Personality Chapter 4: A Psychodynamic Theory: Applications and Evaluation of Freud s Theory

Personality Chapter 4: A Psychodynamic Theory: Applications and Evaluation of Freud s Theory 1) Clinical Applications Psychoanalysis emphasizes unconscious processes and the interplay among motives. A) Assessment: Projective Tests Projective tests are the most closely linked to psychoanalytic theory. Projective tests use ambiguous stimuli to elicit highly individualistic responses which can then be interpreted by the clinician. The idea is that their interpretations will reveal aspects of the test taker s personality. The assumption is that the test taker s responses will be indicative of emotional themes and thinking styles that come into play in the person s day-to-day thoughts about events in their life. The two most popular projective tests are the Rorschach Inkblot Test and the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). Both are unstructured meaning that they allow subjects to respond in their own unique ways. Both are also disguised tests in that generally, the subjects are unaware of their purpose or of how particular responses will be interpreted. Projective tests allow subjects to respond with complete freedom in terms of both content and organization. In projective tests, the directions and stimuli provide few guidelines for responding and the purposes of the test and interpretations of responses are hidden from the subject. Projective tests generally lead to holistic interpretations based on the patterning and organization rather than on the interpretation of a single response reflecting a particular characteristic. a) The Rorschach Inkblot Test Although inkblots had been used earlier, Hermann Rorschach first fully grasped the potential use of these stimuli for personality assessment. Rorschach put ink on paper and folded the paper so that symmetrical but ill-defined forms were produced. The test consists of 10 inkblots. He thought that the data from the inkblot test would increase understanding of the unconscious and have relevance for psychoanalytic theory. Subjects are asked to look at each card and tell the examiner what they see anything that might be represented on the card. In interpreting the test, one is interested in how the response is formed, the reasons for the response and its content. The interpreter assumes that the subject s personality is projected onto unstructured stimuli such as inkblots. The basic assumption is that the way individuals form their perceptions is related to the way they generally organize and structure stimuli in their environments. Perceptions that match the structure of the inkblot suggest a good level of psychological functioning. Poorly formed responses that do not fit the structure of the inkblot suggest unrealistic fantasies or bizarre behaviour. It is important to realize that the test is not interpreted on the basis of one response alone but in relation to the total sum of responses. In relation to the subject s behaviour, the examiner notes all unusual behaviour and uses this as a source of data for further interpretation. b) The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) was developed by Henry Murray and Christina Morgan. The TAT consists of cards with ambiguous scenes on them. The subject is to make up a story based on the scene on the card, including what s going on, the thoughts and feelings of the participants, what led up to the scene and the outcome. The test is based on the wellrecognized fact that when a person interprets an ambiguous social situation, he is apt to expose his own personality as much as the phenomenon to which he is attending. The TAT is used to discover unconscious and inhibited tendencies. The assumption is that subjects are not aware they are talking about themselves and thus, their defences can be bypassed. B) Illustrative Research Use a) Projective Tests Do They Work? Do they work? Are they valid? These questions are actually more complicated than they sound. There are at least 2 complications: 1) There is a possibility that projective tests predict some types of outcomes but not others

2) There are different ways of scoring projective tests. It is possible then, that some scoring systems might work well, whereas others might not. Meta-analyses revealed that some scoring methods are valid for some purposes. There is evidence that the TAT responses are correlated with measures of motivated behaviour. However, such a result proved to be an exception: the review indicated that projective tests commonly do not work. And although there may be some validity to methods for scoring achievement themes in TAT responses, most TAT scoring systems, like the Rorschach systems, also lack validity. Why don t projective tests work very well? There are a few possible reasons: 1) Inter-judge reliability: the thoughts, feelings and interpretive biases of the psychologist may influence the scoring of the test 2) The content of the projective test items commonly has nothing to do with the content of the test taker s day-to-day life. There is no guarantee that the person s thinking style will manifest itself when he or she is confronted with abstract blotches of ink. The few projective tests that are successful tend to be useful stimuli that are especially relevant to the construct being assessed. 2) Psychopathology A) Personality Types Freud thought that the first 5 years of life were critical in the individual's development. During these years, it is possible for a number of failures to occur in the development of the instincts. Such failures in the development are called fixations. If individuals receive so little gratification during a stage of development that they are afraid to go to the next stage, or if they receive so much gratification that there is no motivation to move on, a fixation will occur. If a fixation occurs, the individual will try to obtain the same type of satisfaction that was appropriate for an earlier stage of development during later stages. A developmental phenomenon related to that of fixation is regression. In regression, the individual seeks to return to an earlier mode of satisfaction, an earlier point of fixation. Regression often occurs under conditions of stress so that many people overeat, smoke or drink too much only during periods of frustration and anxiety. PERSONALITY TYPE Oral Anal Phallic PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS Demanding, impatient, envious, covetous, jealous, rageful, depressed, mistrustful, pessimistic Rigid, striving for power and control, concerned with should and oughts, pleasure and possessions, anxiety over waste and loss of control, concern with whether to submit or rebel Male: exhibitionistic, competitive, striving for success, emphasis on being masculine/macho/potent Female: naive, seductive, exhibitionistic, flirtatious a) The Oral Personality Oral personalities are narcissistic in that they are only interested in themselves and do not have a clear recognition of others as separate entities. b) The Anal Personality The anal person sees excretion as symbolic of enormous power. The anal character is known by a triad of traits, called the anal triad: orderliness and cleanliness, parsimony and stinginess, and obstinacy. c) The Phallic Personality

Fixation has different implications for men and women. The phallic male must at all times assert his masculinity and potency. The female counterpart is known as the hysterical personality. She may attract men with flirtatious behaviour but she denies sexual intent and appears to be somewhat naive. Hysterical women idealize life, their partners and romantic love. B) Conflict and Defense In psychopathology, there is a conflict between a drive or wish (instinct) and the ego s sense (anxiety) that danger will ensue if the wish is expressed. To guard against this and to ward off anxiety, defense mechanisms are used. In structural terms, a neurosis is a result of conflict between the id and the ego. However, if the conflict becomes too great, the use of defense mechanisms can lead to neurotic symptoms or psychotic withdrawal from reality. Symptoms express the unconscious conflict between the wish or drive and anxiety. Current Applications: Emotional Suppression and Health Over 50 years ago, psychoanalysts suggested a relation between specific conflicts and specific somatic difficulties. In developing the area of psychosomatic medicine, each disorder was thought to result from a specific emotional constellation. This line of psychology fell into disfavour because the relation between psychological factors and bodily illness seemed more complex than was originally suggested. Although different in form, currently there is a return to interest in some of these early psychoanalytic views. There is evidence that the continued suppression of emotion can be detrimental to one s health. Alternatively, the expression, or non-suppression, of emotion may represent an active, adaptive style of coping that reduces the risk of illness and bodes well for the course of an illness. 3) Behaviour Change Once a person has established a behavioural pattern, a way of thinking about and responding to situations, through what process does a change in personality take place? A) Insights into the Unconscious: Free Association and Dream Interpretation In his early efforts to change behaviour, Freud used a method called cathartic hypnosis. The view then held was that neurotic symptoms would be relieved by the discharge of blocked emotions. However, not everyone could be hypnotized. Freud focused on the free association method as basic to psychoanalysis. In free association, the patient is asked to report to the analyst every thought that comes to mind, to delay reporting nothing, to withhold nothing, to bar nothing from coming to consciousness. Dreams are the royal road to the unconscious. Dreams, like symptoms, are disguises and partial wish fulfillments. Free association allows the disguise to be uncovered. The process of therapeutic change in psychoanalysis involves coming to grips with emotions and wishes that were previously unconscious and struggling with these painful experiences in a relatively safe environment. B) The Therapeutic Process: Transference Psychoanalysis is viewed as a learning process in which the individual resumes and completes the growth process that was interrupted when the neurosis began. The principle involved is the reexposure of the patient, under more favourable circumstances, to the emotional situations that could not be handled in the past. Such reexposure is affected by the transference relationship and the development of a transference neurosis. Transference refers to a patient s development of attitudes toward the analyst based on attitudes held by that patient toward earlier parental figures. Encouraging transference, or providing the circumstances that allow it to develop, leads to the development of the transference neurosis. It is here that patients play out, full-blown, their old conflicts. The goal is no longer to get well, but to gain from the analyst what they had to do without in childhood.

Change occurs when insight has been gained, when patients realize, on both an intellectual and an emotional level, the nature of their conflicts and feel free, in terms of their new perceptions of themselves and the world, to gratify their instincts in a mature, conflict-free way. Basically, change occurs in analysis because of the three therapeutic factors: 1) In analysis, the conflict is less intense than it was in the original situation 2) The analyst assumes an attitude that is different from that of the parents 3) Patients in analysis are older and more mature A Case Example: Little Hans Little Hans was a boy who was afraid that a horse would bite him, and therefore refused to leave the house. At age three, Little Hans was preoccupied with penises. This led to castration threats from his mother. At the age of 4, Hans was still preoccupied with his penis, experienced pleasure in it and was concerned about the loss of it, and began some seduction of his mother. It was at this point that Hans was afraid that a horse would bite him in the street, and this fear seemed to be connected with Hans having been frightened by seeing a horse s large penis. Hans had been making comparisons among the sizes of penises of animals and was dissatisfied with his own. Big animals reminded him of the defect and were disagreeable to him. The cause of the phobia was witnessing a horse fall down and die. The father symbolized the horse. According to Freud, the major cause of Hans phobia was his Oedipus conflict. Hans felt considerable affection for his mother, more than he could handle during the phallic stage of his development. Hans considered his father a rival for his mother s affection. 4) Related Points of View and Recent Developments A) Two Early Challenges to Freud Adler and Jung both split with Freud over what they felt was an excessive emphasis on the sexual instincts. a) Alfred Adler (1870-1937) Adler placed greater emphasis on social urges and conscious thoughts. Adler was interested in psychological feelings of inferiority and compensatory strivings to mask or reduce these painful feelings. The emphasis gradually shifted to an emphasis on striving for superiority. Adler believed that from the beginning, people have a social interest, that is, an innate interest in relating to people and an innate potential for cooperation. He also emphasized how people respond to feelings about the self, how people respond to goals that direct their behaviour toward the future, and how the order of birth among siblings can influence their psychological development. In relation to birth order, many psychologists have noticed the tendency for only sons or first-born sons to achieve more than later sons in a family. b) Carl Jung (1875-1961) Jung split with Freud and developed his own school of thought called Analytical Psychology. Jung was distressed with what he felt was an excessive emphasis on sexuality. Jung viewed the libido not as a sexual instinct but as a generalized life energy. He believed the libido includes sexuality along with strivings for pleasure and creativity. Jung felt that Freud overemphasized the idea that our current behaviour is a repetition of the past, with the instinctual urges and psychological repressions of childhood being repeated in adult life. Jung believed that developed personality is also marked by a forward-moving directional tendency. Jung emphasized the evolutionary foundations of the human mind. Jung also added the concept of the collective unconscious. According to Jung, people have stored within their collective unconscious the cumulative experiences of past generations. The collective unconscious is universal. The collective unconscious contains universal images or symbols, known as archetypes. Freud emphasized how people struggle with opposing forces within them. For example, there is the struggle between the face or mask we present to others, represented in the archetype of the persona, and the private or personal self. Another example is between masculine (anima) and feminine (animus) parts of ourselves.

Jung emphasized that all individuals face a fundamental task: finding unity in the self. The task is to bringing into harmony, or integrate, the various opposing forces of the psyche. The person is motivated and guided along the path to personal knowledge and integration by the most important of all Jungain archetypes: the self. The self if an unconscious force, specifically, an aspect of the collective unconscious that functions as an organizing centre of the person s entire psychological system. To Jung, the search for the self is a never-ending quest: personality as a complete realization of the fullness of our being is an unattainable ideal. Another contrast in Jung s theory is that between introversion and extraversion. In the case of introversion, the person s basic orientation is inward, toward the self. The introverted type is hesitant, cautious, and reflective. In the case of extraversion, the person s basic orientation is outward, toward the outside world. The extraverted type is socially engaging, active and adventuresome. B) The Cultural and Interpersonal Emphasis Neo-Freudians are theorists who emphasize social rather than biological forces in behaviour, and include Horney and Sullivan. a) Karen Horney (1885-1952) Horney felt that her views were built on the tremendous contributions of Freud and were not replacements of them. Perhaps the major difference between her and Freud centers on the question of universal biological influences as opposed to cultural influences. She was led to this emphasis by 3 things: 1) Freud s statements about women made Horney think about cultural influences (what constitutes masculinity or femininity). 2) She was associated with another psychoanalyst, Erich Fromm, who increased her awareness of the importance of social and cultural influences. 3) Horney s observations of differences in personality structure between patients seen in Europe and the United States confirmed the importance of cultural influences. These observations led her to conclude that interpersonal relationships are at the core of all healthy and disturbed personality functioning. She emphasized how individuals attempt to cope with basic anxiety. According to her theory of neurosis, in the neurotic person there is conflict among 3 ways of responding to anxiety: moving toward, moving against and moving away. All three are characterized by rigidity and the lack of fulfillment of individual potential, the essence of neurosis. In moving toward, a person attempts to deal with anxiety by an excessive interest in being accepted, needed and approved of. Such a person accepts a dependent role in relation to others and, except for the unlimited desire for affection, becomes unselfish, undemanding and self-sacrificing. In moving against, a person assumes that everyone is hostile and that life is a struggle against all. All functioning is directed toward denying a need for others and toward appearing tough. In moving away, the person shrinks away from others into a neurotic detachment. Such people often look at themselves and others with emotional detachment, as a way of not getting emotionally involved with others. The problem with is really that there is conflict among the three trends in the effort to deal with basic anxiety. Horney had trouble accepting Freud s view of women and especially had trouble with the concept of penis envy. She suggested that women are not biologically disposed toward masochistic attitudes of being weak, dependent submissive and self-sacrificial. Instead, these attitudes indicated the powerful influence of social forces. b) Harry Stack Sullivan Sullivan emphasized the role of social, interpersonal forces in human development. His theory is known as the Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry. Sullivan placed great importance on the early relationship between the infant and the mother in the development of anxiety and in the development of a sense of self. Anxiety is interpersonal in character. The self is also social in

origin. The self develops out of feelings experienced while in contact with others and from reflected appraisals or perceptions by a child as to how he or she is valued or appraised by others. Important parts of the self are the good me associated with pleasurable experiences, the bad me associated with pain and threats to security, and the not me which is the part of the self that is rejected because it is associated with intolerable anxiety. Sullivan emphasized the juvenile era and preadolescence. During the juvenile stage (grammar school years) a child s experiences with friends and teachers begin to rival the influence of his or her parents, social acceptance becomes important and the child s reputation with others becomes an important source if self-esteem or anxiety. During preadolescence, a relationship to a close friend of the same sex becomes particularly important. This relationship of close friendship, of love, forms the basis for the development of a love relationship with a person of the opposite sex during adolescence. 5) Recent Developments in the Psychodynamic Tradition One important development has been the extension of psychoanalytic investigation to age groups and forms of psychopathology rarely treated by Freud and his followers. In addition to expanding their clinical efforts to the treatment of children, psychoanalysts increasingly have been concerned with different types of patient problems than those generally faced by Freud. Such changes in the major problems coming to the attention of analyst have led to new theoretical advances, not from dissatisfaction with Freudian theory per se, but from the need to understand and solve different clinical problems. A) Object Relations Theory Clinical concern with problems of self-definition and with an excessively vulnerable sense of selfesteem have led analysts to become increasingly interested in how, during the earliest years, a person develops a sense of self and then attempts to protect its integrity. The individuals concerned with such questions are known as object relations theorists. Object refers to people. The interest is in how experiences with important people in the past are represented as parts or aspects of the self and then affect one s relationships with others in the present. There is a greater emphasis on people as relationship seeking rather than as focused on the expression of sexual and aggressive instincts. a) Narcissism and the Narcissistic Personality The two figures most important in this area are Heinz Kohut and Otto Kernberg. In the development of a healthy sense of self and a healthy narcissism, an individual has a clear sense of self, has a satisfactory and reasonably stable level of self-esteem, takes pride in accomplishments, and is aware of and responsive to the needs of others while responding to his or her own needs. In the narcissistic personality, there is a disturbance in an individual s sense of self, a vulnerability to blows to self-esteem, a need for the admiration of others, and a lack of empathy with the feelings and needs of others. While being vulnerable to intense feelings of worthlessness and powerlessness (shame and humiliation), a narcissistic individual has a grandiose sense of self-importance and is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success and power. Such individuals tend to have an exaggerated feeling of being entitled to things from others, of deserving the admiration and love of others and of being special or unique. They are capable of being very giving to others, though generally not on an emotional or empathetic level, but also of being very demanding. They at times idealize others around them as well as themselves--- but at other times may completely devalue others. A Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) has recently been developed. Narcissistic individuals spend more time looking at themselves in the mirror, prefer to watch themselves rather than another person on videotape and indeed, receive an ego boost from watching themselves on videotape. Narcissistic persons are found to have not only a selfaggrandizing attributional style but also fairly simple self-concepts and a cynical mistrust of others. Narcissistic individuals seek romantic partners who will be admiring of them, in contrast with non-narcissistic individuals who seek caring partners.

Individuals high on narcissism (NPI) reacted to failure with greater anger than did individuals scoring low, particularly when the failure followed success. In addition, individuals scoring high on narcissism were found to be particularly vulnerable to swings in self-esteem as a consequence of receiving positive and negative feedback about the self. Finally, narcissists were found to be more self-aggrandizing in attributing success to their own ability and more blaming of others in accounting for failure, than were less narcissistic subjects. B) Attachment Theory and Adult Personal Relationships Current attachment theory is largely based on the work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. Bowlby developed the Attachment Behavioural System (ABS). According to this theory, a developing infant goes through a series of phases in the development of an attachment to a major caregiver and of the use of this attachment as a secure base for exploration and separations. The ABS is innate. The infant develops internal working models or mental representations of itself and its primary caregivers. These working models are associated with emotion. In this theory, there is an emphasis on the importance of early relationships for personality development. Mary Ainsworth developed the Strange Situation procedure. This procedure is a systematic observation of infants responses to the departure (separation) and return (reuniting) of the mother or other caregiver. Such observations reveal individual differences in attachment style. There are 3 different attachment styles: 1) Secure Attachment type (accounts for 70% of babies) Secure infants are sensitive to the departure of the mother and greet her upon being reunited, are readily comforted, and are able to return to exploration and play. 2) Anxious Avoidant (accounts for 20%) This style is marked by little protest at separation from the mother and upon her return, avoidance in terms of turning, looking or moving away from the mother. 3) Anxious Ambivalent (accounts for 10%) These infants had difficulty separating from the mother and reuniting with her upon her return. Their behaviour mixed pleas to be picked up with squirming and insistence on being let down. a) Attachment Styles in Adulthood Individual differences in emotional bonds in infancy may be related to individual differences in the way emotional bonds are established later in life. Secure attachment styles were associated with experiences of happiness, friendship and trust; avoidance styles with fears of closeness, emotional highs and lows, and jealousy; and anxiousambivalent styles with obsessive preoccupation with the loved person, a desire for union, extreme sexual attraction, emotional extremes and jealousy. Secure lovers viewed romantic feelings as being somewhat stable but also waxing and waning, and discouraged the kind of head-over-heels romantic love often depicted in novels and movies; avoidant lovers were sceptical of the lasting quality of romantic love and felt that it was rare to find a person one can really fall in love with; anxious ambivalent lovers felt that it was easy to fall in love but rare to find true love. Secure subjects, in comparison with subjects from the other groups, reported warmer relationships with both parents, as well as between their two parents. Attachment style exerts a pervasive influence in people s relationships with others and on their self-esteem. As well, attachment style appears to be related to orientation toward work: secure subjects approach their work with confidence, are relatively unburdened by fears of failure and do not allow work to interfere with personal relationships; anxious-ambivalent subjects are very much influenced by praise and fear of rejection at work and allow love concerns to interfere with work performance; avoidant subjects use work to avoid social interaction and although they do well financially, are less satisfied with their jobs than secure subjects.

In sum, at least for women, the attachment dynamics originally found in studies of children also applied in the context of adult romantic relationships. b) Attachment Types or Dimensions? Although the idea that infants differ in attachment style makes sense, the specific notion that these differences involve qualitatively distinct categories of persons is less intuitive. Do these styles really differ categorically? Recent evidence suggests, no. Instead, variations in attachment involved continuous dimensions. Each dimension involves a positive end (expectations that others will be available and supportive) and a negative end. This model leads to the addition of a fourth attachment style, that of Dismissing. Individuals with this attachment patterns are not comfortable with close relationships and prefer not to depend on others, but still retain a positive self-image. Secure (comfortable with intimacy and POSITIVE POSITIVE Preoccupied (Preoccupied with relationships) NEGATIVE Fearful (Fearful of intimacy; socially avoidant) Dismissing (Dismissing of intimacy; counterdependent) NEGATIVE Attachment styles have been associated with partner selection and stability of love relationships, with the development of adult depression and difficulties in interpersonal relationships, with movement toward becoming more religious and with how individuals cope with crises. Despite suggestive evidence of continuity of attachment style, there also is evidence that these styles are not fixed in stone. There is evidence that the same individual can have multiple attachment patterns, perhaps one in relationships with males and another with females or one for some context and another for different contexts. In sum, research supports Bowlby s view of the importance of early experience for the development of internal working models that have powerful effects on personal relationships. 6) Critical Evaluation A) Major Contributions 1) Psychoanalysis had led to the use of new techniques, such as free association and dream interpretation, and has been a significant force in the development and use of special tests in the assessment of personality. 2) A major contribution was the richness of his observations and the attention he paid to all details of human behaviour. 3) Another contribution was the attention he gave to the complexity of human behaviour at the same time that he developed an extremely encompassing theory. Out of this recognition of complexity comes a theory that accounts for almost all aspects of human behaviour. B) Limitations of the Theory There are 2 major limitations: a) The Scientific Status of Psychoanalytic Theory The terms of psychoanalysis are ambiguous and even where the constructs are well defined, often they are too removed from observable and measurable behaviour to be of much empirical use. Many critics suggest that psychoanalysts use observations influenced by the theory to support the theory. What we have then is a theory that is at times confusing and often difficult to test. This problem is complicated further by the way in which psychoanalysts can account for almost any outcome, even opposite outcomes. Psychoanalytic theory does not leave itself open to disproof or to the negative test.

Freud was aware of most of these objections. His conclusion was that psychoanalysis does a better job of explaining than of predicting. b) The Psychoanalytic View of the Person A theory of the person as an energy system oriented toward tension reduction hardly does justice to the creative, self-actualizing efforts of individuals. It is also suggested that psychoanalysis emphasizes the forces within the individual while generally neglecting the forces within the family and the broader society. Karen Horney, among others, questioned many of Freud s views concerning women and female sexuality. Summary Evaluation The theory has suggested many areas for investigation and has led to much research. The major problem with the psychoanalytic theory is the way in which the concepts are formulated; that is, ambiguity in the concepts and in the suggested relationships among concepts has made it very difficult to test the theory. STRENGTHS LIMITATIONS Provides for the discovery and investigation Fails to define all its concepts clearly and of many interesting phenomena. distinctly Develops techniques for research and Makes empirical testing difficult, at times therapy impossible Recognizes the complexity of human Endorses the questionable view of the person behaviour Encompasses a broad range of phenomena as an energy system Tolerates resistance by parts of the profession to empirical research and change in the theory