Chapter 12 Personality

Persona The Definition

An individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting (text book)

The pattern of psychological and behavioral characteristics by which each person can be compared and contrasted with others (from another text book)

Theories of personality

~ are hypothetical statements about the structure and functioning of individual personalities.

They help to achieve two of the major goals of psychology:

1. Understanding the structure, origins, and correlates of personalities;

2. Predicting behavior and life events based on what we know about personnality

Freud’s psychoanalytic or psychodynamic approach

•Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

•Background

Psychoanalysis

A set of theoretical ideas about personality and a method of psycho-therapy

The technique of treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions.

Psychiatrists vs psychologists in the field

Exploring the Unconscious Conscious Preconscious — information that is

not conscious but is retrievable into conscious awareness

Unconscious — according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary research, information processing of which we are unaware

Personality Structure

id — the unconscious portion of personality that contains basic impulses and urges

Libido — the psychic energy contained in the id

Pleasure principle — the id’s operating principle, which guides people toward whatever feels good

Ego

The part of the personality that mediates conflicts between and among the demands of the id, the superego, and the real world

Reality principle — the operating principle of the ego that creates compromises between id’s demands and those of the real world

Superego — a voice of conscience that forces the ego to consider not only the real but the ideal

The component of personality that tells people what they should and should not do

As children learn about the rules and values of society, they tend to adopt them — the process of internalizing parental and cultural values

Freud’s idea of the mind’s structure

Ego defense mechanisms

Anxiety is the price we pay for civilization. Anxiety is hard to cope with, as when we feel unsettled but are unsure why

Freud proposed that the ego protects itself against anxiety in various ways, all of them distorting reality

Reducing the anxiety — the dynamics of the personality

Stages in personality development:pass through a series of psychosexual stages

id’s pleasure - seeking energies focus on distinct pleasure-sensitive areas of the body called erogenous zones

Oedipus complex & Electra complex

Identification Fixation Regression

Freud’s practice in psychotherapy

Psychological disorders DSM-IV Neurosis Classical psychoanalytic treatment aims to

help clients gain insight into their problems by recognizing unconscious thoughts and emotions and then to discover, or work through, the many ways in which those unconscious elements affect their everyday lives

Hypnosis

…that state or condition in which subjects are able to respond to appropriate suggestions with distortions of perception and memory

Could everyone be hypnotized? Using hypnosis to treat patients

suffering from disorders — he “discovered” the unconscious

Free Association

In psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing

It can produce a chain of thought leading into the patient’s unconscious, thereby retrieving and releasing painful unconscious memory, often from childhood

Dream Analysis

“the royal road to the unconscious”

Manifest content — the remembered content of dreams

Latent content — dreamer’s unconscious wishes

example

Analysis of resistance resist talking or thinking about

certain topic; even won’t come to the clinic

next timeAnalysis of transference

Neo-Freudians and Psychodynamic Theorists

Alfred Adler, 1870~1937

Individual Psychology

“Drive” or motivating force behind all our behavior and experience

— Striving for superiority “Feelings of Inferiority” organ inferiorities psychological ~ Compensation—striving to

overcome Style of life: how you live your life,

how you handle problems and interpersonal relations

Inferiority complex (neurosis) Superiority complex Prototype of lifestyle in

childhood1. Neglect2. Pampering3. Social interest Birth order

Carl G. Jung (1875-1961)

Jung’s Analytic Psychology

Libido — broader than Freud’s

Introversion — extroversion Unconscious 1. Personal ~ complex2. Collective ~ archetypes

The Mother Archetype

The mother archetype is our built-in ability to recognize a certain relationship, that of "mothering."

We are likely to project the archetype out into the world and onto a particular person, usually our own mothers.

The Shadow: sex and the life instincts in general are represented in Jung's system

It is the "dark side" of the ego, and the evil that we are capable of is often stored there

The Persona

The persona represents your public image. The word is, obviously, related to the word person and personality, and comes from a Latin word for mask

Anima and Animus

A part of our persona is the role of male or female we must play

Jung, like Freud and Adler and others, felt that we are all really bisexual in nature

The Self—the self is the ultimate unity of the personality

A mandala is a drawing that is used in meditation because it tends to draw your focus back to the center, and it can be as simple as a geometric figure or as complicated as a stained glass window

The dynamics of psyche

Principle of opposites Principle of equivalence Principle of entropy—the

tendency for oppositions to come together, and so for energy to decrease, over a person's lifetime

Karen Horney (1885-1952)

Specifically, she saw neurosis as an attempt to make life bearable, as a way of "interpersonal control and coping."

Development

Parental indifference—the basic evil

Children’s reaction1. Basic hostility—aggression 2. Basic anxiety—compliance 3. Withdraw Love (in family)

Erich Fromm (1900-1980)

From individual, family to the society

The Fear of Freedom, 1942 Beyond the Chains of

Illusion—My encounter with Marx & Freud, 1980

The Art of Loving, 1982

Assessing Unconscious Processes

Projective Tests1. Rorschach inkblot test2. Thematic Apperception Test (

TAT)3. Our spaces express our

personalities……

Evaluation of the Psychoanalytic Perspective

Influenced modern Western thinking about……

Most comprehensive and influential psychological theory ever proposed

Several weakness1. Limited subjects 2. Value—west world, male3. Scientific?