3.
Conscious (ego)
PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORIES
1. Freud: Psychoanalysis
- Postulated the primacy of sex and
aggression
- Attracted a group of followers
- Advanced the notion of
unconscious motives
- PSYCHOANALYSIS: Our past
experiences influence our
Provinces of the Mind
present behavior
Levels of Mental Life
1. Unconscious (id)
- Early childhood experiences that
create high levels of anxiety are
repressed into the unconscious,
where they may influence
behavior, emotions, and attitudes
for years.
- Drives and instincts that are
beyond awareness / we are not
aware
- Can become conscious only in
disguised or distorted form (ex:
dream images, slips of the tongue,
neurotic symptoms)
- Unconscious processes originate
from two sources:
(1) repression -- blocking out
of anxiety filled-
experiences
(2) phylogenetic endowment
-- inherited experiences
that lie beyond an
individual’s personal
experience
2. Preconscious (superego)
- Contains images that are not in
awareness but that can become
conscious.
- Events that are not associated
with anxiety but are merely
forgotten make up the contents of
the preconscious
- Stem from either the perception
of external stimuli (our perception
of system) or from the
unconscious and preconscious
after they have evaded
censorship.
- Conscious images are those in
awareness at any given time.
1. Id
- First to develop
- Completely unconscious
- Serves the pleasure principle
- The id is unconscious, chaotic,
out of contact with reality
- Basic instinct such as seeking,
pleasure, avoiding pain and
suffering
2. Ego
- Governed by the reality
principle
- Responsible for reconciling the
unrealistic demands of the id and
the superego
- Mostly in the conscious, partly
unconscious
- Only the ego feels the anxiety
3. Superego
- Serves the idealistic/moral
principle
- Both in conscious and
unconscious
- Begins to form after the Oedipus
complex is resolved.
- 2 subsystems:
(1) Conscience – what is
right from wrong; results
from punishment for
improper behavior
(2) Ego-ideal -- stems from
the rewards for socially
acceptable behavior; what
and how we want to be
Dynamics of Personality
- Forces that motivate people
1. Instincts
- 2 primary instincts:
(1) Sex -- eros or life instinct
-- aim is pleasure, which can be
gained through the erogenous
zones
-- object of the sexual instinct:
any person or thing that brings
sexual pleasure
(2) Aggression -- death or destructive
instinct
-- aims to return a person
to an inorganic state, but
it is ordinarily directed
against other people and
is called aggression
2. Anxiety
- Unpleasant state accompanied by
physical sensation that warns the
person about an impending
danger.
(1) Neurotic anxiety -- stems from the
ego’s relation with the id (galing sa id)
(2) Moral anxiety -- similar to guilt and
results from the ego’s relation with the
superego (galing sa superego)
(3) Realistic anxiety -- similar to fear;
produced by the ego’s relation with the
real world
Defense Mechanisms
- Operate to protect the ego
against the pain of anxiety
- All motivation can be traced to
sexual and aggressive drives.
- Childhood behaviors related to sex
and aggression are often
punished, which leads to either
repression or anxiety.
- The most basic of which is
repression
1. Repression
a. Forcing unwanted, anxiety-
loaded experiences into the
unconscious
2. Undoing
a. Ego’s attempt to do away with the
unpleasant experiences and their
consequences, usually by means
of repetitious ceremonials actions
3. Isolation
a. Obsessive thoughts and involves
the ego’s attempt to isolate an
experience by surrounding it with
a blacked-out region of
insensibility
4. Reaction Formation
a. Repression of one impulse and
the ostentatious expression of its
exact opposite
b. Adopting a disguise that is
directly opposite its original form.
5. Displacement
a. When people redirect their
unwanted urges onto the objects
or people in order to disguise the
original impulse
6. Fixation
a. Develops when psychic energy is
blocked at one stage of
development
7. Regression
a. Occur whenever a person reverts
to earlier, more infantile modes of
behavior
8. Projection
a. Seeing in others those
unacceptable feelings or
behaviors that actually reside in
one’s own unconscious
9. Introjection
a. When people incorporate positive
qualities of another person into
their own ego to reduce feelings
of anxiety
10. Sublimation
a. Elevation of the sexual instinct’s
aim to a higher level
 b. Converting the unpleasant
emotion/experience into a more
socially acceptable form.
Neurotic: reaction formation, idealization,
undoing --- successful over short term
Immature and maladaptive: projection,
isolation, denial, displacement, and
dissociation) --- unsuccessful and have the
highest degree of distortion
Mature and adaptive: sublimation,
suppression, humor and altruism --- successful
over the long term maximize gratification, and
have the least amount of distortion
Stages of Development
(1) Infantile Period
- Encompasses the first 4 to 5 years of
life
(1) Oral -- primarily motivated to
receive pleasure through
the mouth
(2) Anal -- if the parents are too
punitive, the child may
become an anal character --
orderliness, stinginess, and
obstinacy; anus emerges as a
sexually pleasurable zone.
(3) Phallic – 3 to 4 years of age;
genital becomes the leading
erogenous zone; begin to
have differing psychosexual
development
Oedipus complex - sexual feelings for one
parent and hostile feelings for the other
Male castration complex in the form of
castration anxiety - breaks ups the male
Oedipus complex and results in a well-formed
male superego
Castration anxiety in the form of penis envy
- precedes the female Oedipus complex, a
situation that leads to only a gradual and
incomplete shattering of the female Oedipus
complex and a weaker, more flexible female
superego
(2) Latency Period
- About age 5 to puberty - in which the
sexual instinct is partially suppressed
(3) Genital Period
- Begins with puberty when adolescents
experience a reawakening of the
genital aim of Eros
(4) Maturity
- The ego would be in control of the id
and superego and in which
consciousness would play a more
important role in behavior
Applications of Psychoanalytic Theory
Passive type of psychotherapy
- relied on free association, dream
interpretation and transference.
Goal of later psychotherapy - uncover
repressed memories and the therapist uses
dream analysis and free association (patients
are required to say whatever comes to mind)
 Successful therapy rests on the
patient’s transference of childhood
sexual or aggressive feelings onto the
therapist
Dream analysis
(1) Manifest content - conscious
description
(2) Latent content - unconscious
meaning
 Freud believed that dreams and
Freudian slips are disguised means of
expressing unconscious impulses
Wish - usually unconscious and can be known
only through dream interpretation (by using
dream symbols and dreamer’s association to
the dream content)

Freudian Slips
- Parapraxes
- Not chance accidents but reveal a
person’s true but unconscious
intentions
- Slip of the tongue, misreading,
incorrect hearing, misplacing objects
and temporarily forgetting names or
itentions.

Concept of Humanity
- Freud’s view was deterministic and
pessimistic
- Causality over teleology
- Unconscious determinants over
conscious processes
- Biology over culture

TERMS

Castration Anxiety – a boy’s fear of loss of or

damage to the genital organ as punishment for
incestuous wishes toward the mother and
murderous fantasies toward the rival father.