1. SIGMUND FREUD

2. Sigmund Freud was a very controversial personality theorist, and was an Austrian physician (page 6).

3. Sigmund Freud constructed his theory of personality from a handful of case studies
Bertha Pappenheim Sergei Pankenjeff
“Anna O” “Wolfman”

4. Anna O's Significance in Psychology:
Bertha Pappenheim, referred to as Anna O. in the case history, came to Josef Breur for treatment for what was then known as hysteria. While caring for her dying father, Pappenheim experienced a range of symptoms that included partial paralysis, blurred vision, headaches and hallucinations. During the course of treatment, which lasted from 1880 to 1882, Breuer found that talking about her experiences seemed to offer some relief from her symptoms. Pappenheim dubbed the treatment as the “talking cure.”

5. Anna O. continued . . .
While Freud never actually met Pappenheim, her story fascinated him and served as the basis for Studies on Hysteria (1895), a book co-written by Breuer and Freud. Breuer’s description of her treatment led Freud to conclude that hysteria was rooted in childhood sexual abuse.

6. Anna O. conclusion
Freud’s insistence on sexuality as a cause eventually led to a rift with Breuer, who did not share this view on the origination of hysteria. "The plunging into sexuality in theory and practice is not to my taste," Breuer explained (Grubin, 2002). While the friendship and collaboration soon ended, Freud would continue his work in the development of talk therapy as a treatment for mental illness.

7. Wolfman’s Significance
For Freud, interpretation was necessary to give meaning to the apparently random thoughts of free association. Freud's focus was on reading the obscure language of the unconscious, and he developed techniques of interpretation in order to do so. In the cases of patients known as Rat Man and Wolf Man, he wove together elaborate stories, explanations, and speculations to make sense out of constellations of symptoms that seemed impossibly puzzling. These case histories, written for colleagues, read like detective novels in which the analyst deciphers the significance of symptoms as if they are clues.

8. The Case of the Wolf Man
In the case history known as "The Wolf Man," Sergei Pankejeff ( ), a wealthy Russian aristocrat, is described as suffering from debilitating compulsions and fears resulting from his sexual development having gone awry at an early age. Freud focused Pankejeff's attention on a childhood dream which seemed to encapsulate his early traumas and current fears: a dream of wolves perched in a tree outside his open bedroom window. Doctor and patient sought to determine the wish that the dream disguised.

9. Sigmund Freud (1935) put it most simply: The healthy adult, he said, is one who can love and work.
For most adults, love centers on family commitments toward partner, parents and children.
Work encompasses all our productive activities, whether for pay or not. Was Freud right? Does work, including a career, indeed contribute to self-fulfillment and life satisfaction?

10. Freud’s View of Dreams According to Freud dreams have 2 components:
Manifest Content-the storyline of our dreams-sometimes incorporates traces of previous days’ experiences and preoccupations.
Latent Content-censored symbolic version-consists of unconscious drives and wishes that may be threatening if expressed directly.
Freud’s View of Dreams

11. Personality Theory According to Freud (pages 575-586)
Personality is defined as follows:
Our characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.
Freud’s psychoanalytic perspective proposed that childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence personality.
Freud called his theory and associated techniques psychoanalysis.
Unconscious-large below the surface area which contains thoughts, wishes,
feelings and memories, of which we are unaware.
Free association-the patient is asked to relax and say whatever comes to mind,
no matter how embarrassing or trivial.

12. Personality Structure according to Freud
ID-a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy constantly striving to satisfy basic drives to survive, reproduce, and aggress.
The id operates on the pleasure principle: If not constrained but reality, it seeks immediate gratification.
Ego-the largely conscious, “executive” part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates the demands of the id, superego, and reality.
The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain.
Superego-represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscious) and for future aspirations.

15. Freud’s Psychosexual Stages
Oral (0-18 months)
Anal (18-36 months)
Phallic (3-6 years)
Latency (6 to puberty)
Genital (puberty on)
FOCUS
Pleasure centers on the mouth-sucking, chewing, biting
Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination; coping with demands for control
Pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with incestuous sexual feelings
Dormant sexual feeling
Maturation of sexual interest

16. Important Psychosexual Stage Theory Vocabulary
Oedipus complex-a boy’s sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father
Girls go through this too, it is called the Electra complex and is prevalent around age four for both genders
Identification-the process by which, children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos
Fixation-a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, where conflicts were unresolved.

17. DEFENSE MECHANISM Tactics that reduce or redirect anxiety in various ways, but always by distorting reality.
Repression
Regression
Reaction formation
Projection
Rationalization
Displacement
banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts and feelings from consciousness
retreating to an earlier, more infantile stage of development
the ego unconsciously makes unacceptable impulses look like their opposites
Attributing one’s own unacceptable threatening impulses to others
offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one’s actions
shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person, as when redirecting anger toward a safer outlet

18. Contributions to Psychology:
Regardless of the perception of Sigmund Freud’s theories, there is no question that he had an enormous impact on the field of psychology. His work supported the belief that not all mental illnesses have physiological causes and he also offered evidence that cultural differences have an impact on psychology and behavior. His work and writings contributed to our understanding of personality, clinical psychology, human development and abnormal psychology.
Freud also influenced many other prominent psychologists, and this is evident in aspects of therapy today.