Chapter 8 The Psychoanalytic Perspective PDF

Chapter 8 The Psychoanalytic Perspective Learning Objectives 8.1 Explain how themes of conflict, defense, and metaphor permeate the psychoanalytic view of personality 8.2 Identify the differences between the three regions of the mind as posited by psychoanalysis 8.3 Examine how the three aspects...

Chapter 8 The Psychoanalytic Perspective Learning Objectives 8.1 Explain how themes of conflict, defense, and metaphor permeate the psychoanalytic view of personality 8.2 Identify the differences between the three regions of the mind as posited by psychoanalysis 8.3 Examine how the three aspects of functioning--- id, ego, and superego--- influence the outward display of personality 8.4 Identify life instincts, death instincts, and catharsis 8.5 Analyze how the ego deals with actual or potential anxiety by employing defense mechanisms 8.6 Examine five psychosexual stages of personality development as posited in psychoanalysis 8.7 Explain how parapraxes and dreams can reveal the content of a person's unconscious 8.8 Analyze the use of projective techniques to assess unconscious processes 8.9 Examine the psychoanalysis approach to understanding the processes of origination of problems with their corresponding remedies 8.10 Evaluate criticisms of psychoanalytic theory and the state of current interest in the theory Dan and Jamie are talking about a club they'd been to last night, where one of their friends had gotten totally drunk---something she's done weekly for the past year. At that moment, Robin rounds the corner, practically running into them. "Hey Robin, you recovered from last night?" Jamie asks. "What are you talking about?" replies Robin. "Come on, Robin." Dan adds. "Aren't you concerned about how much you've been drinking?" Robin looks offended. "Look, guys, I don't have a clue what you're talking about." When you look at your own actions, do you see them for what they really are? Or have you distorted them, disguised them to yourself for some reason? Most of us probably think we're aware of what we do and why. Accidents happen, but accidents are random and unintended. Apart from accidents, we know what we're doing. There's a perspective on personality, though, that sharply challenges this view. It sees behavior as determined partly by inner forces that are outside your awareness and control. Accidents? Not likely. What seems an accident, you've usually done on purpose---you just aren't aware of the purpose. This approach to personality is called psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis as we know it originated in the writings of an Austrian physician named Sigmund Freud (though see Box 8.1). His impact on personality psychology was huge. His view emerged just as behavioral science was getting its start (his theory evolved from 1885 to 1940). Because it came to prominence before other views of personality had developed very far, many people think of Freud as the father of personality psychology. Box 8.1 Was Freud Really the Sole Creator of Psychoanalysis? As we said in the main text, psychoanalysis as we know it is generally attributed to a single theorist: Sigmund Freud. Some have questioned, however, whether the ideas were literally the product of a single person (e.g., Borch-Jacobsen & Shamdasani, 2012). During the time the ideas were developing, communication (even in Europe) did not occur as easily as it does today. There was also less of a written record than now. It would be pretty easy for an idea to be contained in someone's lecture and then be repeated by someone else as his own. Whether an idea was attributed to a particular person must have depended a lot on how strenuously and frequently a person claimed ownership of it (which, indeed, remains true today!). It is hard enough to evaluate the ownership of ideas being developed today. It's far harder to evaluate the ownership of ideas being debated well over a century ago. It's often easier to note that someone "used" an idea rather than try to figure out who "created" it. For example, the iceberg metaphor (which comes up shortly in the main text) is typically attributed to Freud, because he used it and popularized it, but it actually was created by Theodor Lipps (see Ellenberg, 1970). Another problem in making evaluations about origins arises when everyone involved has his own personal stake in the argument, which was the case for a long time. Nonetheless, two historians who have no investment in the question have recently tried to investigate it (Borch-Jacobsen & Shamdasani, 2012). Their conclusion was that Freud worked very hard to manipulate people's perceptions that he was the sole originator of the theory, but that the reality was likely quite different. 8.1: Basic Themes 8.1 Explain how themes of conflict, defense, and metaphor permeate the psychoanalytic view of personality One theme underlying Freud's view, which gives rise to the term psychodynamic, is the idea that personality is a set of processes that are always in motion. Personality is a dynamo---or a bubbling spring. Forces emerge that can be channeled, modified, or transformed. Personality is not one process but several, which sometimes work against each other---competing or wrestling for control. The idea that pressures within the personality can conflict with each other is another theme that's prominent in the psychoanalytic view. The idea that personality is filled with conflict brings up another theme: defense as a key aspect of human functioning. The psychoanalytic view assumes that everyone experiences threats about aspects of himself or herself. Maybe you have desires you think are shameful; maybe you've done things you regret; maybe you feel unworthy as a human being. Whatever most threatens you, your defensive processes keep it from overpowering you. This idea of continual defense is an important aspect of psychoanalytic thought. Yet another theme in psychoanalytic theory is that human experience is suffused with qualities of lust and aggression, sexuality, and death. These ideas link Freud to evolutionary theory (Ritvo, 1990) and serve as a reminder that humans are---first of all---animals whose purpose in life is reproduction. The extent to which Freud emphasized the role of sexuality was very unusual at the time. Many found it quite shocking. The psychoanalytic perspective on personality is extremely metaphorical. It relies not on a single metaphor but multiple metaphors. Freud was a physician, and the idea of biological processes underlying mental processes often appeared in his writing. His concepts of life and death instincts resemble the dual processes of metabolic functioning---continually tearing down and building up. Freud also used many other metaphors. Sometimes he compared the mind to a sociopolitical system, making reference to censors, economics, compromises, and repression. Sometimes he turned to physics, treating personality as an energy system or the competition among forces as hydraulic systems. His fascination with metaphor was consistent with his view of personality. Freud's fascination with symbol and metaphor is also seen in the theory's content. He came to believe that human behavior itself is highly symbolic. People's acts are rarely quite what they seem to be. Instead, they symbolize other more hidden qualities. Psychoanalytic theory is very complex. Underlying the complexity, however, is a fairly small number of principles (Kahn, 2002). The theory can be confusing because its concepts are deeply interwoven. Thus, it's hard to talk about any aspect of the theory separate from other aspects. Perhaps the best place to start, though, is Freud's view of how the mind is organized, a view that is often termed his topographical model of mind. 8.2: The Topographical Model of the Mind 8.2 Identify the differences between the three regions of the mind as posited by psychoanalysis Many people assume the mind has two regions. One contains conscious experience: the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors you're aware of right now. The other contains memories, now outside awareness but able to come to awareness easily. Drawing on ideas of others of his time, Freud added a third region. Taken together, the three form what Freud viewed as the mind's topography---its surface configuration. Freud used the term conscious much as we do today: to refer to the part of the mind that holds what you're now aware of. The part of the mind representing ordinary memory he called preconscious. Things in the preconscious can be brought to awareness easily. For example, when you think of your phone number or the last movie you saw, you're bringing that information from the preconscious to conscious. Freud used the term unconscious in a way different from its everyday use. He used it to mean a part of the mind that's not directly accessible to awareness. Freud saw the unconscious as the source of desires and as a repository for urges, feelings, and ideas that are tied to anxiety, conflict, or pain. Yet despite being stored away in the unconscious, these things aren't gone. They exert a continuing influence on actions and conscious experience. In this view, the mind is like an iceberg. The tip of the iceberg is the conscious part of the mind. The much larger part---the part below the water line---is outside awareness. Some of it (the part you can see through the water) is the preconscious. The vast majority of it, however (the part you can't see), is the unconscious. Although the conscious and preconscious both influence behavior, Freud saw them as less important than the unconscious. He believed that the unconscious is where the core operations of personality take place. These three levels of consciousness form the topographical model of the mind (see Figure 8.1). Material (thought, feelings, desires) passes easily from conscious to preconscious and back. Material from both of these can slip into the unconscious. Unconscious material, however, can't be brought voluntarily to awareness because of forces that keep it hidden. These three regions of the mind are the theater in which the dynamics of personality are played out. Figure 8.1 Graphic representation of Freud's topographical model of the mind. (A) Material can pass easily back and forth between the conscious and preconscious portions of the mind. (B) Material can also move from the conscious and preconscious into the unconscious. But once material is in the unconscious, the person is prevented from having conscious access to it because (C) a mental gate prevents retrieval. The diagram shows three portions of the mind as conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. There is a thin line separating conscious and preconscious portions while a thick rectangular block separates preconscious portion from unconscious portion. Two-way arrows between conscious and preconscious portions indicate an easy back and forth passage of material between two portions. An arrow from conscious and preconscious portions each to the unconscious portion indicates that material can also move from the conscious and preconscious into the unconscious. However, the materials from unconscious cannot be retrieved as a mental gate prevents retrieval. 8.7.2: Dreams (Freud 1953/1900) also believed the unconscious reveals itself in dreams, which he called "the royal road to the unconscious." Dreams have two kinds of content. Manifest content is the images---what most of us think of as "the dream." More interesting to Freud, though, was the latent content---the unconscious thoughts, feelings, and wishes behind the manifest content. Latent content tells why a dream takes the form it does. Latent content has several sources. One is the sensory stimulation around us as we sleep: a thunderstorm, a passing siren, or the barking of a dog. Such sounds can prompt dreams and be absorbed into them. Another source is the thoughts, ideas, and feelings connected to waking life---current concerns. For example, you may have been thinking about an upcoming exam, an interesting person you just met, or a financial problem you have. These can be incorporated into and even provide central themes for dreams. A third source is unconscious impulses, which are blocked from expression while you're awake. Because these are often related to core conflicts, the impulse expressed in the dream is often primitive. Freud believed this aspect of latent content reveals the most about a person's personality. 8.8: Assessment from the Psychoanalytic Perspective 8.8 Analyze the use of projective techniques to assess unconscious processes The preceding section focused on ways in which the unconscious reveals itself in everyday life. More formal ways of assessing unconscious processes have also been developed. Collectively, they are called projective techniques. They confront people with ambiguous stimuli. The ambiguity presumably allows responses to reflect unconscious feelings, attitudes, desires, and needs. (Recall discussion of the Thematic Apperception Test \[TAT\] in Chapter 5.) Using the defense mechanism of projection, people incorporate unconscious aspects of themselves into the stimulus. The best-known projective technique, developed by Hermann Rorschach (1942), is the Rorschach inkblot test. Rorschach used the criterion keying approach to test development (described in Chapter 3) to select a set of 10 inkblots. Each inkblot is bilaterally symmetrical (approximately the same on both sides of an imaginary center line; see Figure 8.4). The ink on five of them is all black, but the intensity is uneven, ranging from solid black to light gray. Two have both black and red ink. Three have pastel colors, including blue, green, yellow, pink, and orange. Figure 8.4 Example of inkblot similar to those used in the Rorschach test.  The Rorschach usually is administered to one person at a time in two stages. First, the person views the inkblots in a predetermined order and indicates what he or she sees in them---or what the inkblot resembles or suggests---while the examiner records what's being said. In a second stage, the person views all 10 cards again. The examiner reminds the person what he or she said earlier and asks what it was about the card that made the person say that. Several systems have been devised for scoring the Rorschach, the most popular being that of John Exner (1974, 1993). In Exner's system, the responses are first compared against those of people with known personalities. Then, the responses are examined as a progression from one card to the next. Finally, responses are analyzed in terms of location (where the response focuses), determinants (form, color, shading, or perceived movement), and content (the response's subject). These features are thought to reveal information about the person's unconscious. Although the Rorschach generates interesting information, it has serious psychometric problems (Lilienfeld, Wood, & Garb, 2000). Exner and his collaborators have tried to improve the scoring, but their efforts have not been entirely well received (Lilienfeld et al., 2000; Wood, Nezworski, & Stejskal, 1996a, 1996b). Many psychologists who favor projective tests respond to criticisms by saying that psychometric criteria are irrelevant to the Rorschach's usefulness. In their view, its value is in the insights it gives the examiner. Perhaps psychologists should stop treating the Rorschach as a test and think of it as a tool. From that angle, it's an interview aid in the hands of a trained clinician, suggesting hypotheses worth further investigation. 8.9: Problems in Behavior, and Behavior Change, from the Psychoanalytic Perspective 8.9 Examine the psychoanalysis approach to understanding the processes of origination of problems with their corresponding remedies Our discussion of problems and how they can be dealt with emphasizes the themes that have been stressed throughout the chapter. Freud believed the unconscious holds the secrets of people's difficulties in life. Only by delving into the unconscious can those difficulties be identified and resolved. This section begins by considering the psychoanalytic perspective on how problems arise. 8.9.1: Origins of Problems Problems have several possible origins. One is childhood experiences. As described earlier, Freud believed adult personality is determined by early psychosexual development. He considered it rare for a person to enter the later stages of development unmarked. Most people are partly fixated at earlier stages. If those fixations are strong, a lot of energy is invested in them. In a very strong fixation, the preoccupation (though unconscious) leaves the person with little energy for anything else. This is one source of problems: overinvestment of energy in a fixation. This prevents flexible adult functioning by depleting energy the ego needs (Baumeister, 2002). Another source of problems is broad repression of basic drives and urges. If an overly punitive superego or a harsh environment causes too many urges to be buried, the person's basic nature will be distorted. The repressed needs will be unable to squeeze their way past the repression except in twisted forms. This isn't fully effective in meeting the needs. And again, the repression required to keep the needs hidden is a constant drain on energy available to the ego. A third source of problems is buried trauma. Although traumatic incidents can occur at any point in life, most discussion of trauma focuses on early childhood. Indeed, at one point early in the evolution of his thinking, Freud believed most of his patients had suffered childhood sexual abuse. The "seduction theory," as it came to be known, was later abandoned when Freud decided the seductions hadn't actually taken place. It was this change in thinking that led to Freud's theory of the Oedipal conflict, in which children deal with a sexual attraction to their opposite-sex parent. The Oedipal theory accounted for sexual imagery among patients, and it did so in a way that didn't require Freud to believe that large numbers of parents had seduced their children. Despite this change, Freud's theory clearly holds a place for traumas such as sexual and physical abuse. His altered view simply reflects his conclusion that abuse isn't common. Still, a child who experiences physical abuse, especially repeated abuse, has a deeply unpleasant reality to deal with. The same is true of a child who is sexually abused. These three points of origin for problems differ, and the problems that result can also differ. All three paths, however, share one mechanism: In each case, the original fixation, urge, or trauma is repressed. This repression may protect the person, but it has a cost. 8.9.2: Behavior Change What can be done about this situation? The therapeutic methods of psychoanalysis developed by trial and error in Freud's practice. After trying hypnosis, Freud stumbled on a procedure in which the person was simply to say aloud whatever came to mind---a procedure called free association. He discovered that this procedure enabled material hidden in the unconscious to gradually emerge. Freud eventually concluded that what emerged often wasn't literally true, and it led him to rethink the content of free association. Free association was producing something important, but it wasn't quite what it had seemed to be. In Freud's newer view, unconscious material emerges through free association in symbolic form. The symbolism makes it less threatening, thus letting it emerge. However, free association often creates a jumble of symbols that makes no sense on the surface. Yet, as in a crossword puzzle, they provide a partial context from which missing elements can be inferred. As noted earlier, many problems serious enough to be manifested in behavior are thought to stem from repressed conflicts and urges and from tied up libidinal energy. The goal of therapy is to uncover the conflicts and loose the restrained energy (see also Box 8.5). Free association is a first step, because it allows symbolic access to the problem. It rarely gets to the heart of the problem, though, because of the threat in the repressed material. Box 8.5 Repression, Disclosure, and Physical Health Our main discussion focuses on the idea that repression has a psychological cost. There is also evidence that holding back thoughts and feelings can have a physical cost. An early study of women undergoing breast biopsies (Greer & Morris, 1975) found that those who reported suppressing their emotions (most notably, anger) were more likely to have cancer than those who didn't. Another study found that women who said they suppressed their anger had more atherosclerosis over a 10-year period (Matthews, Owens, Kuller, Sutton-Tyrrell, & Jansen-McWilliams, 1998). Not all evidence supports the view that suppression relates to disease (O'Donnell, Fisher, Rickard, & McConaghy, 2000; Price et al., 2001). But enough support exists to make the idea worth further study. The flip side of this idea is that releasing distressing thoughts and feelings can have physical benefits. James Pennebaker and his colleagues have been at the forefront of research on disclosure of suppressed thoughts and feelings (Pennebaker, 1989; Pennebaker & Chung, 2007; Sexton & Pennebaker, 2009; see also Smyth, 1998; Smyth, Pennebaker, & Arigo, 2012). In these studies, participants (anonymously, in most studies) described their deepest thoughts and feelings about a specific nontraumatic event or about "the most upsetting or traumatic experience of your entire life." Ideally, the event the participant talked about (or wrote about) was one that he or she had not talked about much with others. Thus, it was more likely to be something the participant had repressed, at least partially. The disclosures typically took place for 20 minutes at a time across four successive days. The short-term effect of disclosing trauma is that people feel more distress. In the longer term, however, self-disclosure seems to have health benefits. In an early study, students who disclosed about traumatic events were less likely to visit the health center in the next six months than those who didn't (Pennebaker & Beall, 1986). The results of other work suggest that disclosure influences the functioning of the immune system (Pennebaker, Kiecolt-Glaser, & Glaser, 1988). In a study of Holocaust survivors, those who seemed to "let go" the most during disclosure were least likely to visit their physicians later (Pennebaker, 1989). Why might disclosure of painful memories have health benefits? Pennebaker has pursued the idea that the mechanism lies in the cognitive changes that occur during and after the disclosures. He has found that people who come to organize their experiences into narratives benefit more than people who do not (Pennebaker & Graybeal, 2001). It apparently isn't having a coherent story that helps, but rather the process of creating the story. Pennebaker (1993) argued that the body expresses itself linguistically and biologically at the same time. As we struggle to create meaning from trauma, we create beneficial changes in biological functions, as well. The result is better physical functioning and better health. This view of the effects of emotional expression surely will continue evoke controversy and interest. It's a viewpoint with many important implications. If it continues to be supported by research evidence, it will change the way many people think about therapy and even about such activities as keeping a journal. Indeed, people in therapy sometimes actively fight against becoming aware of repressed conflicts and impulses. This struggle is called resistance. Resistance can be conscious or unconscious. In either case, it's considered a sign that something important is nearby, that the person is close to revealing something sensitive. Resistance provides an illustration of how emotionally wrenching psychoanalytic therapy can be. The person in therapy is trying to uncover distressing truths---truths that have been buried in the unconscious precisely because they're too painful to admit. It's no wonder that the process of uncovering them is long and hard. An important element in psychoanalytic therapy is transference. Transference is a set of displacements. Specifically, feelings toward other people in the patient's life are displaced (transferred) onto the therapist. The feelings can be love or hatred. Transference serves as another defense, in that the therapist provokes less anxiety than do the original objects of the feelings. Transference can help point out the significance of the feelings that are being displaced. When transference occurs, then, its interpretation is an important part of the therapy process. The goal of psychoanalytic psychology is insight. This term doesn't mean an intellectual understanding. Rather, it implies the re-experiencing of the emotional reality of repressed conflicts, memories, or urges, previously unconscious parts of one's personality (see Table 8.1). Intellectual understanding has no power to change the person. For a cognitive reorganization to be useful, it must come in the context of an emotional catharsis, a freeing of pent-up energy. On the other hand, emotional release doesn't help unless there is also reorganization (Kelly, Klusas, von Weiss, & Kenny, 2001). 8.9.3: Does Psychoanalytic Therapy Work? Psychoanalytic therapy is long (literally years), expensive, and usually painful. Given these costs, how effective is it? Some reviews have found that analytic therapy works about as well as other therapies (Smith & Glass, 1977; Smith, Glass, & Miller, 1980). Indeed, it has been argued that the success of other therapies occurs partly because therapists often use psychodynamic techniques without realizing it (Shedler, 2010). Part of the difficulty in interpreting studies is that success can be defined in several ways, and what definition is used can affect the conclusions drawn. Psychoanalysts tend to define success by how much insight patients gain into their conflicts and dynamics. This insight may or may not yield less distress. Given that many psychoanalysts believe the goal is to produce insight (and not necessarily reduce stress), it's hard to be sure what negative findings say about the success of psychoanalytic therapy (for details, see Fisher & Greenberg, 1977). 8.10: Problems and Prospects for the Psychoanalytic Perspective 8.10 Evaluate criticisms of psychoanalytic theory and the state of current interest in the theory The psychoanalytic view on personality has been both influential and controversial. From the start, people were reluctant to accept certain aspects of it. Many were incensed by the prominence of sexual themes, being shocked that anyone would suggest that the behavior of young children is sexually motivated. The scientific community has faulted psychoanalysis on other grounds. One problem is that the theory is very hard to test, partly because many of its concepts are defined ambiguously. An example is libido. Freud used this term to refer to sexual energy, a psychological quality arising from physiological processes. We know little else about it. Where does it come from? What makes it sexual? How do you measure it? Without a way to measure it, you can't study it. Much of the ambiguity of psychoanalytic concepts comes from the fact that Freud thought about personality in such a metaphorical way. This metaphorical approach is deeply embedded in descriptions of the theory. It's very difficult to know when to read Freud literally and when to read him metaphorically. Consider, for example, the Oedipal complex. Should we believe Freud meant literally that every boy comes to desire his mother sexually at around age 4? Or, should we assume he was using the Oedipal theme as a metaphor for the conflict between young children and their parents? Freud wrote at one point that many of the specific explanatory devices he used could be replaced or discarded without damaging the theory (Silverman, 1976). Clearly, then, parts of what he wrote shouldn't be taken literally. Unfortunately, we don't know which parts. A related problem arises for mechanisms of defense. Here, the problem is that defenses provide limitless flexibility. Defenses can be invoked to explain virtually anything that might occur. If a defense is working poorly and threatening material is coming too close to awareness, a different defense emerges, maybe creating even the opposite effect. Flexibility is good, because it lets a theory account for a lot, but it also makes prediction hard. If a theory is too flexible, any finding can be reconciled with it. If it can explain any outcome, its predictions can never be disconfirmed. Unfortunately, if a theory can never be disconfirmed, it can never really be confirmed, either. Interestingly, despite these criticisms, the idea that humans have defenses has been absorbed deeply into the fabric of today's understanding of personality. This idea has been widely accepted, even by people who accept nothing else about the psychoanalytic viewpoint. Another criticism that scientific psychologists make against psychoanalytic theory concerns the kind of evidence on which it rests. Critics disparage Freud's heavy reliance on case studies in developing his ideas, particularly those involving infantile sexuality. It's hard to be sure whether different observers would draw the same conclusions, even when looking at the same case. The problem of reliability is even further compounded by the fact that Freud acted both as theorist--researcher and as therapist. Freud's actions as a participant observer may have biased the kinds of things his patients said even more than usual (Powell & Boer, 1994). Indeed, there's even evidence that Freud was sometimes highly directive with patients (Esterson, 1998). Freud's reliance on patients allowed bias in another way, as well. The number of cases Freud relied on for a database was distressingly small. In all his writings, Freud described the case histories of only a dozen or so people. He carefully screened potential patients and allowed into therapy only those he thought were good candidates. Thus, he developed his ideas from observing a very small set of cases that were selected in a biased way. We can't be sure how much or in what ways these people differed from the overall population, but they certainly weren't chosen randomly. Another criticism of psychoanalytic ideas is the tendency of its proponents to mix facts with inferences. For example, observations led Freud to infer the existence (and universality) of an Oedipal complex. He then went on to discuss the Oedipal complex as though its existence were a fact. This tendency to mix fact with inference has contributed to an intellectual climate in psychoanalytic circles in which basic concepts have gone untested---because it was thought they didn't need to be tested (Crews, 1996; Esterson, 1993). Despite these problems, there's been a resurgence of interest in the ideas that make up both the topographic model and the structural model (Bargh, 1997). With respect to the topography of the mind, many who start from different perspectives now argue that important aspects of memory cannot be brought to consciousness voluntarily. In some cases, this is because the thing we're looking for (by its very nature) can be used but not viewed. In other cases, it's because the thing we might be looking for has become so automatic that it's fallen out of our mental "address book." Although these aren't quite the same as the unconscious phenomena Freud emphasized, they represent new interest in the idea that the mind has more than two regions. With respect to the structural model, it is being re-emphasized that we shouldn't get too distracted by the idea that the mind has three components. Rather, it has three modes of functioning (Grigsby & Stevens, 2000). Moreover, we should take the descriptions of the modes less literally. The id is simply the psychological nature of the infant. Infantile qualities are overlaid in all of us by effects of socialization, but those infantile qualities remain, in some sense, the basic structure from which we grew. The id is the part that wants---wants as the one-year-old wants, without regard to dangers or disapprovals. We all still have that part, and it still makes its presence known. The ego is the set of restraints we learn, restraints that diminish the pain we experience from grabbing too fast for what we want without looking for danger. The superego is the abstract rules we learn, to become part of a society in which we can't always have our way, even if we wait patiently. The idea that humans begin life grabbing for what they want when they want it, and only gradually learn to restrain themselves, makes a lot of sense. The idea that people later learn abstractions concerning morality also makes sense. So does the idea that the moral abstractions can conflict with the wants. In sum, the structural model expresses a fair amount of apparent truth about the human experience. Indeed, you will encounter similar ideas in other perspectives. Given the problems just outlined, why has psychoanalysis been so popular? Indeed, why was there a resurgence of interest in it in the late twentieth century (e.g., Bargh, 1997; Grigsby & Stevens, 2000)? There seem to be at least three reasons for its enduring popularity. One is that it was the first major theory of personality. Whenever something comes first, its influence persists for a long time. Second, Freud spoke to questions that lie at the heart of personality: How does childhood influence later life? What is mental health? To what extent are people's motives accessible to them? The questions he posed began to stake out the territory of what would become personality psychology. A final reason concerns the intuitive appeal of the major themes of psychoanalysis. Apart from their scientific status, notions such as unconscious motivation, psychosexual development, and the intrapsychic tug-of-war of conflicting pressures from the id, ego, and superego have an emotional appeal. These ideas are novel, exciting, and interesting. In a word, they are seductive. Psychoanalytic theory undoubtedly took root partly because it portrayed personality in a way that people found---and continue to find---interesting. Summary: The Psychoanalytic Perspective Freud's topographical model assumes three regions of mind: the conscious, the preconscious (ordinary memory), and the unconscious (a part of mind that isn't accessible to consciousness). The unconscious holds threatening or unacceptable ideas and urges. Freud's structural model assumes three facets of personality. The id (the original part) is the source of all energy. It follows the pleasure principle (that all needs should be immediately gratified), exists only in the unconscious, and uses primary process thinking (primitive and separate from reality). The ego eventually develops because the id ignores the demands of the external world, and those demands cannot be ignored. The ego follows the reality principle (that behavior must take into account external reality), operates in all three regions of the mind, and tries to see that the id's impulses are gratified in a realistic way. The ego uses secondary process (reality-based) thought. The third facet, the superego, is a representation of the rules by which parents reward and punish the child. It has two parts: Ego ideal is standards of moral perfection, and conscience is a representation of the behaviors that are considered bad. Both function in all three regions of the mind. Once the superego develops, the ego must mediate among the id, superego, and reality. Id impulses form two categories: Life instincts aim for self-preservation and sexual pleasure. Death instincts are self-destructive and may turn outward as aggression. Evidence of a death instinct may exist in cell biology, in the form of apoptosis. Catharsis is the emotional release resulting from the release of an impulse. Anxiety is a warning signal to the ego. Reality anxiety is fear of a threat in the world. Neurotic anxiety is fear that id impulses will get out of control and get you in trouble. Moral anxiety is fear of violating the superego's moral code. The ego deals with anxiety (and sometimes prevents it from arising) by employing defense mechanisms. The basic defense is repression: forcing id impulses and other threatening material out of consciousness. Denial is a refusal to acknowledge the reality of some event. Other defenses, which typically act along with repression, are projection (attributing an unacceptable impulse to someone else), rationalization (developing an acceptable but incorrect explanation for your action), intellectualization (separating your thoughts from your feelings and allowing the thoughts but not the feelings to be in awareness), displacement (shifting an impulse from one target to another, usually a safer one), and sublimation (transforming an unacceptable impulse to an acceptable one). Freud argued that child development proceeds through psychosexual stages and that adult personality is influenced by how crises are resolved at each stage. In the oral stage, sexuality centers on the mouth, and the crisis involves being weaned. In the anal stage, sexuality centers on the anus, and the crisis involves toilet training. In the phallic stage, sexuality centers on the genitals, and the crisis experienced there (which results in Oedipal and Electra complexes) involves lust for the opposite-sex parent and fear of and rivalry with the same-sex parent. The latency period is a calm interval with no serious conflict. The genital period is maturity, in which genital sexuality shifts from selfish narcissism to mutual sharing. The psychoanalytic orientation holds that the unconscious is the key to personality. Freud believed that the unconscious reveals itself in many ways in day-to-day life. Parapraxes are acts of forgetting and slips of the tongue and pen that occur when unconscious desires cause you to act in a way other than as you consciously intend. The unconscious is also revealed in dreams, which have manifest content (what's in the dream) and latent content (the determinants of the dream, many of which are unconscious). The unconscious can also be revealed more formally, through projective assessment techniques, such as the Rorschach inkblot test. Projective techniques allow the person's unconscious to release symbolic versions of threatening material while describing ambiguous stimuli. The Rorschach is controversial, in that its reliability and validity have not been well supported by research evidence. In the psychoanalytic view, behavioral problems may derive from fixations (unresolved conflicts during psychosexual development), from a general repression of libido, or from repressed traumas. An important aspect of psychoanalytic therapy is free association: saying whatever comes to mind without censoring it in any way. This approach typically produces an incomplete matrix of symbolic meanings, from which other elements can be inferred. People in therapy often display resistance, which implies that the ego is trying to defend itself against something the therapy is starting to touch on. Often, the person in therapy displays transference, displacing onto the therapist unacceptable feelings that actually pertain to someone else. The goal of the therapy is insight, an emotional experiencing of previously unconscious parts of personality. Research on the effectiveness of psychoanalytic therapy has produced mixed results. Yet even in the absence of strong support for the usefulness of psychoanalytic therapy, many people continue to undertake it because they believe it provides benefits that are not adequately assessed by the measures used in outcome research.