Psychoanalytic Theory Lecture Notes PDF

lecture notes - PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY Sigmund Freud Personlity: id, ego, superego Id: pleasure principle, unconscious drives and the repressed Ego: consciousness, reality principle Super...

lecture notes - PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY Sigmund Freud Personlity: id, ego, superego Id: pleasure principle, unconscious drives and the repressed Ego: consciousness, reality principle Superego: morality unconscious and conscious mind defense mechanisms psychosexuality Current Psychodynamic theories Unconscious mental processes: Mental processes and content we’re unaware of Theories developed in 19th Century. Mostly associated with Freud’s psychoanalysis and theory of defense mechanisms. Historically problematic 1980s: ‘the new unconscious’: implicit processes (now generally accepted) - in regards to cognitive theory. Examples: Blind sight: seeing without awareness of seeing. People who had damage to the occipital lobe would report blindness but when presented with stimulus and asked to guess what is there, they would report correctly. therefore able to see but is not aware of this perception lecture notes - PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 1  Subliminal perception studies and findings: Effects from presenting stimuli so quickly that they cant consciously be identified Mere exposure effect: Mere repeated exposure to stimulus increases attractiveness subliminal exposure of paired polygons (1ms) subjects is shown old/new pairs and asked to choose the preferred polygon subjects preferred the subliminally exposed pair compared to the new Defense mechanisms: Unconscious processes that protects us from negative emotional content Dynamic unconscious: mental content actively presented from becoming conscious. There is no empirical evidence for defense mehcanism and it is not testable. Historically relied on clinical case studies for evidence Defensive personality styles lecture notes - PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 2  Repressive coping: cogntiive or emotional effort to ignore internal or external threatening stimuli Repressors: self protective personality style associated with avoiding anxiety provoking information, limited self awareness. 10 - 20% of the general population Assessing repressing coping Repressive coping associated with lower PTSD symptomatology. Repressors appear in self report studies as the most adapted, relaxed and happy individuals Low levels of self-report anxiety but high physiological arousal. high blood pressure, heart rate or cortisol response to threat and stress. Repressors and high anxious subjects has higher basal cortisol levels than low anxious participants. Weinberger et al (1979): identified repressors via anxiety scale scores and defensiveness scores Vigilance-avoidance theory When threat is identified, there is a physiological stress response, however the stage after is where avoidant cognitive biases inhibit the conscious experience of anxiety. lecture notes - PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 3  Evidence for Vigilance-avoidance theory fMRI study by Paul et al (2012) Compared Repressors vs Sensitisers (high vigilance low avoidance) on emotional vs neutral faces repressive coping styles associated with higher brain activity in response to threatening vs netural expressions this information was processed at an automatic, non conscious stage Monitors and Blunters Monitors: Hyper attentive to threats Always scanning for threats Amplifying threatening cues Blunters: Ignoring threats lecture notes - PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 4  Downplaying risks Self distracting Freud’s background Freud trained in neurology: nerve cells; lesions and aphasia His draft from ‘project for a scientific psychology’ - gave researchers an idea of his understanding of the brain underlined his theory of psychoanalysis Freud’s intention was that psychoanalysis would be mapped onto the brain at some stage. all of his psychological writings have had a hidden neurological type of theory underlining his thinking Theorised for the future of psychology to be someday based on organic substructure Believed psychoanalysis as a therapy was too difficult to apply Interpretation of dreams ‘Royal road to the unconscious’ - explained below The idea is that the conscious mind through defence mechanisms while were awake sesnses what they (defense) allow us to know - defences whilst were awake prevent us from becoming aware of repressed desires. However, while asleep, the defences shut off partially, and repressed desires force their way into dreams through images and symbols. Freud thought that dreams might allow one to know what a person’s repressed desires might be. Basically when Id desires can’t be fulfilled during consciousness, it becomes a fantasy that is fullfilled in dreams Indirect evidence - Minnesota Starvation Experiment (1944-5): Researchers wanted to know the effects of starvation and how to help. Those who did not want to fight were given the OK to participate in medical research. One of these was a starvation study: lecture notes - PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 5  starved 36 volunteers to very low calorie intake became chronically hungry and reported that this hunger made them completely obsessed with food would dream about the food at night and day would fantasise and talk about food; if had an option to read, they would read about food When one is biologically fustrated to such an extreme event, it becomes preoccupied in your mind and you dream about it one voluntee had to be removed because they fantasised about cannibalising people. Interpreting dreams Freud’s basic point: dreams are meaningful and reflect our Id-desires Latent content Primary process Censorship Manifest content Dreams and REM sleep Aserinksy and Kleitman (1953) 4 stages of non-REM sleep Rapid eye movement sleep - also go through other stages of deeper levels of brain activiation. 90-100 minutes cycles closer to waking up, the brain goes through REM or paradoxical sleep; brain is so active is it almost ‘awake’ if a person wakes during this stage theyre highly likely to say there were dreaming very vivid visual dreams if a person wakes during non REM, very few report that they were dreaming. they may experience it more as thinking to themselves rather than as a vivid dream lecture notes - PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 6  Humans don’t act out the dreams like some mammals do unless the inhibitory mechanism is not present would be considered a sleeping disorder This is relevant because it led people to understand REM sleep as evidence against Freud’s dream interpretation theory. Potential Counter-evidence to Freud’s theory Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley (1977) Activation synthesis model of dreams/AIM model dreams occur due to chaotic brain stem activity associated with REM sleep brain synthesises all the bizzare images becoming active in the brain into a narrative. Believe dreams are meaningless and have nothing to do with motivation, desires and Id lecture notes - PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 7  Points against Hobson and Mcarley Dreaming can occur independently of REM sleep. Some research indicated that vivid dreaming can occur before REM sleep Brain stem lesions that eliminate REM sleep don’t eliminate dreaming; REM and dreaming can exist without the other Loss of dreaming is associated with other brain damage 1940 -1975 Schizophrenia and leucotomies (prefrontal lobotomy) done to reduce psychotic symptoms surgical damage to the dopamine pathways, seperating front part of the brain from the back Result: lessons psychotic symptoms lecture notes - PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 8  stopped dreaming impoverished fantasy and curiosity in waking life This led to Solms finding that the Mesolimbic-mesocortical dopamine pathway is important for dreaming rather than REM Damage to this pathway causes dreaming to cease but REM continues some anti-psychotic medication stops symptoms by blocking dopamine which inhibits dreaming can also increase frequency and vividness of dreams through chemical dopamind stimulation. Role of dopamine Associated with motivation and reward Dopamine pathway motivates the subject to seek out and engage in external objects which can satisfy their inner biological needs Damage to pathway is associated with reduction in motivated behaviour Dreaming dopamine link suggests dreams are associated with desires - Supporting Freud lecture notes - PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 9  Claudio Colac Investigated drug dreams; took the biological drive of fustration paradigm (the idea that dreams reflect fustrated drives and desires) and tested the freudiam theory. Do addicted individuals dream of taking druges when undergoing withdrawals? Before Colac did this, there was 40 years of research in addiction literature which noted that people withdrawng from things (like caffiene) dream of those things (such as coffee). Greater frequency of dreaming of taking a substance that is wanted. From Freudian perspective - the desire is being gratified from biological fustration. Hobson from McCarley and Hobson (1977) on REM sleep and dream motivation: Perspective changed to : keeping with the assumption that dreaming is motivated and the important motivational goals may be revealed in dreams. lecture notes - PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 10  The emergence of Neuropsychoanalysis Neuropsychoanalysis: a link between all of psychoanalysis and the neurosciences. subjective data alone does not provide a solid foundation for psychoanalysis Neural evidence for the id? Primary emotional systems: Jaak Panksepp Identified 7 subcortical ‘basic emotional command systems’ (subcortical structures related to specific emotional responses): lust fear fight or flight care panic rage play A child with outer structures of the brain no longer existen - still conscious of the world around them and are responsive. consciousness is not generated in the cortex generated in the primitive parts of the brain not inherently perceptual or cognitive Solms: Consciousness is not generated in the cortex it is generated in the brain stem. it is not inherently perceptual; it is inherently affective; has less to dow ith cognition than with instinct primarily emtional creatures than cogntiive ones conclusion: conscioiusness is generated in the Id and the ego is fundamentally unconscious lecture notes - PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 11