PSYC181 - Neo-Freudian Theory PDF

Week of September 16 - Neo-Freudian theory 1-2-1 The nature of anxiety The Nature of Anxiety Set of familiar, unpleasant physiological events that may or may not include a cognitive explanation ○ You may or may not know why you’re afraid Anxiety vs fear ○ You don’...

Week of September 16 - Neo-Freudian theory 1-2-1 The nature of anxiety The Nature of Anxiety Set of familiar, unpleasant physiological events that may or may not include a cognitive explanation ○ You may or may not know why you’re afraid Anxiety vs fear ○ You don’t know what you’re worried about vs you do know Importance for possibly working into serious danger ○ In this case, drives - sexual desires etc Freud’s Theories of Anxiety First Theory ○ Manifestation of Strangulated affect ○ Quantity of energy under pressure - release is anxiety - physiological events Attempt by body to release ○ But if repression causes anxiety what causes repression? Second Theory ○ Anxiety is the cause, not consequence of repression A warning bell of danger ○ To ward off or repress evil thoughts ○ Time to repress!! Three categories ○ Realistic Fear of external world - some object or event ○ Moral Fear of punishment by superego ○ Neurotic Without consciously recognized source (id) Strong drive out of the id 1-2-2 Defense mechanisms - The ego’s activity of regulation of the Psyche - Allow us to partially satisfy our drives - Defense mechanisms (abwehr) Arise from the Unconscious Repression - Push down our psychic investment in some object - Counter-cathexis - Exclude libidinal desires from consciousness, push it out - keep it in the unconscious - Common and basic Denial - Shut threatening material out of conscious - Don't acknowledge - Commonly in freud’s time - Fainting - Shut the memories down - Screen memories - False memories that replace traumatic memories - Too much for psyche to handle Projection - Take unwanted desires and project onto others - Cant own it yourself, you see it around you - Common in paranoia - Express drive energy without guilt - See the world around us consumed with sex - Ward off unacceptable aspects Reaction Formation - Urges replaced by opposites - Ego identifies strongly with opposite of libidinal impulses - Honosexual preacher is homophobic - Function - Overcompensation to reduce anxiety Isolation - Repress affect associated with threat, but the idea remains conscious - Have unwanted thoughts and no emotional ability to act on those thoughts - No emotions around it, but cant get rid of - Examples - Violent obsessions Undoing - Alleviate ego from obsessive thoughts  - Opposite of isolation - To remove forbidden thoughts from conscious - Transient defense - only effective in the moment - OCD Displacement - Threatening drives too dangerous on intended target, so transfer to easier target - Phobias - Trauma with object - negative emotions displaced onto the object - Remove our energy onto targets - Kick the Dog phenomenon - Can't attack his boss, so he attacks his wife - Wife attacks child instead of husband - Child can't attack mother, kicks the dog - Boss get attacked by the dog Sublimation - Redirect drive energy into something greater - Create something sublime from what is base - Drive energy no longer sexual aggression - I love to cut, so i become a doctor - Basis of civilization Society and Defense Mechanisms - Not bad- society is built around mechanisms - Keeps the id from too raw of an expression - Allow us to function in society - We can partially satisfy out drives while acting socially acceptably - *Equanimity - composure - DM allow us to function in society and maintain mental composure 1-2-3 Psychoanalytic therapy Psychoanalytic Therapy - Synthetic function of the Ego - Ego continually strives to heal itself through assimilation and integration through self awareness  - Inherent aspect of the ego - Naturally oriented to assimilation, accommodation, integration - Naturally oriented to synthesis, full functioning, organismic wellness - Therapist’s task is to aid ego in synthetic function - Occurs through alignment through synthetic function of patient to therapist - Natural orientation to synthesis - No one achieves full synthesis - The id is always bigger than the ego - We begin life as a bundle of id energy - through dealing with critical conflicts does the ego begin to derive its energy from the id - But (in orthodox view) ego does not have own independent source of energy - Ex) Topography of New Orleans - built below sea level - things have to be upkept to prevent the sea water for overtaking the city - but it can all be undone - Issues in Therapy - Transference - Client transferred templates / old ways of being onto relationships - Conflicts from past into new relationships - Repetition compulsion - Fixation on old conflicts - Attempt to work through past traumas in new relationships - Function is to master unresolved feelings in old trauma Key Therapeutic components - Reexperiencing - Makes experience salient for client and encourage them to express it - Encouraged to bring pasts trauma into present in an emotional way - Area of Safety - Safe space - need to feel free to talk about whatever they want - Receive remarks without defensiveness - Neutrality and Equidistance - Not cold or detached - Very present but neutral - Non evaluative - Non judgemental - Client can feel free to give full expression - Avoid either/or thinking - Contradictory truths exist - Allow boat sides to be expressed  - Things can be right and wrong at the same time - Therapist analyzes - Doesn't buy into normal chitchat of everyday life - What the client is expressing - uncover source of drama 1-2-4 Winnicott's object relations theory DW Winnicott (1896-1971) - Focused on early mother-child relationship - How caregivers shape their child’s psychological experiences - Saw maladaptive patterns emerge very early - How does the self develop to have their needs satisfied by others? - We get our needs satisfied in a interpersonal context - Infant begins life in a non-integrated state - State of chaos and un-integration/non-integration - Not bad - a shifting set of drives and needs - At birth, the child is not an individual - No self at birth - Only a mother child diet - But infant has inherent tendency to growth and development - Accommodation, integration, assimilation - Primary Maternal Preoccupation - Beginning in third trimester of pregnancy, mothers are biological endowed to care for and help infants develop toward psychological integration - Withdraw cathexis form oneself to the infant - Allows mother to be attuned to needs and psychological integration of infant - Often intuitively knows what child needs - Returns after birth - Holding Environment - Responsibility to hold together the infant’s psyche - Create a place of calmness, secure, integrated - Careful relating allows regulation of child to develop coherent set of needs A good mother - Empathic Anticipation - Responds and anticipates needs of child - Infant develops sense of safety and power in being - Subjective Omnipotence and Grandiosity  - Mirroring - Caretaker love infant - Occurs through responsiveness and empathy - Child mirrored by mother - Mother smiles back, plays with How caretakers Fail to satisfy the child’s needs? - Caretaker Insensitivity - Non-responsiveness - Does not respond to needs of child - Intrusion - Attempts to satisfy child when child has no present needs for satisfaction - Feeding when not hungry - Impingement - Satisfying the wrong need - Hungry, changes diaper instead - Consequences - Child loses touch with own needs - Child forgets and falls out of contact with own psychological needs - Begins to serv ethe narcissistic needs of the mother - Develops false sense of self False Self Disorders - True Self - Promoted by sensitive and responsive environment - Child recognizes and knows own psychological needs - Characterized - Takes initiative, develops awareness, sensitivity, of needs of others - False Self - Infant has insensitive mother, can’t contact or satisfy own needs - More in tune with narcissistic needs of mother - Symptoms - Lacks vitality - lack of psychological energy - Does not feel like him or herself - Feels other than who they truly are, a mask - Inability and unwillingness to be alone - Can’t deal with psychological threat of being alone Good-Enough Parenting - Grandiose Desires  - Infants begin with ^ want immediate gratification - When mother is absent, this goes unfulfilled - Child suffers brief traumatic period due to mother’s empathic failure - Transitional experience - But then infant transitions from subjective omnipotence to objective reality - Realization that I may have to forgo need satisfaction sometimes - Can learn to self soothe and hallucinate needs being satisfied - Don’t have to be perfect, just good enough Winnicott’s Therapy - Function is to pick up where development was stalled - When needs are unsatisfied, development stalled - Reawaken the True Self - Create a responsive environment for needs of child - Characteristics - Spontaneous - Therapist always responsive to patient - Connect with what patient feels psychologically, empathy - Be in touch with the needs and respond - Lots of Play - Play Therapy - The emotional language of children - How children experience and express their needs - The medium by which children’s needs can and are satisfied 1-2-5 Kohut's self-psychology Heinz Kohut’s Self Psychology - 1913-1981 - Began as orthodox freudian to self-psychology - Struggled between strict views and own understanding - Believed drives exist, but also believed development of self occurs and is necessary toward full function - Case of Miss F - Constantly complained and made demands of Kohut - Wrecking her analysis with his interpretations - Understood this behavior as transference - A positive event to him - trying to get needs satisfied - According to self psychology, transference is attempt to get unmet needs satisfied by therapist - What are those needs?  - What can the therapist do? - Nature of Self - Self is the spontaneous natural center of being - Take initiative, growth oriented, reaches out to others CONT - Mirroring Need - Or Grandiose exhibitionistic need - Infant needs to feel important, great and wonderful - Mother needs to show child is interest, prize - Develops full sense of self esteem - Unsatisfied- narcissistic view - Idealizing Need - Need a caregiver seen as having powers or ability, a person to idealize - Child internalizes ideals and values of the parent - Promotes inspiration in child - Twinship Need - “Alter ego need” - We need to belong, feel connected and related - Feel that others care about us, love us - Two way street - we care for them as well - Importance of Need Satisfaction - Must be satisfied by parents for healthy development to occur - Recognized in transference of patients - They transfer unfulfilled needs onto new relationships - Transmuting Internalization - How can children learn to satisfy their needs when parents are not present? - Children can learn how parents satisfy their needs, and do so when parents not available - Kohut's therapeutic technique - Empathic concern, not need gratification - Therapist listens to patient, hear true pain of patient not being responded - No interpretation is necessary - All needed is empathy, a true genuine concern of life of client - Feels appreciated and understood - Empathy satisfies mirroring need - Patient feels like a good person - Develops capacity to grapple with needs and not be overwhelmed Kohut on Empathy - Empathy plays a central role in self-psychology - Empathy is not an attempt to satisfy the other’s needs, but rather to understand how it feels to have had needs frustrated in the past - The process of empathy itself has a curative impact Discussion Questions: M1: Try to find personal? Example of realistic/moral/neurotic anxiety: M2; Defense Mechanisms, good or bad for society? Good for society, bad for individuals M2: Come up w/ examples of each Defense Mechanism M3: How would you implement the key components of psychoanalytic therapy if you were a therapist today? M4: Examples of insensitive mother-child relationships in media? Reality TV, TikTok families, M5: In what ways did Kohut improve upon Freud’s therapies, or not? Added empathy and relating to patients as humans - Understanding not fulfilling needs