasoning that it is not the eye that constructs the interaction of objects in a
visual field, but rather that it is the dynamics of shapes that determines how this visual field is
perceived.

It is definitely possible to state that fictional characters appear to be psychologically true, especially in
cases in which the author has sought in psychology the figures and interpersonal relations he has used in
his work of art. But these characteristics overlap so constantly that the complex situations in which they
are involved and on which they act deserve more acute observations than the possibility of fitting them
into a specific social type. An example of this is represented by works constructed using the stream of
consciousness technique. In these works, a faithful reproduction of the mental processes presented is
less relevant han the possibility of dramatization offered by the technique used. In other words, it is not
the psychological truth, regardless of the emphasis on the notion of the reality of creation, that will give
artistic value to a work of art, but rather the way this truth was manipulated to underscore coherence and
complexity so that something really new is obtained.

The Study of the Types and Laws Present in Literary Works

In literary studies, the type is investigated as one of the possibilities of a character to be created. A
schematic configuration both in a physical and psychic meaning, projected as a “real” fully determined
individual, as well as one of the three essential structural elements of a novel, the type, is one of the
characterizations of plane, linear characters defined by a single trait that does not change throughout the
work. A common practice in historical novels, the presence of the type, is justified by the necessity of
the extistence of representatives of a given milieu or social class in whose fictional destinies are
reflected important trends and historical changes.

By representing society or a specific social group, their literary construction becomes possible, among
other aspects, thanks to the attention placed by the author on the meaning of his words and to the
practice of orality established by this attention between locutors and interlocutors in the plot of the text,
which guarantees the important linguistic and imaging representation for the insertion of the characters
in the universe of a determined epoch. As plane characters, their role is tied to a specific situation or to a
generalized conduct, a characteristic that also distances them from caricature, which involves a unique
quality or idea taken to the extreme, so that such distortion purposefully evokes a satire. Thus, identified
by their profession, behavior and social class (i.e., by a distinctive trait common to all the individuals of
a same category, the characters would represent, for example, the good man who defends social values,
the evil man who defends evil deeds, the older man who knows how to give advice, and so on, all of
them having in common an interiorized competence).

The Study of Laws. It is certainly possible to use psychology to clarify the interpretation and valuation
of literary works, and it is also possible to proceed in the same manner regarding sociology, philosophy,
history and other disciplines which, supported by their theoretical constructs, can help the reader to
understand the fundamental concepts that may have been used to elaborate a literary plot. The
interpretation mediated by the diversity of the fields of knowledge should highlight the meaning of the
text and communicate this meaning in relation to others, transposing it from the subjective domain to
the intersubjective domain. It is by attracting a language that is appropriate for the production of
meaning that a literary work, as it exercises the principle of synthesis, provides a communicable
language and becomes able to be mimetic.

Specifically used to deal with what one or more criteria cause something to be considered literature, the
term literality, defined as a fictitious discourse or the imitation of daily language acts and in relation to
certain properties of language has theoretically and methodologically relevant aspects of the literary
object. By representing reality or by self-representation, a literary work may show realistic intentions,
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with a character being identified as a social individual; conventional semantic intentions with the text
acting as a mediator of the instances that occur in the narrative; simulation intentions, in which what can
be said or not said is always indirect; and social symbolization intentions, with the narrative involving a
consideration of the manner how society symbolizes itself.

The Study of the Effects of Literature on the Readers.

In his work “The Act of Reading” (1996), originally published in 1976, Wolfgang Iser conducted an
important study of the interaction between the reader and the text focusing on how, and under which
conditions, a text has a meaning for the reader. Since the traditional interpretation intended to elucidate
hidden meanings, Iser wanted to see the meaning as the result of an interaction between text and reader,
as an effect that is felt by the reader and not as a message that must be found in the text. In other words,
according to Iser, the texts, in general, contain statements that can be understood by the reader mixed
with other statements that require from the reader a complementation of meaning, a filling of their
“gaps” (i.e., of what they do not state explicitly). This active complementation by the reader causes him
to wonder at any instant whether the formulation of the meaning he is performing is adequate for the
reading he is carrying out. And it is by means of this condition that the interaction of the text with the
reader occurs, something quite different from reading the text looking for a hidden message or based on
a unique interpretation.

The aesthetic object is constructed only through the act of cognition by the reader. Adopting this precept
exchanges the focus of the text as an object with the text in potential, born from the results of the act of
reading. In order to examine the interaction between the text and the reader, we look for those qualities
of the text that render it legible, deserving to be read, or that influence our reading, as well as the
characteristics of the reading process that are essential for the comprehension of the text. In his initial
work in particular he adopts the term “implicit reader” in order to encompass both functions. This
resides in the structure of the act and in the textual structure. There is difference between concretization
of the text and work of art. The first differentiator between the text and a work of art is the artistic
aspect, which is located here by the author for us to read, and which must be better conceived as a
potential expected achievement. The concretization of the text, in contrast, refers to the product of our
own productive activity; it is the realization of the text in the thinking of the reader, achieved by filling
out the blanks or openings in order to eliminate what is indeterminate.

The Creative Process: Reception and Response to the Environment

Traditional psychology used to understand human behavior as something resulting from mental life.
Within this context, there would be a causal relation between conscience and behavior (i.e., a behavior
would be considered to be determined by what man is thinking). However, contemporary psychology
proposes that conscience should be understood as an intermediate link between environment and
behavior (i.e., man is influenced by the environment and by his own idiosyncrasies when emitting a
response to his milieu). On this basis, various psychological theories utilize different schemes in order
to explain behavior. The simplest among these psychological theories seems to be the behavioral theory,
whereby the response results from the environment (i.e. from stimuli, and the model that explains it is
the conditioned reflex through which the stimulus-response linkage occurs). This theory is identified by
the E-R model (i.e., the stimulus-response theory). With behavior being the result of this organism-
environment interaction, Leite believes that current psychology should have the resources for explaining
two forms of behavior that are of direct interest to Literature (i.e., the creative thought and the reading
of a literary work). Since the interest of the present study is in the behavior elicited by the reading of a
literary work, we shall try to relate below a scheme of the E-R theory to the study proposed by us.

Considering what has been said thus far about the text, reader and expectation, we believe that it is
possible to generalize, respectively, a stimulus, organism and respose model in which the text
corresponds to the stimulus (E), the reader to the organism (O) and the expectation to the response (R).
This model is commony applicable in Psychology and may explain the creative thought and the reading
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of a literary work as being forms of behavior and experience, respectively. On this basis, we would have
the following scheme:

Figure 1 Text - Reader - Expectation or S (Stimulus) - O (Organism) - R (Response).

The above scheme refers to perception (i.e., to the process whereby the reader is subjected both to the
stimuli, represented by the properties of the book, and to his own characteristics as a perceiver,
represented by the properties of the reader). Considered in this way, this scheme permits us to
understand that the same work can be perceived at various levels, with different intensities, and mainly
being susceptible to the idiosyncrasies of the reader. On the basis of the studies and transposing them as
far as possible to the study of the role of the reader in the literature, we conclude that at least three
conditions are necessary in order to produce an adequate reading of a given work (i.e., the presence of
stimuli or of situations; indicated by E) that can be observed and perceived: the book, an organism
capable of perceiving and reacting adequately to the stimuli perceived (indicated by O): the reader; a
response to the stimuli that will identify how the organism behaves in the reading system: the opinion.

By connecting the elements of this scheme with one another, we understand that they are valid for a
schematic representation of the process of textual reception. It should be remembered, however, that it
is not a stimulus that provokes and determines the response of the critic, but that this response is also
influenced by the organism with all of its previous experience and learning (i.e., there are subjective
experiences of an entire life, all of them manifesting themselves in the reader). The cycle is continuous
and its division into stages is only used to clarify its more important events and to render the
explanation of the reading process as didactic as possible. Any interpretation is simply a way of
revealing aspects of a determined work, always falling short of its total content.

We should remember, however, that specific focalizations on the creative process (i.e., not linked to the
reception of the process, can be performed) on materials that surround the great writers, such as the
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tradition respected by them, the schools they attended, the time they lived in, their ideologies, prejudices
and human mediocrities, which, in the constant search for an original content, cause the writing of
literature to be the representative of a reconstruction of identity in which each resolved deletion in a
progressive (re)construction of the identity and the works of the author.
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CHAPTER II
Freud and Jung on Literature

Thinking novels as an analogy of dreams seems an excellent natural example. Same as dreams, novels
are fictitious inventions of the human mind, which are although reality based but by definition they are
not true. Just like a novel, dreams are said to interpret some truth, coming from one’s personal
experiences or sub-conscious mind.

Many reasons make an analogy between novels and dreams seem natural. There is no denying that we
vicariously live in a plot of romantic fictions as much as we live daydreams. Similarly, nightmares and
terrifying novels have the same effect on our minds and plunge us into an atmosphere that remains
clingy, even when the story is finished.

Hence, nothing is surprising when you hear someone saying Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is more like
a frightening nightmare. Both its plot and structure allow the reader and author to explore fantasies,
wishes, and fears.

The phenomena that dreams can allow psychic explorations, or make a connection between dreams and
literary works, lead us to the philosophy of-of Sigmund Freud. A renowned Australian psychoanalyst,
famous for his great deal of research on Psychoanalytic criticism, published an essay ‘The
Interpretation of Dreams.‘

The Relationship between Freud’s Theory and Literary Criticism

Freud’s theory to some extent was able to bridge literary work and dreams. It makes the reality of
dreams seem natural. Many critics, who agree with Freud’s theory, believe that whether you have read
Freud’s philosophy or not, everyone is Freudians in one way or other. We all somehow come across or
referred to the terms like unconscious desires, ego, sexual repression, ego, and libido.

The premises of the psychoanalytic approach, under Freud’s analysis, have vehemently influenced the
western world. Every human being is a psychoanalytic interpreter, particularly teachers who learn from
scholar’s criticism. In 1960, psychoanalytical criticism emerged as a new doctrine, containing an
interpretive theory.

Sigmund Freud subverted the intellectual society by working on the premises of sexuality, instincts and
human individuality. The connection between literary criticism and psychoanalysis mainly concerned
with sexuality and its articulation in language. It focuses on three main phases to pursue literary
criticism including the author (his or her subjectivity), text and reader.

The psychoanalytical theory considers the literary text as ‘Artist Symptoms’ in which both author and
text established a relationship, which is synonymous with a relationship between dreams and dreamers.
Later, the post-Freudian psychoanalytic theorists re-molded the approach called ‘Reader-response
criticism’. The new approach talked about reader’s psychological experience with the text. It completely
foregrounded the reader’s subjectivity with the text.

On the other hand, CG Jung contested the Freud’s approach, leading an archetypal criticism. According
to archetype definition, the main focus of literary criticism is not the readers or writers personal
psychology. It typically represents a relationship between collective unconscious myths, thoughts,
desires, image and past archetype culture.

The horizon of Freud’s theoretical delineation expanded when Jacques Lacanre worked in
poststructuralist context. He merged the structural linguistics with dynamic phenomena of desire. Under
the influence of this archetypical criticism, psychoanalytic impetus considered compatible with
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uncertainties of subjectivity and time. Furthermore, its meaning gained popularity in a Postcolonial
domain where the primary interest was in destabilized identities and borders of literary criticism.

Freud’s Psychoanalytic Explorations

The answer to the question ‘who is Freud’ lies in his psychoanalytical explorations about the
unconscious mind and dreams. His theory gives a decisive role to the unconscious desires and their
effects on the human beings. Freud considered unconscious desires a reflection of human suppressed
emotions, traumatic experiences, fears, unresolved conflicts, unadmitted desires and libidinal drives.

All of these suppressed human emotions play an important role in constituting human unhappy psychic.
Freud called it ‘Repression’ and considered it essential for the operation of the unconscious mind.
Hebert Marcuse further developed this idea and showed his consistent interest in the literary studies
related to repression and its effects and linked it with sexuality.

Repression as a psychoanalytic exploration of Freud does not exclude human excruciating experiences,
drives, agonies, and fears. He stated that it strengthens these emotions by making them powerful
organizers of the current events. There is another similar process Freud termed as ‘Sublimation’ that
refers to the promotion of repressed material into something noble, disguised or grander. For example, a
man can use the sublimated expression for his sexual urges by taking benefits from religious longings.
Psychoanalysis uses ‘defense mechanism’ as a neologism that elaborates psychic procedures a human
uses to avoid painful admission.

To explain this notion further, Freud demonstrated an example of ‘Freudian slip’ and called it
‘Paraprax.’ It explains how repressed material saved in unconscious mind finds a way out through
unintended actions, a slip of the tongue and pen. Hence, the unconscious is psychoanalysis is not only a
passive receiver or reservoir of everyday neutral data but a dynamic entity that keeps us engaged with
our mind’s deepest level.

Freud’s Tripartite Model a and Psychoanalytic Criticism

Freud presented a structural model of a human personality. He studied the three major aspects that are
responsible for creating human reactions. He pigeonholed human personality into Ego, id and the
superego. Psychoanalysis, in this regard, greatly depends upon these three parts to analyze someone’s
personality or the way someone behaves.

The theory significantly influenced literary critics as they apply the approach of a tripartite model for
analyzing the literary characters and its actions. They use the same three parts of the personality
structure that Freud has identified. Critics explored character’s ego, id, and superego in work. The
primary focus was to determine how these character’s personality structures affect the work. A literary
critic named this process psychoanalytic criticism. Freud explained the three parts of the personality
structure as,

1. Id

According to Freud, id is one of the most important parts of the human personality based on primitive
impulses like hunger, thirst, the desire for gratification and anger. Humans are born with their id, and it
allows them to acquire their basic needs.

Id is directly related to pleasure principal and compels humans to seek anything that feels good at a
particular time without considering any restrictions of the situation. Freud believed that id has a power
to influence ego and can easily maneuver human’s behavior to bring self-pleasure.

2. Ego
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Ego is another significant part of the human’s personality that aims to maintain a balance between
conscience (superego) and impulses (id). The ego scaffolds on the reality principle, and understands the
desires and needs of other people. It knows that being impulsive is equal to being selfish and can hurt
people sometimes.

Ego carries a great responsibility to understand the needs of impulses while considering the situation’s
reality. To put it simply, Ego’s job is to balance the superego and id.

3. Superego

The superego is the moral part of human personality, representing conscience. The development of
superego relies on ethical and moral restraints placed on every human being by his/her caregiver. Not
only does it influence human personality, but also dictates his/her moral beliefs, (right or wrong). The
superego is synonymous to the good angel sitting on the shoulder, telling people to control ego’s
behavior.

Role of Dreams in Freud’s Theory

A significant part of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory deals with the dreams and their role in human life.
Freud believed that dreams are the royal roads that lead us to our unconscious mind. Dreams are the
reflection of our repressed desires, hidden in our subconscious minds. Dreams are more like the
symbolic fulfillment of human desires or wishes.

Freud asserted that dreams contain symbolic texts that everyone needs to decipher when his/her
watchful ego is alert and at work, even when a person is dreaming. However, deciphering ego’s
message is not easy as it censors or scrambles the messages due to the peculiar functioning modes of the
unconscious to increase the obscurity.

Making the dream content latent, unconscious does not vividly display the desires and conceals it in the
complex codes and structures. Freud called it ‘dream work’ in his neologism.

Freud’s Work in the Eyes of Critics

Although Sigmund Freud is one of the leading figures in the world of psychoanalysis, his work and
theories faced a great deal of criticism. Carl Jung, in this regard, is not only known for his outstanding
and impactful contributions to the psychological treatments but also for criticizing and countering Freud
theories.

Even though both psychoanalysts developed camaraderie and greatly admired each other’s work, they
became most prominent critics of each other works. The major differences lie in their psychoanalytical
theories that also became a cause of Freud and Jung’s intellectual break.

Both Freud theory and work explored the unconscious processes of mind, where he foregrounded the
role of dreams and its complex messages. According to him, it is our unconscious mind which is
responsible for specific human behavior. Among all the forces, Freud considers sexual desires as the
most ostentatious and powerful yet suppressed emotions of our childhood. It is our conscious mind that
constantly repressed these desires.

On the other hand, Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist. He was a great admirer of Freud’s theory until
Freud stereotyped Jung as an heir apparent to the psychoanalysis domain. Their relationship
deteriorated, as manifested in Jungian criticism. Jung notably disagreed with many of Freud’s theories,
ideas, and critical concepts. The primary disagreement was with Freud’s emphasis on sexuality as one
of the fundamental motivating force of behavior. Besides this, Jung criticizes Freud’s concepts of dream
work and unconscious. According to him, Freud’s theories are overtly negative and cannot be over
generalized.
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Jung

Carl Gustav Jung (1875 –1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical
psychology. Jung’s work has been influential not only in psychiatry but also in anthropology,
archaeology, literature, philosophy and religious studies. Freud wanted him to be his potential heir to
carry on his "new science" of psychoanalysis. However, Jung's researches and personal vision were
different from Freud’s and a breach took place between the two.

Jung created some of the best known psychological concepts like ‘synchronicity’, ‘archetypal
phenomena’, ‘collective unconscious’, ‘psychological complex’, ‘extraversion’ and ‘introversion’. He
downplayed the importance of sexual development and focused on the collective unconscious: the part
of the unconscious that contains memories and ideas that Jung believed were inherited from ancestors.
While he thought that libido was an important source for personal growth, Jung did not believe (unlike
Freud) that libido alone was responsible for the formation of the core personality. Jung believed his
personal development was influenced by factors unrelated to sexuality.

Jung and Freud

The main disagreement between Freud and Jung was in the nature of libido [the psychic and emotional
energy associated with instinctual biological drives, sexual desire, manifestation of the sexual desire
etc.]
Freud thought that the nature of libido was sexual,
Jung believed that it was more than sexual.

Jung and Collective Unconscious.

Jung proposed the existence of a ‘collective unconscious’
Collective unconscious is the racial memory inherited by all human beings. This connects the modern
man to his primeval roots. Collective unconscious is manifested in the recurrence of certain images,
stories, figures, called the ‘archetypes –‘the psychic residua of numberless experiences of the same
type’.
An individual attains Psychological maturity when he/she recognizes and accepts the archetypal
elements of his/her own psyche. This psyche is described as a triad—‘shadow’, ‘persona’, and
‘anima’—which corresponds to Freudian terms, ID, Ego, and Super-ego.

Jungian psychology has much more affinity with literature than Freudian psychology. [See the works of
writers like Eugene O’Neill, Herman Melville etc. T. S. Eliot’s criticism, especially his essay, ‘Tradition
and Individual Talent has a close affinity with Jung’s ideas]
The reasons for this are many.
1.Freud was much more scientifically oriented than Jung. Science was seen as inimical to Literature
from the Romantic period onwards.
2.Jung was more a visionary believing in religious and even magical traditions. Needless to say that
his beliefs were closer to Literature than Freud’s.
3.Jung readily agreed that Literature embodied knowledge. This knowledge was vital to alienated,
secularized modern man.
4.Jung’s theory of ‘collective unconscious tied neatly with the anthropological study of primitive
myth and ritual initiated in England by James Frazer in The Golden Bough.
5.Out of the fusion of psychology, anthropology and Literature, a kind of literary criticism evolved
in which the archetypal patterns became dominant.

Psychology and Literature

Psychology, Jung says, is the study of the psychic process. ‘Human psyche is the womb of all sciences
and art’.
Psychological research tries to explain the formation of a work of art. [Creative process]
It also looks at the factors that make a person an artist. [Creative artist]
 14

A work of art is a complicated product. It is created intentionally and consciously. When we analyze the
creative process, we undertake the psychological analysis of a complicated work of art. When we look
at the creative artist, we look at the creative human being as a unique personality. It is possible to draw
surmises about the artist from the work of art, and vice versa. But these inferences are never conclusive.

The work of art [the creative process]

There is a basic difference between
The psychologist’s examination of a literary work, and
The literary critic’s examination of the same.
What is important for the psychologist may be irrelevant for the literary critic and vice versa. For
example, the ‘psychological novel’ may not be preferred by the psychologist as he/she has very little to
do as the novel explains itself.

‘The novels which are most fruitful for the psychologist are those in which the author has not already
given a psychological interpretation of his characters, and which therefore leave room for analysis and
explanation…’. Jung gives some examples
The French novels of Pierre Benolt and the English novels of Rider Haggard.
Conan Doyle’s detective fiction, and Melville’s Moby Dick, “, the greatest American Novel” [Jung]

An exciting narrative without any psychological explanation is the most interesting thing for the
psychologist. Such a work is built upon hidden psychological assumptions. It reveals itself to critical
analysis. On the other hand, in the psychological novel, the author himself undertakes psychological
exposition and illumination. Such novels are interesting to laymen. But novels with hidden
psychological assumptions pose a challenge to the psychologist for he alone can analyze its deeper
meaning.

Jung takes Goethe’s Faust to explain his point further.

In the first part of the drama, the love tragedy of Grotchen explains itself. The poet has stated everything
clearly. The psychologist has nothing more to add. But the picture changes when we come to the second
part of the drama. Here nothing is self-explanatory. Every line adds to the difficulty of the reader as he
finds it hard to understand without interpretation.

Jung calls the first type of artistic creation psychological. Here everything is explained so clearly that
the psychologist has very little task to perform. The second type of artistic creation is called visionary.
Here the work is endowed with deeper meaning and the psychologist has to strive hard to decipher the
meaning. The reader may miss the significance of the materials unless the psychologist points it out.

The Psychological mode

It deals with materials taken from ordinary human consciousness. The poet raises the material from the
commonplace to the poetic. He brings into the reader’s consciousness things the latter might have
overlooked. The poet’s work is an interpretation and illumination of the contents of consciousness. He
leaves nothing to the psychologist to explain. No obscurity surrounds the materials as they fully explain
themselves. Such works never exceed the boundaries of psychology. All the experiences pictured in
them belong to the realm of the understandable.

The Visionary mode

This mode reverses all the conditions of the former. The experiences are no longer familiar. ‘It is a
strange something that derives its existence from the hinterland of man’s mind...’ It is a primordial
experience that surpasses mans understanding. Nietzsche calls it ‘treason against humanity’. It is ‘a
disturbing vision of monstrous and meaningless happenings that in every way exceed the grasp of
human feeling…’ Jung further qualifies this visionary mode as something that ‘rend from top to bottom
the curtain upon which is painted the picture of an ordered world, and allow a glimpse into the
unfathomed abyss of what has not yet become’. We find this vision in Dante, in the second part of
Faust, in Nietzsche’s Dionysian exuberance, in Wagner’s Nibelungen ring, and in the poetry of
William Blake. Jung gives further examples and says that the list can be extended.
 15

In the visionary mode of artistic creation we are astonished, taken aback and we demand commentaries
and explanations. The experience may be covered with historical facts as in the case of Dante or by
mythical events as in Wagner. But the significance of the material is in the VISIONARY
EXPERIENCE.

Obscurity of Source Material in the Visionary Mode

This is exactly opposite to what we find in the psychological mode. This obscurity may be intentional.
We may suppose that some highly personal experience underlies this ‘grotesque darkness’.
The curious images given to explain the vision may be ‘cover figures’ and they may be an attempt to
conceal the basic experience’.
This might be an experience in love ‘which is morally and aesthetically incompatible with the
personality as a whole. The ego of the poet might repress this experience and make it unrecognizable
Moreover, the attempt ‘to replace reality with fiction must be repeated in a long series of creative
embodiments’. This would explain the ‘proliferation of imaginative forms, all monstrous, demonic,
grotesque, and perverse’.

Jung’s Views of the Visionary

The vision is not a substitute for reality. But if we consider the vision as a personal experience, we take
away the primordial quality from it and it becomes a symptom or a psychic disturbance. This in turn
prompts us once more to view the world not as chaotic but ordered. The vision, ‘which is a frightening
revelation of the abysses that defy the human understanding’ is dismissed as illusion, and the poet is
regarded a victim and perpetrator of deception.

The visionary experience is something unknown to ordinary men. It has an unfortunate suggestion of
obscure metaphysics and occultism.
The vision is sometimes regarded as the fantasy of the poet and is understood as a poetic license.
Certain poets encourage this view so as to keep a distance between them and their works. Spitteler, for
example, stoutly maintained that it was the same for the poet whether he sang of ‘an Olympian Spring
or to the theme: ‘May is here!’
‘The truth is that poets are human beings, and that what a poet has to say about his work is often far
from being the most illuminating word on the subject’. [D. H. Lawrence advises us to trust the tale not
the teller].

Jung gives examples for the visionary mode

The shepherd of Hermas
The Divine Comedy and
Faust by Goethe

In these three works we find a personal love episode which is subordinated to the visionary experience.
Here the vision is not something derived or secondary and it is not a symptom of something else. It is
true symbolic expression—that is the expression of something existent in its own right, but imperfectly
known. The subject of the vision falls beyond human passion.

If these secrets are made public, they are deliberately kept back and concealed. They are regarded as
mysterious, uncanny and deceptive from very early times. They are hidden from the scrutiny of man. He
protects himself with the shield of science and the armor of reason. Human enlightenment is born out
of fear. In the daytime man believes in an ordered cosmos. He tries to maintain faith against the fear of
chaos that besets him by night. ‘When we consider the visionary mode of creation, it even seems as if
the love episode had served as a mere release—as if the personal experience were nothing but the
prelude to the all-important ‘divine comedy’.

The Night Side of Life

The seers, prophets, leaders, and enlighteners also were familiar with the nocturnal world. Man has
known of it from time immemorial. For primitive man it is an unquestionable part of his picture of the
 16

cosmos. Only we have repudiated it because of our fear of superstition and metaphysics. We want an
ordered world that is safe and manageable. ‘But even in our midst, the poet now and then catches sight
of the figures of the night-world. He sees something of the psychic world that strikes terror into the
savage and barbarian.

Jung points out that in primitive cultures there were attempts to give expression to the visionary mode.
In Rhodesian cliff-drawings, there is a double cross contained in a circle. In Christian churches and
Tibetan monasteries, the so-called sun-wheel is visible. We have to remember that this belongs to a time
when nobody has thought of the wheel as a mechanical device. Knowledge about the secrets is handed
on to younger men in the rites of initiation.

For the poet the primordial experience is a source of creativeness. Since his poetry cannot exhaust the
possibilities of the vision, but falls far short of it in richness of content, the poet must have at his
disposal a huge store of materials if he has to communicate even a few of his intimations.

Psychology cannot elucidate the colorful imagery. It can bring together materials for comparison and
offer a terminology for its discussion. According to the terminology what appears in the vision is the
COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS.

Collective Unconscious

Jung defines Collective Unconscious thus:

We mean by Collective Unconscious, a certain psychic disposition shaped by the forces of heredity;
from it consciousness has developed. In the physical structure of the body we find traces of earlier
stages of evolution...It is a fact that in eclipses of consciousness--in dreams, narcotic states, and cases of
insanity—-there come to the surface psychic products or contents that show all the traits of primitive
levels of psychic development.

Jung says that what is of particular importance to the study of literature in these manifestations of the
collective unconscious is that they are compensatory to the conscious attitude. They can bring abnormal
and dangerous level of consciousness into equilibrium in a purposive way.

Great poetry draws its strength from the life of mankind, and we completely miss its meaning if we try
to derive it from personal factors. Whenever the collective unconscious becomes a living experience
and is brought to bear upon the conscious outlook of an age, this event is a creative act which is of
importance to everyone living in that age.

‘A work of art contains message to generations of men. Faust touches something in the soul of every
German. An epoch is like an individual. It has its limitations of conscious outlook. It requires a
compensatory adjustment. This is effected by the collective unconscious in that a poet, a seer, or a
leader allows himself to be guided by the unexpressed desire of his times and shows the way, by word
or deed, to the attainment of that which everyone blindly craves and expects’.

The Poet
Creativeness contains a secret. ‘Creative man is a riddle that we may try to answer various ways, but
always in vain, a truth that has not prevented modern psychology from turning now and again to the
question of the artist and his art’.

Freud thought that he had found a key in his procedure of deriving the work of art from the personal
experiences of the artist. Jung agrees that a work of art, like neurosis, can be traced back to the knots in
psychic life. ‘It was Freud’s great discovery that neuroses have a casual origin in the psychic realm—
that they take their rise from emotional states and from real or imagined childhood experiences’. The
role of a poet’s psychic disposition in his work of art is undeniable.
Freud and Neurosis
 17

Neurosis is a substitute for gratification. It is something inappropriate—-a mistake, an excuse, a

‘voluntary blindness’. Neurosis is an irritating disturbance as it is without any sense or meaning.

A work of art is close to neurosis as it can be analyzed in terms of the poet’s repressions
In that sense it is in the company of religion and philosophy.

But we cannot claim that a work of art is only neurosis. ‘The personal idiosyncrasies that creep into a
work of art are not essential, in fact, the more we have to cope with these peculiarities, the less is to a
question of art’. A work of art should rise above personal life and speak from the spirit and heart of the
poet. The personal aspect is a limitation, and even a sin, in the realm of art. An art which is primarily
personal has to be considered neurotic.

There is some truth in the belief of the Freudian school that artists are ‘narcissists’. The term implied
that artists are undeveloped personalities with infantile and auto-erotic qualities. Jung says that this
description is valid for the artist as a person. It has nothing to do with the man as an artist. In his
capacity as artist he is ‘neither auto-erotic, nor hetero-erotic, nor erotic in any sense’. ‘He is objective
and impersonal—-even inhuman—-for as an artist he is his work, and not a human being.
Every creative person is a duality of contradictory aptitudes. On the one side he is a human being with a
personal life, while on the other side he is an impersonal, creative process. As a human being he may be
healthy or morbid. We can only understand him as an artist by looking at his creative achievement.

Jung on Artist
Specifically artist disposition involves an overweight of collective psychic life as against the personal.
Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a
person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purposes
through him.

As a human being the artist may have moods and a will and personal aims, but as an artist he is a man in
a higher sense—-he is ‘collective man’—-one who carries and shapes the unconscious, psychic life of
mankind. To perform this difficult office it is sometimes necessary for him to sacrifice happiness and
everything that makes life worth living for the ordinary human being.’

Two forces are at war in the life of the artist.

1. The common human being longing for happiness, satisfaction, and security in life, and
2. Someone with a ruthless passion for creation which may go so far as to override every personal
desire.
Jung believes that an artist has to suffer because of the divine gift of creative fire in him. Each human
being is born with a certain capital of energy. The strongest force in them will seize and monopolize this
energy, leaving so little for other activities.

The auto-eroticism of the artist resembles that of illegitimate or neglected children. These children have
to protect themselves from their tender years from the destructive influence of people who have no love
to give them. They develop bad qualities for defence against others and ‘maintain an invincible
egocentrism by remaining all their lives infantile and helpless or by actively offending against the moral
code or the law’. Art explains the artist. The deficiencies and conflicts of his personal life are not at all
important for us.

It does not matter whether the artist knows that his work is born, grows and matures with him or that he
produces the work from the void. His opinion does not change the fact that his work outgrows him as a
child its mother.

‘Whenever the creative force predominates, human life is ruled and molded by the unconscious as
against the active will, and the conscious ego is swept along on a subterranean current being nothing
 18

more than an observer of events. The work in progress becomes the poet’s fate and determines his
psychic development. It is not Goethe who creates Faust, but Faust which creates Goethe.

Faust is a symbol that lives in the soul of every German. Goethe has helped to bring it to birth. Faust
and Also spake Zarathustra play upon something that is there in the German soul. It is a ‘primordial
image’ of the physician or teacher of mankind, the archetypal image of the wise man, the savior or
redeemer. It is the archetypal image that lies buried/dormant in man’s unconscious since the dawn of
civilization. This image is awakened when the human society is committed to a serious error. When
people go astray they feel the need of a guide or teacher or even of the physician to restore the psychic
equilibrium of the epoch.

Thus the work of a poet meets the spiritual need of the society in which he lives. The work means more
to him than his personal fate. He is subordinate to his work. He has given it form and must leave the
interpretation to others and to the future. ‘A great work of art is like a dream; for all its apparent
obviousness it does not explain itself and is never unequivocal’.

Every great work of art is objective and impersonal, but none the less profoundly moves us each and all.
And this is also why the personal life of the poet cannot be held essential to his art—-but at most a help
or hindrance to his creative task. He may go the way of a Philistine, a good citizen, a neurotic, a fool or
a criminal. His personal career may be inevitable and interesting, but it does not explain the poet.

Notes

1. ‘shadow’, ‘persona’, and ‘anima’

In Jungian psychology, "shadow" or "shadow aspect" may refer to an unconscious aspect of the
personality which the conscious ego does not identify in itself. In short, the shadow is the "dark side".

The persona is how we present ourselves to the world. The word "persona" is derived from a Latin word
that literally means "mask." The persona represents the different social masks we wear among various
groups and situations. It acts to shield the ego from negative images. According to Jung, the persona
may appear in dreams and take different forms.

The anima is a feminine image in the male psyche, and the animus is a male image in the female
psyche. The anima/animus represents the "true self" rather than the image we present to others and
serves as the primary source of communication with the collective unconscious.

2. Faust, Goethe's great dramatic poem in two parts, is his crowning work. Even though it is based on
the medieval legend of a man who sold his soul to the devil, it actually treats modern man's sense of
alienation and his need to come to terms with the world in which he lives. Faust was made into a
symbol of free thought, anti-clericalism, and opposition to Church dogma.
3. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a consummate and prolific philosopher. While most
philosophers warned people of the danger of physical passions, Nietzsche recommended cultivating
them as powerful assets. Nietzsche was keenly aware of the unconscious. Spontaneous feelings and
emanations from the darker regions of the soul were as important to him as the work of the intellect,
and fully experiencing something like music was nothing less in his eyes than the discoveries of science
or the rational mind.

4. Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), is a cycle of four German-language epic music
dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas
and the Nibelungenlied. The scale and scope of the story is epic. It follows the struggles of gods, heroes,
and several mythical creatures over the eponymous magic ring that grants domination over the entire
world. Robert Donington in Wagner's Ring And Its Symbols interprets it in terms of Jungian
psychology, as an account of the development of unconscious archetypes in the mind, leading towards
individuation.
 19

5. ‘Symptom’ is a term frequently employed by Freud. He defined it thus:

A symptom is a sign of, and a substitute for, an instinctual satisfaction which has remained in
abeyance; it is a consequence of repression’.

6. The shepherd of Hermas is a Christian literary work of the 1st or mid 2nd century. It is considered a
valuable book by many Christians and considered canonical scripture by some early Church fathers.

7. Human enlightenment—The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement of the 18 th century. It

advocated reason as a means to establishing an authoritative system of aesthetics, ethics, government,
and even religion.

8. The Night Side of Life—-Lionel Trilling stated that Freud was committed to the night side of life.
The term refers to the dark, irrational aspects of the human mind.
 20

CHAPTER III
Systems of Psychology

Psychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the scientific study of mental processes and
behavior. Psychology also refers to the application of such knowledge to various spheres of human
activity, including problems of individuals' daily lives and the treatment of mental illness.
Psychology differs from the other social sciences anthropology, economics, political science, and
sociology in seeking to explain the mental processes and behavior of individuals. Psychology
differs from biology and neuroscience in that it is primarily concerned with the interaction of
mental processes and behavior on a systemic level, as opposed to studying the biological or neural
processes themselves. In contrast, the subfield of neuropsychology studies the actual neural processes
and how they relate to the mental effects they subjectively produce. Biological psychology is the
scientific study of the biological bases of behavior and mental states.
Psychology is an academic and applied field involving the study of behavior, mind and thought and the
subconscious neurological bases of behaviour. Psychology also refers to the application of such
knowledge to various spheres of human activity, including problems of individuals' daily lives and the
treatment of mental illness. It is largely concerned with humans, although the behavior and mental
processes of animals can also be part of psychology research, either as a subject in its own right (e.g.
animal cognition and ethology), or somewhat more controversially, as a way of gaining an insight into
human psychology by means of comparison (including comparative psychology).

Psychology is commonly defined as the science of behavior and mental processes

Psychology does not necessarily refer to the brain or nervous system and can be framed purely in terms
of phenomenological or information processing theories of mind. Increasingly, though, an understanding
of brain function is being included in psychological theory and practice, particularly in areas such as
artificial intelligence, neuropsychology, and cognitive neuroscience.
Psychology describes and attempts to explain consciousness, behavior and social interaction. Empirical
psychology is primarily devoted to describing human experience and behavior as it actually occurs. In
the past 20 years or so psychology has begun to examine the relationship between consciousness and the
brain or nervous system. It is still not clear in what ways these interact: does consciousness determine
brain states or do brain states determine consciousness - or are both going on in various ways? Perhaps
to understand this you need to know the definition of "consciousness" and "brain state" - or is
consciousness some sort of complicated 'illusion' which bears no direct relationship to neural processes?
An understanding of brain function is increasingly being included in psychological theory and practice,
particularly in areas such as artificial intelligence, neuropsychology, and cognitive neuroscience.
The late 19th century marks the start of psychology as a scientific enterprise. The year 1879 is
commonly seen as the start of psychology as an independent field of study, because in that year German
scientist Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory dedicated exclusively to psychological research in
Leipzig, Germany.
Wundt combined philosophical introspection with techniques and laboratory apparatuses brought over
from his physiological studies with Helmholtz, as well as many of his own design. This experimental
introspection was in contrast to what had been called psychology until then, a branch of philosophy
where people introspected themselves.
Introspection is the direct observation or rumination of one's own heart, mind and/or soul and its
processes, as opposed to extrospection, the observation of things external to one's self.

Early Systems
Wundt's form of psychology is called structuralism. It is in a class called systematic interpretations
because It attempted to explain all behavior with reference to one systematic position. Some other
sytems of psychology are functionalism, behaviorism, gestalt psychology, and psychodynamic
psychology.
 21

Functionalism is concerned with the reason for behavior and not the structure of the brain. It allowed the
study of new subjects including children and animals.
Behaviorism is an approach to psychology based on the proposition that behaviour can be studied and
explained scientifically without recourse to internal mental states. Psychologists that use behaviorism
are concerned mainly with muscular movements and glandular secretions.
Gestalt Psychology is a theory of mind and brain that proposes that the operational principle of the brain
is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies. It has a particular interest in perceptual
problems and how they can be interpereted. A Gestaltist believes that the whole is greater than or
different than the sum of all of the parts. Trying to break up behavior into seperate parts is simplistic
because everything affects everything else.
Psychodynamic psychology was first practiced by Sigmund Freud, although he didn't intend it to be a
system.

Perspectives
While the use of one system to solve all problems has been abandoned by most psychologists, these
early systems were important in the development of new systems and ideas. There are eight major
perspectives that psychologists usually take, although many use an eclectic approach instead of
confining themselves to just one.
The psychodynamic perspective emphasizes unconscious drives and the resolution of conflicts, the
behavorial emphasizes the acquisition and alteration of observable responses, and the humanistic
approaches attempt to achieve maximum human potential as set in Maslow's hierchy of needs.
The biological perspective is the scientific study of the biological bases of behavior and mental states,
very closely related to neuroscience.
Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach to psychology that attempts to explain certain mental
and psychological traits such as memory, perception, or language as evolved adaptations,
i.e., as the functional products of natural or sexual selection.
Cognitive psychology accepts the use of the scientific method, but rejects introspection as a valid
method of investigation. It should be noted that Herbert Simon and Allen Newell identified the
'thinking-aloud' protocol, in which investigators view a subject engaged in introspection, and who
speaks his thoughts aloud, thus allowing study of his introspection.
Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are
influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others (Allport, 1985).
Wundt argued that "we learn little about our minds from casual, haphazard self-observation...It is
essential that observations be made by trained observers under carefully specified conditions for the
purpose of answering a well-defined question."
Many scientists threw away the idea of introspection as part of psychology because the observation of
stimulation was speculative without an empirical approach. However the case, an opposite to
introspection called extrospection has been created with a relation to Psychophysics.
Psychophysics is the branch of psychology dealing with the relationship between physical stimuli
and their perception.
The important distinction is that Wundt took this method into the experimental arena and thus into the
newly formed psychological field. Other important early contributors to the field of psychology include
Hermann Ebbinghaus (a pioneer in studies on memory), the Russian Ivan Pavlov (who discovered the
learning process of classical conditioning), and the Austrian Sigmund Freud.
The mid-20th century saw a rejection of Freud's theories among many psychologists as being too
unscientific, as well as a reaction against Edward Titchener's abstract approach to the mind.
Edward B. Titchener (1876-1927) was an Englishman and a student of Wilhelm Wundt before
becoming a professor of psychology at Cornell University. He would put his own spin on Wundt's
 22

psychology of consciousness after he emigrated to the United States.

At the turn of 19th century the founding father of experimental psychology Wilhelm Wundt tried to
experimentally confirm his hypothesis that conscious mental life can be broken down into fundamental
elements which then form more complex mental structures. Wundt's structuralism was quickly
abandoned because it could not be tested in the same way as behavior, until now, when the brain-
scanning technology can identify, for example, specialized brain cells that respond exclusively to basic
lines and shapes and are then combined in subsequent brain areas where more complex visual structures
are formed. This line of research in modern psychology is called cognitive psychology rather then
structuralism because Wundt's term never ceased to be associated with the problem of observability.
The majority of mainstream psychology is based on a framework derived from cognitive psychology,
although the popularity of this paradigm does not exclude others, which are often applied as necessary.
Psychologists specialising in certain areas, however, may use the dominant cognitive psychology only
rarely if at all.
Cognitive psychology is the psychological science which studies cognition, the mental processes that
are hypothesised to underlie behavior. This covers a broad range of research domains, examining
questions about the workings of memory, attention, perception, knowledge representation, reasoning,
creativity and problem solving.

Cognitive psychology is radically different from previous psychological approaches in two key ways.
• It accepts the use of the scientific method, and generally rejects Introspection as a valid method
of investigation, unlike phenomenological methods such as Freudian psychology.
• It posits the existence of internal mental states (such as beliefs, desires and motivations) unlike
behaviourist psychology.

Regardless of the perspective adopted there are hundreds of specialties that psychologists practice.
These specialties can usually be grouped into general fields.
• Clinical and Counseling Psychology: Over half of all psychologists work in this field. Clinical
psychologists are more likely to treat or conduct research into the causes of abnormal
behaviors, while counseling psychologists more often work with mild social or emotional
problems. Typically people seeking the help of a counselor are not classified as abnormal or
mentally ill.
• Educational and School Psychology: Educational psychologists are concerned with the use of
psychology to increase the effectiveness of the learning experience, including facilities,
curriculum, teaching techniques, and student problems. A school psychologist works in a
school environment to evaluate the structure and effectiveness of the learning environment. A
school psychologist assesses, counsels or guides students who have
academic,behavioral,emotional,and/ or guidance needs. A school psychologist consults with
teachers,staff, and parents to help students adjust and learn most effectively in their learning
environment.
• Industrial/Organizational Psychology(also known as I/O psychology, work psychology,
occupational psychology, or personnel psychology) is the study of the behavior of people in the
workplace. Industrial and organizational psychology applies psychological knowledge and
methods to aid workers and organizations. I/O psychologists who work for an organization are
most likely to work in the HR (human resources) department.
• Consumer Psychology:Consumer behaviour is the study of how people buy, what they buy,
when they buy and why they buy.
• Engineering Psychology: See link
• Forensic Psychology: Forensic psychology is the application of psychological principles and
knowledge to various legal activities involving child custody disputes, child abuse of an
emotional, physical and sexual nature, assessing one's personal capacity to manage one's affairs,
matters of competency to stand trial, criminal responsibility & personal injury and advising
judges in matters relating to sentencing regarding various mitigants and the actuarial assessment
 23

of future risk.
• Sport Psychology: Sport psychology is a specialization within psychology that seeks to
understand psychological/mental factors that affect performance in sports, physical activity and
exercise and apply these to enhance individual and team performance.
• Environmental Psychology: Environmental psychology is an interdisciplinary field focused on
the interplay between humans and their surroundings. Areas of study include pollution effects,
recycling efforts, and the study of stress generated by different physical settings.
 24

CHAPTER IV
Foundation

The word psychology has had several different meanings from ancient to mod- ern times. Here is its present definition:
Psychology is the science that studies the behav- ior of organisms. This definition should guide you throughout
your study of this book.

Three words in the definition merit special attention:(1) science, (2) behavior, and (3) organisms. Modern psychology is
considered a science because it bases its conclusions on data, information obtained by systematic observations. The
research methods used by psychology are covered in chapter 2.
Behavior has three aspects:(1) cognitive processes, (2) emotional states, and (3) actions. Cognitive processes refer to
what an individual thinks. Emotional states refer to what an individual feels. Actions refer to what an individual
does.
An organism is any living creature. Consequently, the behavior of dogs, rats, pigeons, and monkeys can be legitimately
included in the study of psychology. Such organisms have indeed been subjects in psychology experiments. However,
traditionally the principal focus of psychology has been humans. When animals are used in experiments, the implicit goal is
often to explore how such basic processes as learning and motivation, as studied in animals, can cast a light on our understanding
of human behavior.

Although you now know the modern definition of psychology, it is important torealize thatthewordpsychology has its roots in
ancient meanings associated with philosophy. The Greek word psyche means soul. Consequently, to philosophers living 400
to 300 B.C., psychology was the “study of the soul.” This was the meaning given by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. In
view of the fact that these thinkers, particularly Socrates and Plato, did not believe that animals have souls, it becomes evident why
for many centuries psychology’s main attention has been given to human beings. The ancientphilosophers assertedthatthe soul
is theseat of consciousness. It is consciousness that makes mental life possible. This is why psychology is often thought of as
the science of the mind.

Indeed, this meaning is the one given to it by William James, the dean of American psychologists. Workingat Harvard a little
more than one hundred years ago, James defined psychology as “the science of mental life.” He believed that the purpose of
psychology should be to investigate such mental processes as thinking, memory,and perception. This is where we stand now.
Although psychology no longer is thought of as thestudy of the soul, this original meaning colors our present-day approach, with
its emphasis on human behavior and the importance of cognition.
Contemporary, scientific psychology has four explicit goals: (1) describe,
(2) explain, (3) predict, and (4) control behavior. These goals are the same common- sense goals that we all use in everyday life. Let’s
say that Jane tells her husband, Harry, that their son, seven-year-old Billy, was a brat today. Is this a good descrip- tion of Billy’s
behavior? No, it’s not. It’s too general, too abstract. On the other hand,let’sassumethatJanesaysthatBillyrefusedtodo his
homeworkandtoldher, “Homework is stupid. I’m not going to do it anymore.” This constitutes a much better description of
behavior because is it is specific and concrete.

Similar specific descriptions may suggest to both parents that Billy misbehaves more than most children. Jane and Harry now
wonder why Billy is beginning to misbehave more and more. Is he frustrated? Does he havean inferiority complex? Does he have
low self-esteem? Does he have Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)? Does he havean imbalance of certain keyneurotransmitters
in his brain? Does he have a childhood neurosis? As you can see, potential explanations are plentiful. They have to be
evaluated.
This is where prediction and control come in. Let’s say that Dr. Helen G., the family pediatrician, suggests that Billy is indeed
suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder. Let’s also assume that Dr. G.is convinced that Billy eats too many foods with refined
sugar and that this causes, through a complex biochemical reaction, a depletion of certain neurotransmitters. She recommends a
diet of natural foods with little refined sugar. The physician is predicting that the change in diet will take away the undesirable
symptoms.
Modern psychology arose in the context of what are known as schools of psychology. The concept of a school of
psychology can be easily understood by thinking of a school of fish. In this case the word school is used similarly to the word
group. A school, or group, of fish follows a leader fish. So it is with a school of psychology. There is a leader and a group of
followers. The school has a view-point and a set of important assumptions.
 25

From a historical perspective, the first school of psychology to be established was structuralism. Its founding personality was
Wilhelm Wundt(1832–1920). As already noted, he founded the world’s first psychological laboratory. Wundt was trained in
physiology, the study of the functions of the body. He became inter- ested in studying not so much the physiology of the sense
organs such as the eyes and ears, but in how simple sensations associated with the sense organs combined to form what we call
human consciousness.
Imagine that youare looking atan oil painting of a landscape. Youperceive trees, a river, a valley, and a sky. But what are the
elemental sensations, the basic building blocks, that make the visual grasp of the picture possible? What, in a word, is the
“structure” of your consciousness? Wundt trained assistants in the art of introspection, a skill characterized by paying
attention not to the whole pattern ofastimulus, buttoanelementalpartof astimulus. Consequently,atrainedintrospectionist was
not supposed tosay,“I see a tree.” Instead, he or she wassupposed tosay,“I see here apatch of green,” and “Isee therea bit of
brown,”and soforth. These bits and pieces were the psychological “atoms” that made up the complex “molecule” of the tree
or other visual object.

Wundt’s studies of vision suggested that there are only three basic kinds of visual sensations. First, thereis hue, or color.Second,there is
brightness. Forexample,a light gray card is brighter than a dark gray card. Also, a page of print illuminated with an intenselightis
brighter thana pageilluminatedwitha lightof lowerintensity.Third, there is saturation. This refers to the “richness” or “fullness”
of a color.
No matter what visual stimulus Wundt’s subjects looked at, there were no other kinds of sensations experienced than the
three identified above. Consequently, Wundt concluded that all visual experiences are structured out of these same three types of
elemental experiences. Similar statements can be made about the other senses such as hearing, taste, and touch. (See chapter
4.)
According to Wundt, the primary purpose of psychology is to study the structure of consciousness. By the structure of
consciousness, Wundt meant the relationship of a group of sensations, a relationship that produces the complex experiences
we think of as our conscious mental life. This approach to psychology has been called mental chemistry. As earlier
indicated, the “atoms” of experience are the sensations. The “molecules” of experience are our complex perceptions.
Wundt is considered to be not only the first scientific psychologist, but also the founder of psychology as an academic
discipline. (Many beginning psychology students think this honor belongs to Sigmund Freud. Although Freud is the most
famous psychologist who ever lived, he occupies a different place in psychology’s history than does Wundt.)

William James (1842–1910), teaching at Harvard in the 1870s, was following Wundt’s research with interest. James had an
interest not only in psychology, but also in physiology and eventually in philosophy. James founded a psychological laboratory
at Harvard; he also authored The Principles of Psychology, the first psychology textbook published in the United States.
The book was published in 1890, and this can also be taken as the date when the school of psychology known as functionalism
was born. The principal personality associated with it is James, and he is said to be the dean of American psychologists.
According to James, psychology should be more interested in how the mind functions, or works, than how it is structured.
Consequently, James stressed the importance of studying such processes as thinking, memory, and attention. You will recall that
James defined psychology as “the science of mental life.” This def- inition is certainly reflected in the processes just
identified.

In brief, functionalism as a school of psychology asserts that that the primary purpose of psychology should be to study the
functions of human consciousness, not its structures.
The German psychologist Max Wertheimer (1880–1943), like James, was also dissatisfied with Wundt’s structuralism.
Wertheimer believed that Wundt’s em- phasis on the importance of simple sensations as the building blocks of perceptions was
misguided. According to Wertheimer, a melody, for example, is more than an aggregate of sensations. It is a pattern. And the
perception of the melody depends much more on the pattern itself than on the individual notes. A melody played in the key of F
can be transposed to the key of C, and it is still the same melody. How- ever, all of the notes, the sensations, are different.
The general pattern that induces a complex perception is described with the German word Gestalt. Gestalt is usually
translated as a “pattern,” a “configuration,” or an “organized whole.” In 1910 Wertheimer published an article setting forth the
basic assumptions of Gestalt psychology, and this is usually taken to be the starting date of the school. The article reported a series
of experiments using two of his friends, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler,assubjects. These two men went on to also become
well- known Gestalt psychologists. In the experiments, Wertheimer demonstrated that the perception of motion can take place if
stationary stimuli are presented as a series of eventsseparatedbyan optimalintervalof time.Thissounds complicated. However, in
practice it’s simple enough. If you flip at just the right speed through a special kind of cartoon book, you can perceive motion as
the series of still pic- tures flicker by.Perceivingmotion ina motion picture isthe same thing. At the level of sensation, you are
being presented with a series of still slides. At the level of perception, you are experiencing motion. The presence of motion
 26

can’t be explained by the nature of the sensations. Consequently, it must be the pattern of presentation, or the Gestalt, that is
inducing the perceived motion.
It became the goal of Gestalt psychology to study the effects that various Gestalten (the plural of Gestalt) have on thinking
and perception. As you will dis- cover in chapter 6, Kohler’s research related Gestalt principles to insight learning. In brief,
Gestalt psychology asserts that patterns, or configurations, of stimuli have a powerful effect on how we think and perceive the
world around us.
Returning to the United States, behaviorism is a fourth classical school of psychology. Its founding personality is John B.
Watson (1878–1958). A wave of enthusiasm for Watson’s ideas swept him to the presidency of the American Psy- chological
Association (APA)in 1915, and this can be taken as the starting date for behaviorism. Doing research first at the University of
Chicago and then at Johns Hopkins University, Watson came to the conclusion that psychology was placing too much emphasis
on consciousness. In fact, he asserted that psychology is not a mental science at all. The “mind” is a mushy, difficult-to-define
concept. It can’t be studied by science because it can’t be observed. Only youcan know what’s going oninyourmind.If I say
I’mstudying yourmind, accordingtoWatson, it’s only guesswork.

Consequently, Watson asserted that the purpose of psychology should be to study behavior itself, not the mind or consciousness.
Some critics of Watson say that he denied the very existence of consciousness. Others assert Watson was primarily saying that
references to the consciousness, or mental life, of a subject don’t pro- vide solid explanations of behavior. In either event,
Watson’s view is today thought to be somewhat extreme and is referred to as radical behaviorism, a psy- chology that
doesn’t employ consciousness as an important concept.

Behaviorism has been very influential in American psychology. As you will find in chapter 6, it inspired a psychologist
named B. F.Skinner to study the process of learning. Skinner in time became the most famous behaviorist of the twentieth
century.

In order to identify a fifth classical school of psychology, it is necessary to return to the European continent, specifically to
Austria; the school is psycho- analysis. The father of psychoanalysis is Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). Freud was a medical
doctor with a specialty in neurology. His findings and conclusions are based primarily on his work with patients. Early in his
career he concluded that a large number of people with neurological symptoms such as paralysis, a numb feeling in a hand or
foot, complete or partial blindness, chronic headaches, and similar complaints had no organic pathology. They were not
biologically sick. Instead their symptoms were produced by intense emotional conflicts.
Freud’s original work was done with a colleague named Josef Breuer (1842–1925). Breuer and Freud collaborated on the
book Studies on Hysteria. Published in 1895, it is the first book written on psychoanalysis. This can also be taken to be the
starting date for the school. After the publication of this first book, Freud went on alone without Breuer; it was a number of years
before he worked again with colleagues.
The word hysteria is a diagnostic label. It used to be assigned to a patient if he orshewasexperiencing neurologicalsymptoms that
werethought to beimaginary in nature.The patient is not malingering. He or she believesthat the symptoms are real. Today this is a
well-recognized disorder, and is called a somatoform disorder, conversion type. This simply means that an emotional
problem such as chronic anxiety has converted itself to a bodily expression. (The Greek word soma means “body.”)
In order to explain chronic emotional suffering, Freud asserted that human beings have an unconscious mental life. This is the
principal assumption of psychoanalysis. No other assumption or assertion that it makes is nearly as important. The unconscious
mental level is created by a defense mechanism called repression. Its aim is to protect the ego against psychological threats,
information that will disturb its integrity. (The ego is the “I” of the personality, the center of the self.) The kind of mental
information repressed tends to fall into three primary categories: (1) painful childhood memories, (2) forbidden sexual
wishes, and (3) forbidden aggressive wishes.
Psychoanalysis is not only a school of psychology, but also a method of therapy. You will find more about this in chapter 15.
Freud believed that by helping a patient explore the contents of the unconscious mental level, he or she could obtain a
measure of freedom from emotional suffering. It is important to note that of thefiveclassical schools ofpsychology,psychoanalysis
istheonlyonethatmade it an aim to improve the individual’s mental health.
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CHAPTER V
Psychoanalysis Elaboration

Psychoanalysis is a type of therapy that aims to release pent-up or repressed emotions and memories in
or to lead the client to catharsis, or healing. In other words, the goal of psychoanalysis is to bring what
exists at the unconscious or subconscious level up to consciousness.

This goal is accomplished through talking to another person about the big questions in life, the things
that matter, and diving into the complexities that lie beneath the simple-seeming surface.

The Founder of Psychoanalysis: Sigmund Freud and His Concepts

Freud was born in Austria and spent most of his childhood and adult life in Vienna (Sigmund Freud
Biography, 2017). He entered medical school and trained to become a neurologist, earning a medical
degree in 1881.

Soon after his graduation, he set up a private practice and began treating patients with psychological
disorders.

His attention was captured by a colleague’s intriguing experience with a patient; the colleague was Dr.
Josef Breuer and his patient was the famous “Anna O.,” who suffered from physical symptoms with no
apparent physical cause.

Dr. Breuer found that her symptoms abated when he helped her recover memories of traumatic
experiences that she had repressed, or hidden from her conscious mind.

This case sparked Freud’s interest in the unconscious mind and spurred the development of some of his
most influential ideas.

Models of the Mind

Perhaps the most impactful idea put forth by Freud was his model of the human mind. His model
divides the mind into three layers, or regions:

1. Conscious: This is where our current thoughts, feelings, and focus live;
2. Preconscious (sometimes called the subconscious): This is the home of everything we can recall
or retrieve from our memory;
3. Unconscious: At the deepest level of our minds resides a repository of the processes that drive
our behavior, including primitive and instinctual desires (McLeod, 2013).

Later, Freud posited a more structured model of the mind, one that can coexist with his original ideas
about consciousness and unconsciousness.
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In this model, there are three metaphorical parts to the mind:

1. Id: The id operates at an unconscious level and focuses solely on instinctual drives and desires.
Two biological instincts make up the id, according to Freud: eros, or the instinct to survive that
drives us to engage in life-sustaining activities, and thanatos, or the death instinct that drives
destructive, aggressive, and violent behavior.
2. Ego: The ego acts as both a conduit for and a check on the id, working to meet the id’s needs in
a socially appropriate way. It is the most tied to reality and begins to develop in infancy;
3. Superego: The superego is the portion of the mind in which morality and higher principles
reside, encouraging us to act in socially and morally acceptable ways.

The image above offers a context of this “iceberg” model wherein much of our mind exists in the realm
of the unconscious impulses and drives.

Defense Mechanisms

Freud believed these three parts of the mind are in constant conflict because each part has a different
primary goal. Sometimes, when the conflict is too much for a person to handle, his or her ego may
engage in one or many defense mechanisms to protect the individual.

These defense mechanisms include:

 Repression: The ego pushes disturbing or threatening thoughts out of one’s consciousness;
 Denial: The ego blocks upsetting or overwhelming experiences from awareness, causing the
individual to refuse to acknowledge or believe what is happening;
 Projection: The ego attempts to solve discomfort by attributing the individual’s unacceptable
thoughts, feelings, and motives to another person;
 Displacement: The individual satisfies an impulse by acting on a substitute object or person in a
socially unacceptable way (e.g., releasing frustration directed toward your boss on your spouse
instead);
 Regression: As a defense mechanism, the individual moves backward in development in order to
cope with stress (e.g., an overwhelmed adult acting like a child);
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 Sublimation: Similar to displacement, this defense mechanism involves satisfying an impulse by

acting on a substitute but in a socially acceptable way (e.g., channeling energy into work or a
constructive hobby).

The 5 Psychosexual Stages of Development

Finally, one of the most enduring concepts associated with Freud is his psychosexual stages. Freud
proposed that children develop in five distinct stages, each focused on a different source of pleasure:

1. First Stage: Oral—the child seeks pleasure from the mouth (e.g., sucking);
2. Second Stage: Anal—the child seeks pleasure from the anus (e.g., withholding and expelling
feces);
3. Third Stage: Phallic—the child seeks pleasure from the penis or clitoris (e.g., masturbation);
4. Fourth Stage: Latent—the child has little or no sexual motivation;
5. Fifth Stage: Genital—the child seeks pleasure from the penis or vagina (e.g., sexual intercourse;
McLeod, 2013).

Freud hypothesized that an individual must successfully complete each stage to become a
psychologically healthy adult with a fully formed ego and superego. Otherwise, individuals may
become stuck or “fixated” in a particular stage, causing emotional and behavioral problems in adulthood
(McLeod, 2013).

The Interpretation of Dreams

Another well-known concept from Freud was his belief in the significance of dreams. He believed that
analyzing one’s dreams can give valuable insight into the unconscious mind.

In 1900, Freud published the book The Interpretation of Dreams in which he outlined his hypothesis
that the primary purpose of dreams was to provide individuals with wish fulfillment, allowing them to
work through some of their repressed issues in a situation free from consciousness and the constraints of
reality (Sigmund Freud Biography, n.d.).

In this book, he also distinguished between the manifest content (the actual dream) and the latent
content (the true or hidden meaning behind the dream).

The purpose of dreams is to translate forbidden wishes and taboo desires into a non-threatening form
through condensation (the joining of two or more ideas), displacement (transformation of the person or
object we are concerned about into something or someone else), and secondary elaboration (the
unconscious process of turning the wish-fulfillment images or events into a logical narrative) (McLeod,
2013).

Freud’s ideas about dreams were game-changing. Before Freud, dreams were considered insignificant
and insensible ramblings of the mind at rest. His book provoked a new level of interest in dreams, an
interest that continues to this day.

Jungian Psychology: Carl Jung

Freud’s work was continued, although in altered form, by his student Carl Jung, whose particular brand
of psychology is known as analytical psychology. Jung’s work formed the basis for most modern
psychological theories and concepts.

Jung and Freud shared an interest in the unconscious and worked together in their early days, but a few
key disagreements ended their partnership and allowed Jung to fully devote his attention to his new
psychoanalytic theory.
 30

The three main differences between Freudian psychology and Jungian (or analytical) psychology are
related to:

1. Nature and Purpose of the Libido: Jung saw libido as a general source of psychic energy that
motivated a wide range of human behaviors—from sex to spirituality to creativity—while Freud
saw it as psychic energy that drives only sexual gratification;
2. Nature of the Unconscious: While Freud viewed the unconscious as a storehouse for an
individual’s socially unacceptable repressed desires, Jung believed it was more of a storehouse
for the individual’s repressed memories and what he called the collective or transpersonal
unconscious (a level of unconscious shared with other humans that is made up of latent
memories from our ancestors);
3. Causes of Behavior: Freud saw our behavior as being caused solely by past experiences, most
notably those from childhood, while Jung believed our future aspirations have a significant
impact on our behavior as well.

Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Jacques Lacan

In the mid to late 1900s, the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan called for a return to Freud’s work,
but with a renewed focus on the unconscious and greater attention paid to language.

Lacan drew heavily from his knowledge of linguistics and believed that language was a much more
important piece of the developmental puzzle than Freud assumed.

There are three key concepts of Lacanian psychoanalysis that set it apart from Freud’s original talk
therapy:

1. The Real;
2. Symbolic Order;
3. Mirror Stage.

The Real

While Freud saw the symbolic as being indicative of a person’s unconscious mind, particularly in
dreams, Lacan theorized that “the real” is actually the most foundational level of the human mind.
According to Lacan, we exist in “the real” and experience anxiety because we cannot control it.

Unlike the symbolic, which Freud proposed could be accessed through psychoanalysis, the real cannot
be accessed. Once we learn and understand language, we are severed completely from the real. He
describes it as the state of nature, in which there exists nothing but a need for food, sex, safety, etc.

Symbolic Order

Lacan’s symbolic order is one of three orders that concepts, ideas, thoughts, and feelings can be placed
into. Our desires and emotions live in the symbolic order, and this is where they are interpreted, if
possible. Concepts like death and absence may be integrated into the symbolic order because we have at
least some sense of understanding of them, but they may not be interpreted fully.

Once we learn a language, we move from the real to the symbolic order and are unable to move back to
the real. The real and the symbolic are two of the three orders that live in tension with one another, the
third being the imaginary order (Symbolic Order, 2002).
 31

Mirror Stage

Lacan proposed that there is an important stage of development not covered by Freud called the “mirror
stage.” This aptly named stage is initiated when infants look into a mirror at their own image. Most
infants become fascinated with the image they see in the mirror, and may even try to interact with it.
But eventually, they realize that the image they are seeing is of themselves.

Once they realize this key fact, they incorporate what they see into their sense of “I,” or sense of self. At
this young stage, the image they see may not correspond to their inner understanding of their physical
self, in which case the image becomes an ideal that they strive for as they develop.

The Approach: Psychoanalytic Perspective

In the psychoanalytic approach, the focus is on the unconscious mind rather than the conscious mind. It
is built on the foundational idea that your behavior is determined by experiences from your past that are
lodged in your unconscious mind. While the focus on sex has lessened over the decades since
psychoanalysis was founded, psychology and talk therapy still place a big emphasis on one’s early
childhood experiences.

Methods and Techniques

A psychoanalyst can use many different techniques, but there are four basic components that comprise
modern psychoanalysis:

1. Interpretation;
2. Transference analysis;
3. Technical neutrality;
4. Countertransference analysis.

Interpretation

Interpretation is the verbal communication between analysts and clients in which analysts discuss their
hypotheses of their clients’ unconscious conflicts.

Generally, analysts will help clients see the defensive mechanisms they are using and the context of the
defensive mechanisms, or the impulsive relationship against which the mechanism was developed, and
finally the client’s motivation for this mechanism.

There are three classifications of interpretation:

1. Clarification, in which the analyst attempts to clarify what is going on in the patient’s
consciousness;
2. Confrontation, which is bringing nonverbal aspects of the client’s behavior into his or her
awareness;
3. Interpretation proper, which refers to the analyst’s proposed hypothesis of the unconscious
meaning that relates all the aspects of the client’s communication with one another.

Transference Analysis

Transference is the term for the unconscious repetition in the “here and now” of conflicts from the
client’s past. Transference analysis refers to “the systematic analysis of the transference implications of
the patient’s total verbal and nonverbal manifestations in the hours as well as the c patient’s direct and
implicit communicative efforts to influence the analyst in a certain direction”.
 32

This analysis of the patient’s transference is an essential component of psychoanalysis and is the main
driver of change in treatment.

In transference analysis, the analyst takes note of all communication, both verbal and nonverbal, the
client engages in and puts together a theory on what led to the defensive mechanisms he or she displays.
That theory forms the basis for any attempts to change the behavior or character of the client.

Technical Neutrality

Another vital piece of psychoanalysis is what is known as technical neutrality, or the commitment of the
analyst to remain neutral and avoid taking sides in the client’s internal conflicts; the analyst strives to
remain at an equal distance from the client’s id, ego, and superego, and from the client’s external
reality.

Additionally, technical neutrality demands that the analyst refrains from imposing his or her value
systems upon the client (Kernberg, 2016).

Technical neutrality is sometimes considered indifference or disinterest in the client, but that is not the
goal; rather, analysts aim to serve as a mirror for their clients, reflecting clients’ own characteristics,
assumptions, and behaviors back at them to aid in their understanding of themselves.

Countertransference Analysis

This final key component of psychoanalysis is the analysis of countertransference, the analyst’s
reactions to clients and the material they present in sessions. “contemporary view of countertransference
is that of a complex formation codetermined by the analyst’s reaction to the patient’s transference, to
the reality of the patient’s life, to the reality of the analyst’s life, and to specific transference
dispositions activated in the analyst as a reaction to the patient and his/her material”.

Countertransference analysis can be generally understood as the analyst’s attempts to analyze their own
reactions to the client, whatever form they take.

To engage in psychoanalytic treatment, the analyst must see the client objectively and understand the
transference happening in the client and in their own experience.

Transference and Other Forms of Resistance in Psychoanalysis

Speaking of transference, it is one of the many forms of resistance considered in psychoanalysis. In

psychoanalytic theory, resistance has a specific meaning: the blocking of memories from consciousness
by the client.

Resistance is the client’s general unwillingness to change their behavior and engage in growth through
therapy. This resistance can develop by myriad reasons, some conscious and some unconscious, and
can even be present in those who want to change.

Transference occurs when clients redirect their emotions and feelings from one person to another, often
unconsciously, and represents a resistance or obstacle between clients and their desired states (healing).

It frequently occurs in treatment in the form of transference onto the therapist, in which the client
applies their feelings and expectations toward another person onto the therapist.

There are many different types of transference, but the most common include:
 33

 Paternal transference: In this type, the client looks to another person as a father or idealized
father figure (e.g., wise, authoritative, powerful);

 Maternal transference: The client looks to another person as a mother or an idealized mother
figure (e.g., comforting, loving, nurturing);

 Sibling transference: This type may occur when parental relationships break down or are
lacking; instead of treating another person as a parent (in a leader/follower type relationship), the
client transfers a more peer-based relationship onto the other person;

 Non-familial transference: This is a more general type of transference in which the client treats
others as idealized versions of what the client expects them to be, rather than what they truly are;
this type of transference can lead the client to form stereotypes.
 Transference is not necessarily harmful but may be a form of client resistance to treatment. If the
client is projecting inappropriate or unrealistic expectations onto the therapist, he or she may not
be entirely open to the change that treatment can provoke.

Resistance to treatment can also be understood in a more general, non-psychoanalytic manner. After all,
resistance to treatment is not an uncommon occurrence.

Examples of ways in which a client may resist change in treatment include:

 Silence or minimal discussion with the therapist;

 Wordiness or verbosity;
 Preoccupation with symptoms;
 Irrelevant small talk;
 Preoccupation with the past or future;
 Focusing on the therapist or asking the therapist personal questions;
 Discounting or second-guessing the therapist;
 Seductiveness;
 False promises or forgetting to do what is agreed upon;
 Not keeping appointments;
 Failing to pay for appointments.

Psychoanalysis vs. Psychotherapy

So, given the difference between the two “psycho-” theories above, what is the difference between
psychoanalysis and psychotherapy?

The main distinctions between psychoanalysis and psychotherapy lie in both the goals of the treatment
and the methods used to achieve those goals.

Psychotherapy is a type of “talk therapy” that is offered as a treatment for a wide range of ailments and
mental disorders. The goal is to solve a problem and/or address symptoms that are affecting the client’s
quality of life, and there are many ways to go about working to reach this goal.

Those methods vary depending on the type of psychotherapy in question. Some of the most common
types include:

 Cognitive therapy;
 Behavioral therapy;
 Cognitive-behavioral therapy;
 Marital or family therapy;
 Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR);
 Narrative therapy;
 34

 Emotion-focused therapy;
 Brief solution-focused therapy.

Psychoanalysis also falls within this list of common types of psychotherapy, but it has a more specific
goal: helping the client (or patient) overcome the desires and negative influences of his or her
unconscious mind.

The techniques used in psychoanalysis differ from most other types of psychotherapy, demonstrated by
the stereotypical image of psychoanalysis of the client reclining on a couch facing away from the
therapist (or analyst) while discussing his or her past.

Psychotherapy can be undertaken with a variety of length and duration combinations, from once a
month to several times a week. On the other hand, psychoanalysis is almost always applied in an
intensive manner, often requiring three to five sessions a week for several years.

A Psychoanalyst vs. a Psychotherapist: Is There a difference?

In case the descriptions above didn’t make it clear, there is certainly a difference between a
psychoanalyst and a psychotherapist.

A psychoanalyst has a particular set of skills gained from specific psychoanalysis training. While
psychotherapists may practice multiple types of therapy (although they often specialize in a certain type
of therapy or in treating a particular mental health issue), psychoanalysts generally stick to practicing
only psychoanalysis.

However, the two professions both focus on helping people via talk therapy, and both use their skills to
help their clients gain insight about themselves, address their mental and emotional issues, and heal.

In fact, a psychoanalyst is often considered to be a type of psychotherapist, just one who specializes in
psychoanalysis. With that in mind, every psychoanalyst is also a psychotherapist, but not every
psychotherapist is a psychoanalyst.
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CHAPTER VI
Evaluation

A. Choice Quiz

1. Psychoanalysis was developed to treat which mental disorder?

a. Hypochondriasis
b. Depression
c. Neurosis
d. Hysteria

2. Which of the following statements is true of Freud’s seduction theory?

a. It proposed that women developed hysteria as a result of seducing older men

b. It proposed that hysterics only imagined or fantasized about early sexual experiences
c. It proposed that hysterics suffer from memories
d. Freud abandoned it because it placed too much emphasis on childhood sexuality

3. In Freud’s topographic model, the ‘çensor’ guards the border between …

a. the Conscious and the Preconscious

b. the Conscious and the Unconscious
c. the Preconscious and the Unconscious
d. the Ego and the Id

4. According to Freud, the odd, magical quality of dreams reflects the influence of …

a. primary process thinking

b. secondary process thinking
c. the ‘dreamwork’
d. defence mechanisms

5. Which of the following statements is true of the Ego, according to Freud?

a. It exists prior to the Id

b. It follows the ‘pleasure principle’
c. It lends its libidinal energy to the Superego
d. None of the above

6. Which Freudian defence mechanism does this statement illustrate: ‘I’m not jealous, you are’?

a. Projection
b. Repression
c. Sublimation
d. Denial

7. Which of the following statements is false according to Freud’s genetic model?

a. The oral stage roughly corresponds to infancy

b. The anal stage is dominated by themes of control and shame
c. The phallic stage ends with girls internalizing a harsher super-ego than boys
d. The latency stage lasts from the end of the Oedipus complex until puberty
 36

8. According to psychoanalytic theory, what is the ‘anal triad’?

a. Obstinacy, orderliness, and parsimony

b. Neatness, cleanliness, and perfectionism
c. Compulsiveness, drive, and conscientiousness
d. Stubbornness, attention to detail, and poor hygiene

9. Neo-Freudians such as Erich Fromm and Karen Horney argued that …

a. unconscious processes are unimportant

b. Freud was wrong to emphasize intrapsychic conflict
c. human motivations beyond sexuality and aggression must be recognized
d. Freud was fundamentally correct on female sexual development

10. As a general rule, contemporary psychoanalytic theory …

a. pays more attention to interpersonal relationships

b. does not rely on the concepts of psychic energy and instincts
c. is relatively open to the findings of empirical psychology
d. all of the above

11. Critics of psychoanalytic inference argue that it is …

a. too dependent on subjective interpretation

b. too rigorous
c. too focused on psychological validity
d. too cautious

12. Which of the following is not a weakness of psychoanalytic evidence?

a. Its subjectivity
b. Its limited quantity
c. Its vulnerability to suggestion
d. Its lack of public availability

13. Psychoanalytic theory is NOT often criticized for which of the following?

a. Being unfalsifiable
b. Being unscientific
c. Being deterministic
d. Being simplistic

14. Which of the following psychological ideas and research topics can arguably be traced back to
psychoanalytic theorizing?

a. Attachment style
b. Implicit attitudes
c. The psychology of motivation
d. All of the above

15. Which of the following are examples of domain-level traits within the Big Five?

a. Politeness, withdrawal, and orderliness

b. Extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism
c. Plasticity and stability
 37

d. Trust, excitement-seeking, and liberalism

16. Based on Pytlik Zillig and colleagues’ content analysis of the Big Five, which of the following traits
is most relevant to regularities in behaviour?

a. Extraversion
b. Neuroticism
c. Conscientiousness
d. a and c

17. Maggie has felt cheerful and elated for most of the afternoon and into the evening. This experience
would best be described as a …

a. affective state
b. a mood
c. an emotion
d. a trait

18. The ability to manage emotional reactions in order to achieve one’s goal is called …

a. emotional intelligence
b. goal-directed emotion
c. low neuroticism
d. emotion regulation

19. What are the two major dimensions of motivation studied in personality psychology?

a. Approach and Avoidance

b. Stability and Plasticity
c. Positive and Negative
d. Promotion and Prevention

20. Which of the following traits has been particularly closely linked with cognitive factors such as
Intelligence?

a. Extraversion
b. Openness/Intellect
c. Neuroticism
d. Conscientiousness

21. In which of the following cases would you expect judgments of another person’s personality to be
most accurate?

a. If the judge and the target are close acquaintances (e.g. spouses)
b. If the trait being judged is more behavioural in its content
c. If the target being judged is observed in a trait relevant situation
d. All of the above

22. When asked if she is an extravert, Kate hesitates, noting that she is probably quite extraverted on
average, but there are many times throughout the day that she behaves quite introverted. This is relevant
to which model in personality?

a. The Distribution Density hypothesis

b. The Act Frequency model
c. The Realistic Accuracy model
 38

d. The Behaviour Activation System

23. Characteristic adaptations have been conceptualized as …

a. aspects of personality concerning time, place, and role

b. aspects of personality concerning goals, interpretations, and strategies
c. aspects of personality that are much more contextualized than traits
d. all of the above

24. Biological approaches to personality are relevant to which underlying personality influences?

a. Genetics/Nature
b. Environment/Nurture
c. Both a and b
d. Neither a nor b

25. Natural selection acts directly upon …

a. the genotype
b. the phenotype
c. individual-level fitness
d. group-level fitness

26. Jessie and Joh have differing views about the evolution of personality. Jessie thinks that both low
and high levels of every personality trait can be adaptive, while Joh thinks that a trait can be either
adaptive or non-adaptive depending on the context. These two views are known as …

a. selective neutrality and antagonistic pleiotropy

b. antagonistic pleiotropy and environmental heterogeneity
c. environmental heterogeneity and frequency dependent selection
d. frequency dependent selection and life history theory

27. The Hawk-Dove game is a classic demonstration of …

a. antagonistic pleiotropy
b. social environmental heterogeneity
c. frequency-dependent selection
d. b and c

28. The two discrete units of inheritance discovered by Mendel were …

a. genes
b. alleles
c. chromosomes
d. base pairs

29. Which of the following pairs share 50% of their genes?

a. Any two siblings

b. A pair of dyzogotic twins
c. A pair of monozygotic twins
d. a and b
 39

30. Imagine you were conducting a twin adoption study of personality, and you found a trait that was
essentially uncorrelated among all twin pairs (including monozygotic and dizygotic twins). Which of
the following would you conclude?

a. Variation in the trait is largely owing to genetic influences

b. Variation in the trait is largely owing to shared environmental influences
c. Variation in the trait is largely owing to unique environmental influences
d. Variation in the trait is owing roughly equally to genetic factors and unique environmental
influences

31. What influences on personality does the ‘shared environment’ represent?

a. Events that siblings experience within the family home (e.g. parenting)
b. Events and experiences that make siblings more similar in their personality
c. Events that siblings experience outside the family home (e.g. schooling)
d. Events and experiences that make siblings more different in their personality

32. Which of the following methods is most closely related to behavioral genetic research?

a. Candidate gene approach

b. Genomewide scan
c. Genomewide complex trait analysis
d. All of the above

33. The so-called ‘missing heritability problem’ may be owing to …

a. non-additive genetic effects

b. a massively polygentic basis to traits
c. a major role for rare genetic variances
d. any of the above

34. Which of the following is an example of a conceptual nervous system in personality neuroscience?

a. The dopamine system

b. The Big Five
c. The pleasure system
d. a and c.

35. Pavlov’s typology suggested that personality differences arose from what properties of the nervous
system?

a. Strength
b. Balance
c. Mobility
d. All of the above

36. After reading about Eysenck’s theory of personality, Beatrice speculates that she must have
chronically low activity in the reticulo-cortical loop. Which aspect of her personality does this inference
relate to?

a. Her (high) neuroticism

b. Her (high) extraversion
c. Her (low) neuroticism
d. Her (low) extraversion
 40

37. In the study by Revelle, Amaral, and Turriff (1976), support for Eysenck’s theory of extraversion
was shown through what finding?

a. Stress and caffeine improved cognitive performance for introverts but not extraverts
b. Stress and caffeine improved cognitive performance for extraverts but not introverts
c. Stress and caffeine improved cognitive performance for introverts but impaired it for extraverts
d. Stress and caffeine improved cognitive performance for extraverts but impaired it for introverts

38. According to Jeffrey Gray’s theory, the experience of goal conflict results in which emotion?

a. Anger
b. Anxiety
c. Confusion
d. Frustration

39. Which Big Five trait may be most closely linked to the Behavioral Inhibition System?

a. Conscientiousness
b. Neuroticism
c. Impulsivity
d. None of the above

40. Dopamine has been most closely linked with which Big Five trait?

a. Conscientiousness
b. Agreeableness
c. Extraversion
d. Affiliation

41. Which model in personality posits a conceptual nervous system that integrates elements of
Reinforcement Sensitivity with traits concerning behavioural control or constraint?

a. Zuckerman’s Alternate Five Model

b. Carver et al.’s (2008) ‘Two Mode’ model
c. Both of the above
d. Neither of the above

42. Which of the following was not a finding in DeYoung et al.’s (2010) structural imaging study?

a. Extraversion was correlated with the volume of key reward-processing structures such as the
nucleus accumbens
b. Neuroticism was correlated with the volume of key threat processing structures such as the
amygdala
c. Openness/Intellect was correlated with the volume of structures involved in higher cognition
such as the prefrontal cortex
d. Conscientiousness was correlated with the volume of structures involved in behavioural
constraint, such as the lateral prefrontal cortex

43. The cognitive approach to personality …

a. focuses on the attributes that people possess

b. focuses on people’s emotional responses to situations
c. focuses on how perception and cognition are influenced by personality traits
d. focuses on processes of thinking and information processing
 41

44. According to Skinner’s behaviourism …

a. mental processes are not a legitimate focus for scientific study

b. people’s behaviour is a result of their learning histories
c. people have collections of specific habits rather than broad traits
d. all of the above

45. According to Maslow, people …

a. have a natural tendency to self-expression

b. have a natural tendency to self-actualization
c. have a natural tendency to self-complexity
d. have a natural tendency to self-aggrandizement

46. Which of the following statements is the best definition of Rotter’s concept of locus of control?

a. The belief that the outcomes of one’s behaviour is or is not under our control
b. The belief that one is or is not responsible for the outcomes of one’s behaviour
c. The belief that one is capable of successfully carrying out a behaviour
d. The belief that one can control one’s impulsive tendencies

47. Which of the following statements best displays Albert Bandura’s concept of self-efficacy?

a. I am the greatest
b. I can do whatever I set my mind to do
c. My future is bright
d. I am my own boss

48. George Kelly argued that personal constructs are …

a. bipolar
b. hierarchical
c. categorical
d. all of the above

49. An ‘idiographic’ approach to personality maintains that …

a. personality psychology should seek generalizations about people

b. a standard set of descriptive concepts can be applied to all people
c. people should be investigated as unique individuals
d. personality research should study large samples of people

50. The psychological concept of ‘attribution’ is closest to which of the following concepts?

a. Concept
b. Explanation
c. Interpretation
d. Judgement

51. Which of the following statements about defensive pessimists is incorrect?

a. They hold unrealistically low expectations about how well they will perform
b. They withdraw effort from tasks on which they think they will do poorly
c. They perform just as well as optimists
d. They are motivated to minimize future disappointment
 42

52. Which of the following forms of coping illustrates the indicated kind of coping strategy?

a. Emotion-focused: attacking a person who is making you unhappy

b. Problem-focused: recognizing that an issue is causing you difficulties
c. Emotion-focused: imagining that a problem will just go away
d. Problem-focused: actively trying to change how you feel about a stressor

53. In coping research, high ‘goodness of fit’ exists when people engage in …

a. problem-focused coping for uncontrollable stressors

b. problem-focused coping for problem-based stressors
c. emotion-focused coping for uncontrollable stressors
d. emotion-focused coping for emotion-based stressors

54. Which of the following statement is true of self-esteem?

a. Mean levels of it have been declining in recent decades

b. It is the global evaluation of the self-concept
c. It has been shown to have numerous positive effects
d. All of the above

55. Which of the following does defensive self-esteem represent?

a. Low explicit self esteem and low implicit self-esteem

b. Low explicit self-esteem and high implicit self-esteem
c. High explicit self-esteem and low implicit self-esteem
d. High explicit self-esteem and high implicit self-esteem

56. Which of the following statements about self-complexity is incorrect?

a. High self-complexity makes people more vulnerable to stressful life events

b. High self-complexity involves having more self-aspects
c. High self-complexity involves having self-aspects with little overlap
d. High self-complexity can sometimes indicate a lack of self-concept clarity

57. Which of the following factors may explain the increasing stability of personality with age?

a. Selection of environments that fit the person’s traits

b. Absence of major life events
c. Stability of the person’s social and physical environments
d. All of the above

58. Which of the following statements accurately reflects the ‘hard plaster’ and ‘soft plaster’ views of
personality change and stability, according to Srivastava et al. (2003)?

a. The hard plaster view proposes that personality change stops at age 30
b. The hard plaster view proposes that personality change slows after age 30
c. The soft plaster view proposes that personality change accelerates after 30
d. The soft plaster view proposes that personality is malleable until age 50

59. Which of the following statements is an accurate statement about mean-level change in adult
personality?

a. People tend to become more extraverted

b. People tend to become more neurotic
 43

c. People tend to become less open to experience

d. People tend to become less conscientious

60. Roberts and Del Vecchio (2000) found that …

a. longitudinal personality correlations are almost perfect after age 50

b. personality becomes progressively more stable over time
c. the correlations of personality traits over time remain stable through the lifespan
d. correlations between infant and child personality attribute over a 7-year period are high

61. Which of the following kinds of environmental influence may produce personality change?

a. Socialization
b. Stressful life events
c. Occupying new social roles
d. All of the above

62. Consider the concept of ‘temperament’. Which of the following aspects of individual differences are
not associated with this concept?

a. Differences that appear early in development

b. Differences that relate to self-control
c. Differences that are biologically grounded
d. Differences that relate to emotional responses

63. In which respect does Erikson’s model of personality development NOT differ from Freud’s?

a. It focuses on the individual’s social and cultural environment

b. It encompasses the entirety of the lifespan
c. It proposes a series of developmental stages
d. It gives a key role to people’s sense of identity

64. Research on personality change in early adulthood suggests that:

a. positive work experiences enhance openness to experience

b. educational transitions trigger growth in conscientiousness
c. international sojourns for university students increase loneliness
d. first intimate partner relationships can permanently damage adult personality

65. Choose the correct pairing of an infant temperament dimension and its associated adult personality
dimension.

a. Activity level and neuroticism

b. Biological rhythmicity and agreeableness
c. Inhibition and low openness to experience
d. Task persistence and conscientiousness

66. Which of the following theoretical approaches is most consistent with the malleability of
personality?

a. Behavioural genetics
b. Behaviourism
c. Cognitivism
d. Psychoanalysis
 44

67. Which of the following statements accurately represents Twenge’s work on cohort change in
personality?

a. Mean levels of self-esteem have consistently fallen over the last few decades
b. Mean levels of extraversion have consistently risen over the last few decades
c. Mean levels of women’s assertiveness have consistently risen over the last few decades
d. Mean levels of neuroticism have consistently fallen over the last few decades

68. Which of the following statements about personality change is NOT correct?

a. Mean levels of internal attribution have increased in recent decades

b. There is much evidence of mean-level change in adulthood
c. Rank-order stability is measured by correlation coefficients
d. Rank-order stability increases with age

69. According to Erikson, what contrasts with Industry in one of his eight stages?

a. Shame and doubt

b. Isolation
c. Guilt
d. Inferiority

70. Which statement about ‘lay theories’ of personality is false?

a. Entity theorists believe personality is not malleable

b. Entity theorists stereotype people more than incremental theorists
c. Incremental theorists hold a ‘dynamic’ view of personality
d. Incremental theorists attribute differences between social groups to innate factors

71. Which of the following statement is the best definition of ‘diathesis’?

a. The person’s risk of developing a mental disorder

b. The interaction of personality and stress that produces a mental disorder
c. The personality disposition that makes people susceptible to a mental disorder
d. The constitutional factor that determines who will develop a mental disorder

72. Which statement best captures the relationship between diathesis and stress?

a. The stronger the diathesis, the more stress required to trigger a disorder
b. The stronger the diathesis, the less stress required to trigger a disorder
c. The greater the stress, the stronger the diathesis needed to trigger a disorder
d. The greater the stress, the weaker the diathesis needed to trigger a disorder

73. Which statement about diathesis-stress models is correct?

a. The kind of stress that triggers a disorder is seen as specific to that disorder
b. The diathesis is understood to be biological in nature
c. Stressful events need not be experienced as negative or undesirable
d. None of the above

74. According to research on pessimistic attributional style, stable and global attributions for negative
events create vulnerability to depression. This is because they make people …

a. hopeless and helpless, respectively

b. self-blaming and confused, respectively
 45

c. anhedonic and overwhelmed, respectively

d. sad and pessimistic, respectively

75. Which of the following characteristics is an aspect of ‘schizotypy’?

a. Delusions
b. Hallucinations
c. Social anxiety
d. Disorganized thinking

76. Which of the following personality attributes is associated with vulnerability to obsessive-
compulsive disorder?

a. Having a pathological commitment to autonomy

b. Being overly excitable
c. Holding perfectionistic expectations about the self
d. Believing thoughts are equivalent to actions

77. Personality disorders were recognized as a distinct group of conditions in which edition of the
Diagnostic and Statistical manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)?

a. Second
b. Third
c. Fourth
d. Fifth

78. What are the names of the three ‘clusters’ of personality disorders?

a. Odd, dramatic, and emotional

b. Strange, impulsive, and anxious
c. Odd, dramatic, and anxious
d. Strange, impulsive, and emotional

79. Which list of personality disorder matches (in correct order) the following characteristic personality
traits: detached, unstable, and submissive?

a. Schizotypal, antisocial, and dependent

b. Schizoid, antisocial, and obsessive-compulsive
c. Schizotypal, borderline, and obsessive-compulsive
d. Schizoid, borderline, and dependent

80. Which two Big Five traits are associated with most of the DSM personality disorders?

a. (high) Neuroticism and (low) Agreeableness

b. (high) Neuroticism and (low) Conscientiousness
c. (low) Extraversion and (low) Agreeableness
d. (low) Extraversion and (low) Conscientiousness

81. According to research on the ‘interpersonal circle’, people with narcissistic personality disorder tend
to have an interpersonal style that is:

a. warm and assertive

b. cold and dominant
c. egotistical and aloof
d. aggressive and selfish
 46

82. Controversy about ‘co-morbidity’ of personality disorders is based on the fact that …

a. they are often very damaging

b. they often coexist with physical illnesses
c. people with them share a pessimistic view on life
d. several disorders are often diagnosed in the same person

83. The finding that personality disorders are ‘dimensional’ means that …

a. people should never be labelled with personality disorder diagnoses

b. personality disorders are correlated with personality trait dimensions
c. there is no underlying category boundary between people who have a particular disorder and
those who do not
d. personality disorders differ from one another along a few dimensions

84. Which statement about multiple personality (dissociative identity disorder) is correct?

a. The ‘alter’ personalities are usually more timid than the ‘host’ personality
b. People who suffer from it are easily hypnotized
c. It is equally common in men and women
d. It has been diagnosed at a steady rate over the past century

85. According to the traumatic theory of dissociative identity disorder, what is ‘dissociation’?

a. A splitting of consciousness
b. A form of internal avoidance
c. A way of protecting the self against trauma
d. All of the above

86. Which of the following diagnoses has psychobiographers applied to Adolf Hitler?

a. Amphetamine abuse
b. Borderline personality
c. Hypochondria
d. All of the above

87. Which psychologist wrote several of the first psychobiographies?

a. Carl Jung
b. Erik Erikson
c. Dan McAdams
d. Henry Murray

88. ‘Personology’ is the branch of personality psychology that focuses on …

a. the intensive study of individual lives

b. the application of psychoanalytic theory to life events
c. the development of general rules of personality development
d. the investigation of internal conflict

89. Psychobiography is most similar to which process?

a. Psychiatric diagnosis
b. Psychoanalytic theorizing
c. Psychological assessment
 47

d. Psychic speculation

90. Which of these potential flaws of psychobiographies is correctly defined?

a. Originology: overemphasis on early life events in explaining the person

b. Oathography: insufficiently empathic interpretation of the person
c. Determinism: focussing too much on a single factor in explaining the person
d. Hagiography: portrayal of the person as extremely ugly

91. Freud’s mistaken interpretation of Leonardo da Vinci’s encounter with a ‘vulture’ demonstrates
which common problem with psychobiography?

a. Its reliance on psychoanalytic theory

b. Its reliance on inadequate evidence
c. Its overemphasis on psychological disturbance
d. Its overemphasis on unconscious processes

92. According to Runyan, psychobiography can be improved by …

a. using sensible rules of evidence and interpretation

b. restricting its use to trained psychoanalysts
c. applying quantitative methods
d. employing a control group

93. Which of the following lists of personality attributes contains characteristics at McAdams’ levels I,
II and III, respectively?

a. Trait, motive, and self-narrative

b. Trait, personal construct, and motive
c. Value, motive, and self-narrative
d. Value, personal construct, and motive

94. According to McAdams, a self-narrative …

a. is an important part of a person’s identity

b. connects the person’s past, present and future
c. is not dictated by the objective events in the person’s life
d. all of the above

95. Which of the following is an example of an ‘agentic’ narrative theme?

a. Striving for independence

b. Being driven by a desire for social approval
c. Seeking love
d. Wanting to work for the government

96. According to McAdams, the roots of narrative tone can be found in which Eriksonian stage?

a. Autonomy versus shame and doubt

b. Industry versus inferiority
c. Initiative versus guilt
d. Trust versus mistrust

97. To the Gergen’s, the ‘comedy-melodrama’ narrative form is one in which …

 48

a. there is much laughter

b. the person’s life is like a soap opera
c. a troubling challenge is faced and successfully overcome
d. the person’s life just gets better and better

98. According to the Gergens, the narrative form someone adopts for their life narrative …

a. is determined by the experiences they have

b. becomes more positive with age
c. is unchanged throughout the person’s life
d. is influenced by the stories present in the person’s culture

99. A ‘redemption narrative’ or ‘redemptive sequence’ in a narrative is one in which …

a. negative beginnings are replaced by positive endings

b. good events are rapidly followed by bad ones
c. good people get their just deserts
d. bad people are forgiven for their sins

100. McLean and Platt (2006) found that young adults who extracted personal meaning from life
transitions in their self-narratives were higher in …

a. maturity
b. optimism
c. generativity
d. all of the above

101. ‘Importance’ of intelligence can be judged according to which of the following?

a. The perception of its existence

b. The use of ‘intelligence’
c. Its function in achieving social outcome that is valued by the society
d. All of the above

102. Which of the following is NOT a situation for which intelligence test is useful?

a. Assess weaknesses of a student in school

b. Help psychologists design rehabilitation programmes for neuropsychological patients
c. Find out the amount of future earning of a person
d. Help school psychologists plan an educational intervention programme for students who
struggle

103. When examining criterion validity of IQ, which of the following is important?

a. The time of day when IQ was measured

b. The IQ test that was used
c. The psychologist who administer the test
d. Determining the direction of causality

104. Which of the following is least predicted by intelligence?

a. Academic success
b. Physical height
c. Occupational status
d. Family income
 49

105. In educational setting, it has been found that …

a. as grade level increases, intelligence becomes more important

b. intelligence is negatively correlated with diligence
c. high intelligence level leads to higher academic achievement
d. IQ is only relevant when non-verbal tests are used

106. In a study of high school students, intelligence explained …

a. as much variance in their academic achievement as their personality

b. less variance in their academic achievement than emotional intelligence
c. more variance in their academic achievement than either their personality or emotional
intelligence
d. close to zero variance in their academic achievement

107. Intelligence can predict academic success …

a. up until undergraduate degree qualification

b. beyond undergraduate degree qualification
c. in primary school only
d. in high school only

108. Which of the following can be predicted by intelligence?

a. Job level attained

b. Job-related training performance
c. Actual job performance
d. All of the above

109. In non-Western countries, and excluding Australia and Japan, there is a vacuum of evidence for IQ
predicting job performance. What does this suggest?

a. Non-Western countries do not measure job performance

b. IQ is an idea of the Western world
c. Researchers do not study non-Western countries
d. Job performance can only be measured through career advancement

110. In terms of occupational types, high IQ scores are often found …

a. among persons with physical jobs such as labourers

b. equally across all job types
c. among persons whose jobs requiring abstract thinking skills
d. among army recruits

111. A possible reason for why intelligence is predictive of job performance is that…

a. intelligence relates to the ability to handle complex information and learn

b. intelligence provide the person with a sense of confidence
c. intelligent individuals get along well with their supervisor who rates them favourably
d. all of the above

112. Which of the following statement is true of a study of US military personnel reported by
Gottfredson (1997)?
 50

a. There were many more high cognitive ability scorers who have trouble completing their military
training compared to low scorers
b. There were as many high cognitive ability scorers as low scorers who have trouble completing
their military training
c. Most of the high cognitive ability scorers completed their military training compared to the low
scorers
d. Most high cognitive ability scorers completed their military training without complaining

113. The reason for why IQ would be related to income is …

a. high intelligence leads the individual to seek further postgraduate training which in turn leads to
highly valued and higher paid job.
b. knowledge equals to money
c. highly intelligent people are more likely to make themselves appear successful
d. employers are more likely to employ highly respected people

114. Which of the following are explanations offered for why childhood IQs are negatively correlated
with the risk of adult coronary heart disease?

a. Disease prevention mechanism is in operation such that higher intelligence is associated with
healthier lifestyle
b. Disease management mechanism is in operation such that intelligent individuals can self-
administer medication better
c. Intelligence leads individuals to avoid unhealthy environment and hazardous jobs which may
damage health
d. All of the above

115. Whilst cross-sectional studies may hint that obesity leads to low IQ, longitudinal studies where
childhood IQ was measured before health indicators were measured later in adulthood showed that …

a. obesity risks are not real

b. higher IQ increases the risk of obesity
c. lower IQ increases the risk of obesity
d. IQ and obesity are not related

116. Emotional intelligence is different from other intelligences in that …

a. it is a set of skills
b. it can be measured using tests easily
c. the focus is on emotional reasoning, ability and knowledge
d. it is a new type of intelligence

117. Emotional intelligence can be studied through …

a. the abilities-focussed approach

b. the integrative model approach
c. the mixed model approach
d. all of the above

118. Which of the following describes how Ability Emotional Intelligence and Trait Emotional
Intelligence are different?

a. The way they are measured

b. The way they are conceptualized
c. The way they correlate with other constructs
 51

d. All of the above

119. Incremental validity refers to …

a. the additional contribution a new psychological idea makes to existing knowledge

b. the additional evidence provided by new research
c. the way research findings are reinterpreted
d. the way statements are written in new tests

120. When predicting intellectual academic performance in medical students, EI showed …

a. it is essentially social skills

b. large incremental validity
c. no incremental validity
d. a deterioration in its display

121. Which of the following is the best predictor of academic performance?

a. Trait EI
b. IQ
c. Personality
d. None of these

122. Mixed Emotional Intelligence models have …

a. significant overlap with conscientiousness, extraversion, and self-efficacy

b. no significant overlap with conscientiousness, extraversion, and self-efficacy
c. non-significant overlap with conscientiousness, extraversion, and self-efficacy
d. little overlap with conscientiousness, extraversion, and self-efficacy

123. The higher the Trait EI …

a. the higher the likelihood of personality disorder

b. the lower the likelihood of personality disorder
c. the higher the likelihood of self-harm
d. the higher the likelihood of harm to others

124. EI is linked to romantic relationship satisfaction because EI may be linked to …

a. having better understanding of the partner’s emotions

b. giving the person higher self-esteem
c. agreeing with the partner all the time
d. getting what one wants out of the relationship

125. Lower EI is likely linked to more aggressive behaviour because …

a. taking action is more important than expressing emotions

b. people with lower EI often think of themselves as victims
c. that is the only way the person know how to express their displeasure
d. other’s emotions and behaviours are misinterpreted as hostile and an aggressive response is
therefore exhibited

126. Demonstrating incremental validity of which of the following is tricky?

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a. Intelligence
b. Ability EI
c. Trait EI
d. All of the above

127. Which of the following makes measuring EI challenging?

a. Whether the scenarios presented should be authentic or hypothetical

b. Whether conscious, effortful processing or spontaneous processing of emotional materials
should be measured
c. How happy the person is feeling
d. a and b only

128. Ability EI tests are more objective than Trait EI tests because …

a. they are easier to demonstrate one’s own strength

b. participants tended rate their own Trait EI as higher than they actually are
c. they are made up of multiple-choice questions
d. they cost money

129. Dunning-Kruger effect in EI states that …

a. a person with low EI is unaware of his or her own low EI

b. a person with high EI is aware that others have low EI
c. a person is the best person to estimate his or her own EI
d. a person’s EI is best evaluated by others

130. Having high EI may not always be adaptive. Why?

a. Others will likely ignore them

b. They will have high opinion of themselves
c. These people are more sensitive to mood manipulation
d. All of above

B. Questions

1. Which conceptual distinctions are important for defining the concept of personality?
2. Why are personality characteristics so important for social perception and the self-concept?
3. Describe the primary conceptual differences between traits and values.
4. For each of the Big Five personality dimensions, list one personality trait adjective that would
fall at each end of the dimension (i.e. one high and one low).
5. Which two Big Five traits are most distinctive for summarizing regularities in behaviour. In
your answer, refer to specific studies in the literature.
6. Provide an overview of the three different levels at which personality can be described.
7. According to psychoanalytic theory, how is the Super-Ego different from adult morality, and
how does Freud’s account of the origins of the Super-Ego explain these differences?
8. Why did Freud view dreams as ‘the royal road to the Unconscious’, and how, according to his
thinking, did dreams express Unconscious material?
9. Compare and contrast three perspectives from evolutionary psychology on the origins of
personality traits.
10. Explain the difference between behavioural genetics and molecular genetics, and provide
examples of the insights that each field has provided for personality theory.
11. Give an example of a pessimistic attribution for a romantic break-up and give three reasons why
it would be likely to be destructive to a person who made it.
12. Briefly summarize how the mean level of the Big Five traits changes with age.
 53

13. What does it mean to hold an ‘entity theory’ of personality, and why is it problematic to be an
entity theorist?
14. You are developing a new personality inventory to measure shyness. Briefly describe a study
that could establish its convergent and discriminant validity and its retest reliability. Who would
be in your sample, what tests would you give them, and when would you measure them?
15. You are developing a personality inventory and want to reduce the impact of yea-saying, nay-
saying, and social desirability response biases. How would you design your inventory to
minimize the effects of these biases?
16. What is a pessimistic attributional style and why does it increase vulnerability to depression?
17. Do the benefits of psychobiography outweigh its limitations? Justify your answer.
18. What does a narrative approach to assessing personality add to the trait-based approach?
19. Describe the different structures of ability.
20. Outline the biological evidence for intelligence.
21. What are the explanations provided for why intelligence and morbidity are negatively
correlated?
22. What is the problem with reverse causality and how can it be minimized?
23. Why is having high emotional intelligence not always beneficial?
24. In what life domain has emotional intelligence been reported as useful?

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Hogan, Patrick Colm. 2003. The Mind and Its Stories. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Fiucci, Valeria and Regina Schwartz. 2000. Renaissance: Psychoanalysis and Literature. New Jersey:
Princeton.

Jarrett, Christian. 2011. 30-Second Psychology: The 50 Most Thought-Provoking Psychology Theories,
Each Explained In Half A Minute. New York: Icon Books.

Knapp, Bettina L. 2007. A Jungian Approach. Carbondale, Illinois: University Press.

Knapp, John. 2010. New Psychologies and Modern Assessments: Rethinking Classics in Literature,
Including Film and Music. Style. Volume: 44. Issue: 1-2. https://www.questia.com/read/1G1-
238176967/new-psychologies-and-modern-assessments-rethinking.

Lally, Martha and Valentine-French, Suzanne. 2018. Introduction to Psychology. California: College
Lake County. http://www.saylor.org/site/textbooks/Introduction%20to%20Psychology.pdf.

McVay, Gary D. Fireman Ted E., Jr. Owen J. Flanagan. 2003. Narrative and Consciousness Literature,
Psychology, and the Brain. New York: Oxford University Press.

Oatley, Keith. 2011. Such Stuff as Dreams: The Psychology of Fiction. Malden, Massachusetts: A John
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Kurzwell, Edith and William Phillips. 2003. Literature and Psychoanalysis. Questia.
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