1. PERSONALITY
An individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting

2. What is Personality? Focusing on differences between individuals
Q1: Is personality unchanging?
Q2: What is responsible for personality – genes or environment?

3. Two (relatively old) perspectives on personality – repercussions for today’s research and clinical practice
Psychoanalytic perspective
Childhood motivations and the unconscious
Humanistic perspective
Inner capacities for growth and self- fulfillment

4. Module 33: Psychoanalytic Perspective on Personality
Sigmund Freud ( )
ATTENTION
THE TWO EDITIONS DIFFER IN THIS MODULE

5. Contemporary definition
The unconscious
Contemporary definition
FREUD
A collection of (mostly unacceptable) thoughts, feelings, wishes, and memories
Information processing that takes place in the brain without our awareness

6. Plan for this Module Freudian theory:
Unconscious
Structure of personality
Development of personality
Psychopathology:
As a result of maladjusted development
As a result of maladjusted functioning of personality structures
Neo Freudian and post Freudian approaches
Measurement of personality using psychoanalytic perspective
Critical evaluation of the psychoanalytic perspective

7. The Psychoanalytic Perspective
The characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and acting will be driven by unconscious motives and conflicts
If we learn about the unconscious, we can understand an individual’s personality
How do we learn about the unconscious?
How do we end up with thoughts in the unconscious?
What are common thoughts stored in the unconscious?
How does the unconscious operate?

8. How do we learn about the unconscious?
Free Association
a method of exploring the unconscious in psychoanalysis
person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing

9. How do we end up with thoughts in the unconscious?
Some thoughts are in preconscious: they can be retrieved
Some thoughts are repressed  they shape our personality
We forcibly block many thoughts from our conscious because they are too unacceptable or too unsettling.

10. What is stored in the unconscious?

11. How does the unconscious operate?
Pleasure-seeking (mostly unacceptable) and aggressive thoughts
Socially acceptable thoughts and behavior
Satisfy these
Do not get punished
PERSONALITY

12. Plan for this Module Freudian theory:
Unconscious
Structure of personality
Development of personality
Psychopathology:
As a result of maladjusted development
As a result of maladjusted functioning of personality structures
Neo Freudian and post Freudian approaches
Measurement of personality using psychoanalytic perspective
Critical evaluation of the psychoanalytic perspective

13. Personality StructureId
contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy
strives to satisfy basic pleasure-seeking and aggressive drives
operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification
Ego
Develops during childhood
the largely conscious, “executive” part of personality
operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain
Superego
develops the last
the part of personality that presents internalized ideals and strives for perfection
provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations

14. Plan for this Module Freudian theory:
Unconscious
Structure of personality
Development of personality
Psychopathology:
As a result of maladjusted development
As a result of maladjusted functioning of personality structures
Neo Freudian and post Freudian approaches
Measurement of personality using psychoanalytic perspective
Critical evaluation of the psychoanalytic perspective

15. Personality develops during the first few years of life
Freud’s Psychosexual Stages based on Id’s pleasure-seeking focus and erogenous zones
Stage Focus
Oral Pleasure centers on the mouth--
(0-18 months) sucking, biting, chewing
Anal Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder
(18-36 months) elimination; coping with demands for control
Phallic Pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with
(3-6 years) incestuous sexual feelings
Latency Dormant sexual feelings
(6 to puberty)
Genital Maturation of sexual interests
(puberty on)

16. Phallic Stage – Sexual thoughts in early childhood
Males:
Oedipus Complex: a boy’s sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father
Castration anxiety
Females: ??
Electra complex
Acquiring gender identity: Children cope with these feelings by trying to become like the rival parent: IDENTIFICATION

17. Plan for this Module Freudian theory:
Unconscious
Structure of personality
Development of personality
Psychopathology:
As a result of maladjusted development
As a result of maladjusted functioning of personality structures
Neo Freudian and post Freudian approaches
Measurement of personality using psychoanalytic perspective
Critical evaluation of the psychoanalytic perspective

18. What happens if normal development through psychosexual stages is disrupted?
Fixation
a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, where conflicts were unresolved
Overindulgence or deprivation may lead to fixation
Example: too much nursing or not enough nursing may lead to oral fixation
Denial of oral pleasure
Seeking oral gratification through smoking or over eating

19. Plan for this Module Freudian theory:
Unconscious
Structure of personality
Development of personality
Psychopathology:
As a result of maladjusted development
As a result of maladjusted functioning of personality structures
Neo Freudian and post Freudian approaches
Measurement of personality using psychoanalytic perspective
Critical evaluation of the psychoanalytic perspective

20. The result of the struggle between id and superego: ANXIETY
Defense Mechanisms: the ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality
Repression
Regression
Reaction Formation
Projection
Rationalization
Displacement

21. Defense mechanisms to reduce anxiety
Repression – Basic defense mechanism underlying all others
Threatening impulses are kept from reaching the conscious
These impulses emerge in other forms (dreams, jokes, etc)
E.g., we do not remember our childhood lust for our opposite sex parent!

22. Additional defense mechanisms to reduce anxiety
Regression: retreating into an earlier stage of development
Reaction Formation: unacceptable impulses become their opposites when surfaced into the conscious
Inadequacy  overconfidence
Projection: attributing impulses to others
Used in personality assessments
Using someone else to describe one’s own feelings
Rationalization: generating self-justifying explanations
“I smoke to be sociable”
Displacement: Sexual or aggressive impulses are directed to another target
Anger towards an unacceptable target will be expressed as anger towards a safer target

23. Plan for this Module Freudian theory:
Unconscious
Structure of personality
Development of personality
Psychopathology:
As a result of maladjusted development
As a result of maladjusted functioning of personality structures
Neo Freudian and post Freudian approaches
Measurement of personality using psychoanalytic perspective
Critical evaluation of the psychoanalytic perspective

24. Neo-Freudian theories
Early childhood is central to personality development
Anxiety is an important issue to be resolved by all individuals; BUT
Conscious mind has an active role in shaping personality and interacting with the environment
Sex and aggression may not be the strongest urges that all individuals have to struggle with
Other motives and social interactions may play a role

25. Some neo-Freudian theorists
Alfred Adler
Childhood social tensions are critical: individuals’ need to overcome childhood feelings of inferiority and the desire for self-improvement
proposed the idea of the inferiority complex
Karen Horney
driving force of personality is basic childhood anxiety of being helpless in a hostile world
sought to balance Freud’s masculine biases:
“women inherently have weak superegos and suffer from penis envy”

26. Some neo-Freudian theorists
Carl Jung
Unconscious exerts a powerful influence on personality development
In addition to individual’s personal unconscious, there is a collective unconscious shared by all human beings
myths, arts, folklore

27. Post Freudian Psychodynamic Theory
Sex in not the central theme of personality
Id-ego-superego are not “real” constructs
People are not classified into “oral,” “anal,” or “phallic” types
Much of the mind is unconscious
We struggle with inner conflicts

28. Plan for this Module Freudian theory:
Unconscious
Structure of personality
Development of personality
Psychopathology:
As a result of maladjusted development
As a result of maladjusted functioning of personality structures
Neo Freudian and post Freudian approaches
Measurement of personality using psychoanalytic perspective
Critical evaluation of the psychoanalytic perspective

29. How do we assess personality?
We need to access the unconscious
Cannot be achieved by asking direct questions
Projective tests: give an ambiguous stimulus which will result in a projection
TAT (thematic apperception test) – ambiguous pictures
Rorschach inkblot test – ambiguous symmetric shapes

30. TAT picture What has led up to the event shown?
What is happening at the moment?
What are the characters thinking and feeling?
What is the outcome?

31. Critique of projective tests
Reliability (the consistency of results) is low
Validity (whether it measures what it is supposed to measure) is questionable
Many normally functioning adults are diagnosed as pathological
Cannot discriminate between suicidal and non-suicidal patients
Only hostility and anxiety measures have limited validity

32. Plan for this Module Freudian theory:
Unconscious
Structure of personality
Development of personality
Psychopathology:
As a result of maladjusted development
As a result of maladjusted functioning of personality structures
Neo Freudian and post Freudian approaches
Measurement of personality using psychoanalytic perspective
Critical evaluation of the psychoanalytic perspective

33. Evaluation of the Psychoanalytic perspective: Contradictory evidence
Personality and identity are not fixed at age 5-6
Gender identity can develop without a same-sex parent
Dreams and slips of tongue can be explained by neural processes (not repression)
Repression is not a common response to unsettling experiences
Sexual inhibition or repression is not the major cause of psychopathology
Unconscious includes a lot of automatic information processing
Defense mechanisms are activated to protect our own self-image

34. Freud’s ideas vs. Scientific theory
Freud’s ideas are not based on objective observations
Freud’s theory does not offer hypotheses that can be empirically verified
If a male student calls his mother more frequently than the norm, he has an unresolved Oedipus complex.
If a male student calls his mother less frequently than the norm, he has an unresolved Oedipus complex.
Freud’s theory cannot be used to predict personality traits or behaviors
It explains phenomena after the fact

35. Freud’s Contributions
Importance of unconscious thoughts, feelings and motivation
Role of early childhood experiences in forming personality
Physical disorders can have psychological origins
There is tension between biological impulses and social well-being