Chapter 9
Psychoanalytic Approaches to Personality

Chapter Outline

 

Introduction

• Ross Cheit: A case of recovered memories
• Brief biography of Sigmund Freud

Why is Psychoanalysis Important?

• Continuing influence on modern psychotherapy
• Continuing influence on research topics, including the unconscious and defense mechanisms
• Continuing influence on popular Western culture
• Laid foundation for topics and questions that psychologists are still interested in today

 

Fundamental Assumptions of Psychoanalytic Theory

• Human mind is like a “hydraulic” system, operating by internal pressure
• Personality change occurs with redirection of a person’s psychic energy

 

Basic Instincts: Sex and Aggression

• Instincts: Strong innate forces that provide all the energy in the psychic system
• Freud’s original theory of instincts was influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution
• In initial formulation, two instinct classes: Self-preservation instincts, sexual instincts
• In later formulations, Freud collapsed self-preservation and sexual instincts into one, called life instinct (libido); added death instinct (thanatos)
• Although Freud initially argued life and death instincts oppose each other, later he argued they could combine (e.g., in eating)

 

Unconscious Motivation: Sometimes We Don’t Know Why We Do What We Do

• Unconscious: Part of the mind holding thoughts and memories about which person is unaware; includes unacceptable sexual and aggressive urges, thoughts, and feelings
• Human mind consists of three parts
• Conscious: Contains thoughts, feelings, and images about which you are presently aware
• Preconscious: Contains information you are not presently thinking about, but can be easily retrieved and made conscious
• Unconscious: Largest part of the human mind
• Iceberg metaphor
• Freud argued that unconscious material can take on a life of its own—Freud called this the “motivated unconscious”—material can “leak” into thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
• One of Freud’s most famous students: Carl Gustav Jung
• Collective unconscious
• Archetypes

 

Psychic Determinism: Nothing Happens by Chance

• Freud argued that nothing happens by accident—instead, there is a reason behind every act, thought, and feeling
• Everything we do, think, say, feel is an expression of our mind—either conscious, preconscious, or unconscious
• Reasons could be discovered if contents of the unconscious could be examined
• Most symptoms of mental illness are caused by unconscious motivations
• To cure psychological symptoms, the unconscious cause must be discovered

Structure of Personality

• Psychoanalytic personality theory concerns how people cope with their sexual and aggressive instincts within the constraints of civilized society
• One part of the mind creates these urges, another part has a sense of what society expects, and another part tries to satisfy urges within the bounds of reality and society
• Mind as a plumbing system, which contains water under pressure
• Pressure is a metaphor for energy from instincts, which builds up and demands release
• Regarding this internal pressure, three different schools of plumbing:
• One plumber (Id) suggests we open up all valves at the slightest pressure
• Another (Ego) offers ways to redirect pressure so that the strain is relieved without making a mess
• Another (Superego) wants to keep all the valves closed

 

Id: Reservoir of Psychic Energy

• Most primitive part of the mind, source of all drives and urges
• Operates according to the pleasure principle, which is the desire for immediate gratification
• Functions according to primary process thinking, thinking without logical rules of conscious thought or anchor in reality
• Wish fulfillment: Something unavailable is conjured up and the image of it is temporarily satisfying

Ego: Executive of Personality

• Constrains id to reality
• Develops within first two or three years of life
• Operates according to reality principle: Ego understands that urges of id are often in conflict with social and physical reality
• Operates according to secondary process thinking, development and devising of strategies for problem solving and obtaining satisfaction

Superego: Upholder of Societal Values and Ideals

• Internalizes ideals, values, and moral of society
• What some refer to as the “conscience”
• Main tool of the superego in enforcing right and wrong is the emotion of guilt
• Like id, superego is not bound by reality

            Interactions of the Id, Ego, and Superego

 

Dynamics of Personality

            Types of Anxiety

• Anxiety is an unpleasant state that signals that things are not right and something must be done
• Signals that control of ego is being threatened by reality, by impulses from id, or by harsh controls exerted by superego
• Objective anxiety occurs in response to real, external threat to a person
• Neurotic anxiety occurs when there is direct conflict between id and ego
• Moral anxiety is caused by conflict between ego and superego
• In all three types of anxiety, the function of ego is to cope with threats and to defend against dangers in order to reduce anxiety
• Ego accomplishes this through the use of defense mechanisms
• Repression
• Denial
• Displacement
• Rationalization
• Reaction formation
• Projection
• Sublimation

 

            Defense Mechanisms

Psychosexual Stages of Personality Development

• Freud argued that all people pass through a series of stages in personality development
• At each of the first three stages, young children must face and resolve specific conflicts
• Conflicts revolve around ways of obtaining sexual gratification
• Children see sexual gratification at each stage by investing libidinal energy in a specific body part
• If a child fails to resolve a conflict at a particular stage, he or she may get stuck in that stage or become fixated
• Each successive stage represents a more mature mode of obtaining sexual gratification
• Oral stage (birth to 18 months)
• Main sources of pleasure and tension reduction are the mouth, lips, and tongue
• Key conflict is weaning—withdrawing from the breast or bottle
• Anal stage (18 months to three years)
• Child obtains pleasure from first expelling feces and then, during toilet training, from retaining feces
• Many conflicts arise around the child’s ability to achieve self-control
• Phallic stage (three to five years)
• Child discovers he has (or that she doesn’t have) a penis
• Sexual desire directed toward the parent of opposite sex
• Produces Oedipal and Electra conflicts—unconscious wish to have opposite-sex parent all to self by eliminating the same-sex parent
• Latency stage (six year to puberty)
• Little psychological development occurs
• Focus of child is on learning skills and abilities necessary to succeed as adult
• Genital stage (puberty through adult life)
• Libido is focused on the genitals, but not in manner of self-manipulation associated with the phallic stage
• This stage is not accompanied by specific conflict
• People reach this stage only if conflicts are resolved at previous stages

 

Personality and Psychoanalysis

• Psychoanalysis also a method of psychotherapy—a method of deliberately restructuring personality

 

Making the Unconscious Conscious

• Goal of psychoanalysis is to make the unconscious conscious
• First aim of psychoanalysis is to identify unconscious thoughts and feelings
• Once a patient is aware of this material, the second aim is to enable the person to deal with it realistically and maturely

Techniques for Revealing the Unconscious

• Free association
• Dream analysis
• Projective techniques

The Process of Psychoanalysis

• Psychoanalyst offers interpretations of psychodynamic causes of problems
• Through many interpretations, the patient gains “insight”—an understanding of the unconscious source of problems
• But process is difficult and wrought with roadblocks and challenges
• Patient resistance
• Patient transference
• Repetition compulsion

Evaluation of Freud’s Contributions

• Psychoanalysis has had major impact on psychology, psychiatry, and Western thought generally
• But many criticisms
• Freud’s theory is primarily of historical value and does not directly inform much current personality research
• Freud did not believe in the value of experimentation or hypothesis testing in establishing the validity of psychoanalysis
• Freud relied on case studies of a select group of wealthy women to generate his theory of human nature
• Some personality psychologists take issue with Freud’s negative view of human nature

 

SUMMARY AND EVALUATION

• Freud’s theory of human nature emphasizes how the psyche is compartmentalized into conscious and unconscious portions
• Psychoanalysis aims to make a patient’s unconscious conscious
• The value of psychoanalysis is debated

 

KEY TERMS

Psychic Energy                                              Rationalization
Instincts                                                         Reaction Formation
Libido                                                            Projection
Thanatos                                                        False Consensus Effect
Conscious                                                      Sublimation
Preconscious                                                  Psychosexual Stage Theory
Unconscious                                                  Fixation
Collective Unconscious                                 Oral Stage                  
Personal Unconscious                                                Anal Stage
Archetypes                                                    Phallic Stage
Motivated Unconscious                                 Oedipal Conflict
Subliminal Psychodynamic Activation         Castration Anxiety                
Id                                                                   Identification
Pleasure Principle                                          Penis Envy                
Primary Process Thinking                             Electra Complex        
Wish Fulfillment                                           Latency Stage
Ego                                                                Genital Stage
Reality Principle                                            Psychoanalysis                      
Secondary Process Thinking                         Free Association        
Superego                                                        Dream Analysis
Anxiety                                                          Manifest Content
Defense Mechanisms                                     Latent Content          
Objective Anxiety                                         Symbols
Neurotic Anxiety                                           Projective Hypothesis
Moral Anxiety                                               Interpretations
Repression                                                     Insight                                   
Denial                                                            Resistance
Fundamental Attribution Error                      Transference                          
Displacement             

Chapter Overview

 

This chapter provides students with an overview of classical psychoanalytic theory and therapy, as presented by Sigmund Freud. The authors begin with a brief review of the story of Ross Cheit, a famous case of recovered memories, to illustrate the possibility that traumatic experiences can be repressed into the unconscious, only to be driven up many years later. The authors then present a brief biography of Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. Next the authors review the fundamental assumptions of psychoanalytic theory, highlighting the basic instincts of sex and aggression, later termed by Freud the life and death instincts, respectively. According to Freud, the mind is made up of three key parts—the conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious. According to Freud, the unconscious houses all the dreams, wishes, desires, and experiences that are too upsetting or disturbing for conscious awareness. Material that is brought up from the unconscious into the conscious causes anxiety and psychological and physiology distress. Much of a person’s psychic energy therefore is used to keep this material relegated to the unconscious. A final fundamental assumption of psychoanalytic theory is that of “psychic determinism”—that nothing happens by chance. Instead, all thoughts, feelings, and behaviors reveal something about the internal conflict within the person. Next the authors review Freud’s theory about the structure of personality. Personality is made up of three parts—the id (the reservoir of psychic energy), the ego (the executive of personality), and the superego (the upholder of societal values and ideals). The authors then discuss the three types of anxiety presented by Freud—objective, neurotic, and moral anxiety. Anxiety, according to Freud, is a clue that the person is facing some objective or internal conflict or threat. Because anxiety is upsetting and can interfere with normal functioning, the ego engages various defense mechanisms to reduce this anxiety by disguising for consciousness the conflict that generates this anxiety. These defense mechanisms include repression, denial, rationalization, and sublimation. Next the authors review Freud’s five-stage theory of psychosexual development. The authors then move to a discussion of psychoanalysis as a form of psychological therapy. Psychoanalytic therapy is designed to make unconscious material conscious and thereby allow the patient to gain insight into psychic conflicts. The authors evaluate the contributions of Freud’s theory of personality and psychotherapy, highlighting the impact his work had on the field of psychology in general, and on personality and clinical psychology in particular. The authors close with a discussion of some of the criticisms of classical psychoanalysis.

 

Learning Objectives

• Discuss Freud’s analogy that the human mind is like a “hydraulic” system operating by internal pressure.

 

• Discuss Freud’s conception of instinct and the role instincts play in human nature and human personality. Review the basic instincts of sex and aggression.

• Discuss how Freud’s conceptualization of the basic instincts changed, from a focus on sexual and aggressive instincts to the instincts of libido and thanatos.

 

• Discuss Freud’s ideas about unconscious motivation and the key idea that we don’t always know why we do what we do.

• Identify and discuss each of the three parts of the human mind, as presented by Freud. Include a review of the functions and operations of each of these three parts of the mind.

 

• Distinguish between the unconscious and the motivated unconscious.

• Review Freud’s contention that nothing happens by chance, or what has been referred to as the basic assumption of “psychic determinism.”

 

• Review empirical and theoretical work on subliminal psychodynamic activation. What are the key findings generated by this research, and what do they reveal about the status of Freud’s thinking?

• Discuss each of the three components of human personality, as presented by Freud: Id, ego, and superego. Include a review of the development and function of each of these parts of personality.

 

• Review the role of anxiety in psychoanalytic theory. Discuss the three types of anxiety identified by Freud.

• Discuss the role of defense mechanisms, according to psychoanalytic theory—what are they designed to do? How do they operate? Be familiar with the following defense mechanisms: Repression, denial, displacement, rationalization, reaction formation, projection, and sublimation.

 

• Discuss empirical work on repression. What can be concluded from this research, and how does this research inform Freud’s original presentation of repression?

• Review Freud’s five-stage theory of psychosexual development. Discuss the key challenges and conflicts that occur at each stage.

 

• Review the key components of psychoanalytic therapy. What is the goal of psychoanalytic therapy and why? What techniques are used in psychoanalytic therapy?

• Review the key components of the process of psychoanalytic therapy, including interpretation, resistance, transference, and repetition compulsion.

 

• Discuss the impact of psychoanalysis on psychology, in general, and personality and clinical psychology in particular.

• Be familiar with the key criticisms of psychoanalysis as a theory of human personality.

 

Lecture Topics and Lecture Suggestions

• The Psychodynamics of Disgust (Juni, 1984). Students typically enjoy discussions of disgust,

particularly as they relate to Freud’s anal stage of psychosexual development. This lecture is designed to provide students with an example of empirical work that has investigated the psychodynamics of disgust. Use this lecture as a springboard for discussing Freud’s psychosexual stages of development, in general, and the anal stage in particular. Also guide students to consider the phenomenon of fixation, in this case at the anal stage. A general discussion of fixation also will be useful to students at this point. Allow students to generate their own ideas about disgust, about fixation, and about the anal stage of psychosexual development. Students will enjoy this discussion, once they recognize that they are free to discuss issues that often generate some initial embarrassment.

• The disgust reaction derives from the anal stage of psychosexual development
• The disgust reaction is a mechanism of reaction formation and is subsequently used by the ego as a means of countering libidinal fixational drives
• In addressing the general nature of the disgust reaction and the specificity of disgust to certain activities, it was hypothesized that
• Disgust in a specific area would correlate negatively with that type of fixation, and
• Disgustedness as a trait would correlate with the general anal-compulsive character typology
• 34 male and 23 female undergraduates completed a self-administered Rorschach
• Rorschach was scored to yield fixation indices of orality, anality, and sadism
• Participants also rated the disgustingness of 30 activities (e.g., slurping soup)
• High inter-correlations found between the disgust reactions, regardless of content, rendered it impossible to test Hypothesis 1, but
• Hypothesis 2 was supported:
• Disgustedness as a trait correlated with the general anal-compulsive character typology
• According to the author, the results confirm the potential of anality in the verification of psychoanalytic theory

 

Reference:

            Juni, S. (1984). The psychodynamics of disgust. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 144, 203–208.

• Memories of Parental Rearing Practices and Personality Features (Benjaminsen et al., 1984). This lecture provides an example of research designed to test the general hypothesis that parenting practices can impact personality development. It is an interesting study, and students are likely to find it intriguing and controversial. The authors highlight the relationship between socially disapproved female personality traits and fixation at a particular stage of development. Use this lecture as a springboard for discussing the stages of psychosexual development and the impact of parenting practices on personality. For instructors who wish to engage students in controversial discussion, this lecture also provides a springboard for discussing the possibility that psychoanalysts might sometimes display sexism in their theoretical formulations and empirical investigations. An interesting question the instructor might raise is whether recalled child-rearing practices are likely to be accurate descriptions of actual child-rearing practices.

 

• Benjaminsen et al (1984) examined the relationship between one's own memories of parental rearing practices and adult personality features
• Employed a sample of 114 female and 86 male 18–72 year olds
• Participants completed:
• Own Memories of Child-Rearing Experiences (EMBU)
• Eysenck Personality Questionnaire
• Self-rating scale for oral, obsessive, and hysterical personality traits
• Relations between the two sets of variables (recalled child-rearing practices and personality traits) were examined using the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient
• For the male sample, all correlations were nonsignificant
• For females, there were several significant correlations
• Most consistent finding was that the experience of negative parental rearing factors was associated with pathological personality features
• About one-half of the significant correlations were found between females’ hysterical scores and their scores on the EMBU regarding their relationship with their fathers
• According to Benjaminsen et al. (1984), the findings support the general assumption that:
• Females with hysterical traits have complicated relations with their fathers, and that
• This may indicate fixation in the oedipal stage

Reference:

Benjaminsen, S., Jorgensen, J., Kragh-Hansen, L., & Pedersen, L. L. (1984). Memories of parental rearing practices and personality features. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 69, 426–434.

Classroom Activities and Demonstrations

• Review for students that, although Freud initially believed that the life instinct and death instinct worked to oppose one another, he later argued that they could combine in various ways. Consider the act of eating. Eating obviously serves the life instinct, entailing consumption of nutrients necessary for survival. At the same time, eating also involves acts of tearing, biting, and chewing, which Freud thought could be seen as aggressive manifestations of the death instinct. What are some other possible examples of the combination of the life instinct and death instinct? Distribute Activity Handout 9-1 (“Combinations of the Life Instinct and Death Instinct”). Give students about five minutes to complete the handout. Then encourage students to share some of their examples. Use this activity and the associated discussion as a springboard for additional discussion about the life instinct, the death instinct, and the combination of these two instincts in different behaviors. Encourage students to discuss whether they think humans indeed have these two instincts, as Freud proposed. Do students think these two instincts can be combined in the way Freud proposed? Is it necessary to invoke these two instincts and the combination of these two instincts to understand the examples generated by students? Why or why not?

 

• According to Freud, the mind is made up of three basic parts—the id, the ego, and the superego. If each of these parts of the mind could be represented as people, what would they look like? What would they say? What might be their goals in life, and how would they achieve them? Distribute Activity Handout 9-2 (“Id, Ego, and Superego”). Give students about five minutes to complete the handout. Ask students to volunteer their responses. Use this activity as a springboard to discuss more formally the three parts of the mind, as presented by Freud.

• According to classical psychoanalysis, the function of the ego is to cope with threats and to defend against the dangers they pose in order to reduce anxiety. The ego accomplishes this through the use of various defense mechanisms. Defense mechanisms enable the ego to control anxiety. Although intrapsychic conflicts frequently evoke anxiety, people may successfully defend themselves from conflict and never consciously feel the anxiety. This is accomplished through the use of defense mechanisms. Review with students the nature of each of the following defense mechanisms: Repression, denial, displacement, rationalization, reaction formation, projection, and sublimation. Distribute Activity Handout 9-3 (“Defense Mechanisms”). Give students between 5 and 10 minutes to complete the handout. Ask students to volunteer their responses. Use this activity and the discussion as a springboard to more formally discuss defense mechanisms, in general, and each of the defense mechanisms addressed in this activity, in particular.

 

Questions for In-Class Discussion

 

• Freud has been referred to as “the original archaeologist of the mind.” Ask students to discuss what this analogy means. Guide students to the general conclusion that Freud sought to “dig deep” into the mind, to discover its “treasures.” According to Freud, to understand human nature and the human mind, one must ultimately understand the workings and contents of the unconscious—the deepest recesses of the human mind. Allow students time to discuss among themselves and with you the various ways in which Freud’s theory of personality, and his psychoanalytic therapy strategies, make him a good candidate for the title of “the original archaeologist of the mind.”

• Freud believed that the human mind was like a “hydraulic” system, operating by internal pressure. Ask students to discuss what this means, in their own words. As presented in Larsen and Buss, just as an earth-moving machine lifts its load by shunting hydraulic pressure from one area to the left cylinder, humans behave in certain ways, according to Freud, because they shunt psychic “pressure” or psychic “energy” from one activity to another. This psychic energy is the fundamental “hydraulic fluid” of the mind. Freud believed that psychic energy operated according to the law of conservation of energy: The amount of psychic energy a person possesses remained constant throughout his or her life. Personality change is viewed as a redirection of a person’s psychic energy.

 

• According to Freud, human personality is composed of three structures: the id, the ego, and the superego. Ask students to describe and discuss each of these parts of the mind, as proposed by Freud. Ask students to describe how each structure develops, how it functions, and how it interacts with the remaining two structures. Guide students to the general conclusions that the id is the “reservoir of psychic energy,” that the ego is the “executive of personality,” and that the superego is the “upholder of societal values and ideals.”

 

Critical Thinking Essays

• According to Freud, dreams are “the royal road to the unconscious.” What did he mean by this? Include in your response a discussion of dream analysis, and distinguish between the manifest content of a dream and the latent content of a dream. Also address the interpretation of dream symbols. Next, discuss, in your own words, the three functions of dreams, according to Freud. Finally, provide a critique of Freud’s ideas about dreams, including what you admire or appreciate about his ideas, and what you dislike or find unconvincing about his ideas.

 

• Why is the goal of psychoanalytic therapy “to make the unconscious conscious”? According to Freud, how can one accomplish this? Why does psychoanalytic therapy take so long, sometimes as long as a decade of one-hour sessions that meet three times a week? Once you have answered these questions, answer the following questions: What do you think of these ideas? What are the strengths of these ideas? What are the weaknesses? Do they appeal to you or not? Why or why not?

• According to Freud, personality development is largely complete by five or six years of age. In your own words, what led Freud to this conclusion? Include in your response a discussion of each of the five stages of psychosexual development. What is the key theme or conflict of each psychosexual stage? If, according to Freud, personality development is largely complete by five or six years, are there any circumstances or any conditions in which personality can change late in life? What are these circumstances or conditions?

 

Research Papers

• Larsen and Buss present several studies that investigated the phenomenon of subliminal psychodynamic activation (SPA). First, discuss, in your own words, what this phenomenon means, how it is investigated, and what some of the key results of these investigations reveal. Next, locate three original articles that present an empirical investigation of SPA. Locate three articles that are not discussed at length in Larsen and Buss. Any one of the many articles published by Lloyd Silverman (and not discussed at length by Larsen and Buss) would be appropriate, but you can choose others as well. For each article, summarize what the researchers investigated, how they investigated it, and what they found.

 

• According to classical psychoanalysis, projection is a key defense mechanism. First, and in your own words, define projection, and discuss how and when it is used. Next, provide a few examples of the use of projection. Then conduct a search of the psychological research literature. Identify three articles that present an empirical investigation of projection. For each article, summarize what the researchers investigated, how they investigated it, and what they found. Finally, and for each article, discuss how the results might have been interpreted by Freud, had they been published when he was alive.

• According to Freud, all people pass through a series of stages in personality development. This theory of personality development is known as the psychosexual stage theory. First, discuss this theory, including brief reviews of each of these five stages of development. Include in your discussion a review of the key challenges and conflicts that occur during each stage. Next, conduct a search of the psychological research literature. Identify three articles that empirically investigate personality development during the first five or six years of life. For each article, summarize what the researchers investigated, how they investigated it, and what they found. Finally, and for each article, discuss how Freud might have interpreted the results, had they been published when he was alive.

 

Recent Research Articles and Other Scholarly Readings

Anderson, S. M., & Berk, M. S. (1998). The social-cognitive model of transference: Experiencing past relationships in the present. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 7, 109–115.

Baumeister, R. F., Dale, K., & Sommer, K. L. (1998). Freudian defense mechanisms and empirical findings in modern social psychology: Reaction formation, projection, displacement, undoing, isolation, sublimation, and denial. Journal of Personality, 66, 1081–1124.

Blatt, S. J., & Auerbach, J. S. (2000). Psychoanalytic models of the mind and their contributions to personality research. European Journal of Personality, 14, 429–447.

Cramer, P. (1999). Ego functions and ego development: Defense mechanisms and intelligence as predictors of ego level. Journal of Personality, 67, 735–760.

Cramer, P. (2000). Defense mechanisms in psychology today: Further processes for adaptation. American Psychologist, 55, 637–646.

Cramer, P., & Block, J. (1998). Preschool antecedents of defense mechanism use in young adults: A longitudinal study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 159–169.

Daly, M., & Wilson, M. (1990). Is parent-offspring conflict sex-linked? Freudian and Darwinian models. Journal of Personality, 58, 163–189.

Davis, D. A. (1994). A theory for the 90s: Traumatic seduction in historical context. Psychoanalytic Review, 81, 627–640.

Freud, S. (1910). The origin and development of psychoanalysis. American Journal of Psychology, 21, 181–218.

Glassman, N. S., & Andersen, S. M. (1999). Activating transference without consciousness: Using significant-other representations to go beyond what is subliminally given. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 1146–1162.

Grünbaum, A. (1986). Précis of the foundations of psychoanalysis: A philosophical critique. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 9, 217–284.

Kernberg, O. (1998). Narcissistic personality disorders. Journal of European Psychoanalysis, 7, 7–18.

Loftus, E. F. (1997). Memories for a past that never was. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 6, 60–65.

Migone, P., & Liotti, G. (1998). Psychoanalysis and cognitive-evolutionary psychology: An attempt at integration. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 79, 1071–1095.

Popper, K. R. (1969). Science: Conjectures and refutations. In K. R. Popper, Conjectures and refutations (3rd ed., pp. 33–65). London: Routledge.

Silverman, L. H., & Weinberger, J. (1985). Mommy and I are one: Implications for psychotherapy. American Psychologist, 40, 1296–1308.

Sohlberg, S., Birgegard, A., Czartoryski, W., Ovefelt, K., & Strömbom, Y. (2000). Symbiotic oneness and defensive autonomy: Yet another experiment demystifying Silverman’s findings using “Mommy and I are one.” Journal of Research in Personality, 34, 108–126.

Vaillant, G. E. (1994). Ego mechanisms of defense and personality psychopathology. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103, 44–50.

Westen, D. (1998). The scientific legacy of Sigmund Freud: Toward a psychodynamically informed psychological science. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 333–371.
Westen, D., & Gabbard, G. O. (1999). Psychoanalytic approaches to personality. In L. A. Pervin & O. P. John (Eds.) Handbook of personality (2nd ed., pp. 57–101). New York: Guilford.

Activity Handout 9-1:
Combinations of the Life Instinct and Death Instinct

Instructions: Freud initially believed that the life instinct and death instinct worked to oppose one another, he later argued that they could combine in various ways. Consider the act of eating. Eating obviously serves the life instinct, entailing consumption of nutrients necessary for survival. At the same time, eating also involves acts of tearing, biting, and chewing, which Freud thought could be seen as aggressive manifestations of the death instinct. What are some other possible examples of the combination of the life instinct and death instinct?

 

1. ____________________________________________________________________________

 

2. ____________________________________________________________________________

 

3. ____________________________________________________________________________

 

4. ____________________________________________________________________________

 

5. ____________________________________________________________________________

 

Activity Handout 9-2:
Id, Ego, and Superego

Instructions: According to Freud, the mind is made up of three basic parts—the id, the ego, and the superego. If each of these parts of the mind could be represented as people, what would they look like? What would they say? What might be their goals in life, and how would they achieve them?

 

Id:

 

 

 

 

 

Ego:

 

 

 

 

 

Superego:

Activity Handout 9-3:
Defense Mechanisms

Instructions: Provide an everyday example of each of the following defense mechanisms in operation. Try to be as specific as possible about the unconscious wish or need that is being dealt with by the use of this defense mechanism. Do not use an example presented by Larsen and Buss.

• Repression:

 

 

• Denial:

 

 

• Displacement:

 

 

• Rationalization:

 

 

• Reaction formation:

 

 

• Projection:

 

 

• Sublimation: