The Topographical Theory of Personality PDF

The Topographical Theory of Personality Dr Greta Darmanin Kissaun Mary Rose Gatt  Topographical theory Topographical theory: Different systems of the mind The mind composed of 3 mental systems: Conscious Preconscious Unconscious Later incorport...

The Topographical Theory of Personality Dr Greta Darmanin Kissaun Mary Rose Gatt  Topographical theory Topographical theory: Different systems of the mind The mind composed of 3 mental systems: Conscious Preconscious Unconscious Later incorportated into Freud’s “structural” model of personality involving the id, ego, and superego. Boag (2017) How does Freud’s conceptualisation of the human mind look like?  Reflective exercise Pause for a moment and check with yourself what is going through your mind…. Observe the things going through your mind without really taking note of them. However, with some effort you can remember them. What is your opinion about how much we can be conscious of everything that goes through our mind? ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010  The Conscious part of the mind That part of the mind that is aware of itself – I know that I know... What I am thinking/perceiving at the present moment. ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010  The pre/sub conscious part of the mind What we bring to our attention through effort…. Ex: Recalling memories Knowledge The Tip of the tongue phenomenon. ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010  The unconscious part of the mind What the mind does not know that it knows or to have experienced. What I am not aware of That part of the mind that we do not have access to Access to it is difficult... And may be incomplete We can access by examining its manifestations. ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010  The contents of the Unconscious mind… A reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories that were: Either never conscious of Perceived as too unpleasant and unacceptable The ID ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010  What do we repress? Whatever threatens our sense of security! Parts of ourselves/experiences that we perceive as disturbing and unpleasant. ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010  What is repression? The process of pushing experiences/feelings/mem ories etc… in the unconscious mind. Removing something out of conscious awareness by burying it in the abyss of the unconscious. ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010  Examples A woman with a cold and controlling mother. To protect self from criticism and intrusiveness, person grows to be avoidant, distant in relationships with a lot of deeply repressed anger. Anger is hidden behind a calm, disengaged exterior. A man who was abandoned as a child has to take care of self and feels deeply worthless inside. He grows up with a grand sense of himself and using others to get what he wants. His sense of worthlessness and abandonment is repressed behind a confident successful exterior. ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010 Repressed material may emerge Circumstances where our (the ego’s) ability to repress material is weakened... When we no longer feel threatened by repressed material ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010  Repression and Psychologists Psychologists need to explore their own unconscious and their past …How? Growth psychotherapy Supervision. Why? … Just as patients’ unconscious thoughts, feelings and experiences, so do the unconscious material within psychologists and this can effect how we appraise a case and our position with the patient No one is immune of the effects of the unconscious! ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010  How do we access repressed material? Introspection Free association Dreams Resistance Parapraxes Projection ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010  INTROSPECTION In-depth exploration of past experiences. Non defensive stance ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010  FREE ASSOCIATION Uncensored talk – Tell me the first few things that come to your head without giving any thought. ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010  DREAMS Not too threatening dream about repressed thoughts and memories.... If dream is too threatening (too close to the what’s really buried inside us) we wake up. Leftover thoughts from the day, and memories from the past that emerge, are incorporated into the dream to keep you from waking up: ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010  The content of the dream… …is divided into two: THE MANIFEST CONTENT THE LATENT CONTENT Psychoanalysts use dream interpretation to figure out the latent content from the manifest content. ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010  Second purpose of dream: WISHFULFILMENT or satisfaction of ID. ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010  Types of dreams not out of the ordinary Ordinary dreams Anxiety dreams: Recurring Dreams: comforting and emotional healing Healing Dreams: predict future events - heightened intuition Prophetic Dreams: they feel very realistic Lucid dreams leave a strong impact Epic Dreams fantasies that occur while awake Daydreams False awakening dreams dreamer believes they have woken up, only to find out they are still dreaming Nightmares: frightening dreams ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010  5 Psychological mechanisms operating in dreams: Condensation Displacement Dramatisation Symbolisation Secondary Elaboration ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010  condensing feelings and thoughts in 1 object in the dream. Condensation Combining all ideas, thoughts, or feelings into one object Ex dreaming about a snake – could be a symbol of various things including trouble death, afterlife, change. Therefore, ne object can represent a lot of things. In most cases, portions of the latent dream content are omitted and only unimportant fragments, appear in dream. E.g. dream of mother: could be mother, loving grandma, nurturing teacher, friend of your mother. ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010 displacement masks the condensed latent content, making the dream less direct and harder to interpret. Displacement hard to interpret Disguises true meaning of dream due to hidden latent meaning An unconscious mechanism by which the emotional tone/essential aspects of a dream are shifted onto the manifest content rather than the latent one. Ex: we turn the object of anger into something else (A monkey as a symbol of your annoying father)  plot of the dream is based on Dramatisation the context of our thoughts and feelings. Abstract thoughts and wishes are dramatised put into a story. ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010  symbols have hidden meanings Symbolization Latent content in a dream is converted into symbols. Ex: Male genitals: sticks, trees, pens, bananas and other pointed objects. Female: hollows, rooms, corridors, empty spaces. Today we look at the subjective meanings  filling in the gaps of the Secondary Elaboration dream to make sense of it Makes the dream coherent and meaningful – Tries to give a reasonable meaning to the dream According to Blum (1969) – SE reflects the secondary process thinking of the ego ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010  RESISTANCES The way we react (usually oppositional) when unconscious defenses are threatened by an outside source. Ex: A person getting angry upon pointing out a shortcoming – getting all argumentative and defensive – unable to get in touch with the ‘bad’ side of themselves. Ex: In therapy clients sometimes resist owning that they have a problem or get angry at therapist for focusing on particular experiences – claiming that’s not the problem.  THE PARAPRAXES Small “accidents” in daily life that reveal our unconscious. Reveal what we are trying to repress. Slip of the tounge / Freudian Slip Mistakes and forgetting Losing objects Joking and humour False Perceptions ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010  PROJECTION The way in which we react to something ambiguous, the way in which we fill in the blanks reveals our unconscious. It is safe because it is not owned, so ego allows it. ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010  Projective testing Psychologists use this as a way into the unconscious. A way of revealing the unconscious without being aware you are doing it. Three types of projective techniques: Completion: sentence completion test Association: an animal that symbolises you. Who are you like—mother or father. Rorschach test. Construction: TAT (Thematic Apperception test). you are shown visual stimuli through which you give your perception and through this interpretation you can tell one's underlying thoughts, emotions, and personality traits. ©S. Scicluna Calleja 2010  Sources used Boag S. (2017) Topographical Model. In: Zeigler-Hill V., Shackelford T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1432-1 https://www.psychologydiscussion.net/dreams/5- main-mechanisms-of-dream-work-psychology/2226