Adler and jung theory of personality

Compare And Contrast The Theories Of Adler & Jung

II. Psychodynamic Theories

Introduction 21© The McGraw−Hill Companies, 2009

Psychodynamic Theories C h a p t e r 2 Freud

Psychoanalysis 16

C h a p t e r 3 Adler Individual Psychology 64

C h a p t e r 4 Jung Analytical Psychology 97

C h a p t e r 5 Klein Object Relations Theory 135

C h a p t e r 6 Horney Psychoanalytic Social Theory 162

C h a p t e r 7 Fromm Humanistic Psychoanalysis 186

C h a p t e r 8 Sullivan Interpersonal Theory 212

C h a p t e r 9 Erikson Post-Freudian Theory 242

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Freud: Psychoanalysis

B Overview of Psychoanalytic Theory B Biography of Sigmund Freud B Levels of Mental Life

Unconscious

Preconscious

Conscious

B Provinces of the Mind The Id

The Ego

The Superego

B Dynamics of Personality Drives

Sex

Aggression

Anxiety

B Defense Mechanisms Repression

Reaction Formation

Displacement

Fixation

Regression

Projection

Introjection

Sublimation

B Stages of Development Infantile Period

Oral Phase

Anal Phase

Phallic Phase

Male Oedipus Complex

Female Oedipus Complex

Latency Period

Freud

Genital Period

Maturity

B Applications of Psychoanalytic Theory Freud’s Early Therapeutic Technique

Freud’s Later Therapeutic Technique

Dream Analysis

Freudian Slips

B Related Research Unconscious Mental Processing

Pleasure and the Id: Inhibition and the Ego

Repression, Inhibition, and Defense Mechanisms

Research on Dreams

B Critique of Freud Did Freud Understand Women?

Was Freud a Scientist?

B Concept of Humanity B Key Terms and Concepts

C H A P T E R 2

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From ancient history to the present time, people have searched for some magicpanacea or potion to lessen pain or to enhance performance. One such search was conducted by a young, ambitious physician who came to believe that he had dis- covered a drug that had all sorts of wonderful properties. Hearing that the drug had been used successfully to energize soldiers suffering from near exhaustion, this physician decided to try it on patients, colleagues, and friends. If the drug worked as well as he expected, he might gain the fame to which he aspired.

After learning of the drug’s successful use in heart disease, nervous exhaus- tion, addiction to alcohol and morphine, and several other psychological and physi- ological problems, the doctor decided to try the drug on himself. He was quite pleased with the results. To him, the drug had a pleasant aroma and an unusual ef- fect on the lips and mouth. More importantly, however, was the drug’s therapeutic ef- fect on his serious depression. In a letter to his fiancée whom he had not seen in a year, he reported that during his last severe depression, he had taken small quantities of the drug with marvelous results. He wrote that the next time he saw her he would be like a wild man, feeling the effects of the drug. He also told his fiancée that he would give her small amounts of the drug, ostensibly to make her strong and to help her gain weight.

The young doctor wrote a pamphlet extolling the benefits of the drug, but he had not yet completed the necessary experiments on the drug’s value as an analgesic. Impatient to be near his fiancée, he delayed completion of his experiments and went off to see her. During that visit, a colleague—and not he—completed the experi- ments, published the results, and gained the recognition the young doctor had hoped for himself.

These events took place in 1884; the drug was cocaine; the young doctor was Sigmund Freud.

Overview of Psychoanalytic Theory Freud, of course, was fortunate that his name did not become indelibly tied to co- caine. Instead, his name has become associated with psychoanalysis, the most fa- mous of all personality theories.

What makes Freud’s theory so interesting? First, the twin cornerstones of psy- choanalysis, sex and aggression, are two subjects of continuing popularity. Second, the theory was spread beyond its Viennese origins by an ardent and dedicated group of followers, many of whom romanticized Freud as a nearly mythological and lonely hero. Third, Freud’s brilliant command of language enabled him to present his theo- ries in a stimulating and exciting manner.

Freud’s understanding of human personality was based on his experiences with patients, his analysis of his own dreams, and his vast readings in the various sciences and humanities. These experiences provided the basic data for the evolution of his theories. To him, theory followed observation, and his concept of personality under- went constant revisions during the last 50 years of his life. Evolutionary though it was, Freud insisted that psychoanalysis could not be subjected to eclecticism, and disciples who deviated from his basic ideas soon found themselves personally and professionally ostracized by Freud.

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Although Freud regarded himself primarily as a scientist, his definition of sci- ence would be somewhat different from that held by most psychologists today. Freud relied more on deductive reasoning than on rigorous research methods, and he made observations subjectively and on a relatively small sample of patients, most of whom were from the upper-middle and upper classes. He did not quantify his data, nor did he make observations under controlled conditions. He utilized the case study ap- proach almost exclusively, typically formulating hypotheses after the facts of the case were known.

Biography of Sigmund Freud Sigismund (Sigmund) Freud was born either on March 6 or May 6, 1856, in Freiberg, Moravia, which is now part of the Czech Republic. (Scholars disagree on his birth date—the first date was but 8 months after the marriage of his parents.) Freud was the firstborn child of Jacob and Amalie Nathanson Freud, although his fa- ther had two grown sons, Emanuel and Philipp, from a previous marriage. Jacob and Amalie Freud had seven other children within 10 years, but Sigmund remained the favorite of his young, indulgent mother, which may have partially contributed to his lifelong self-confidence (E. Jones, 1953). A scholarly, serious-minded youth, Freud did not have a close friendship with any of his younger siblings. He did, however, enjoy a warm, indulgent relationship with his mother, leading him in later years to observe that the mother/son relationship was the most perfect, the most free from ambivalence of all human relationships (Freud, 1933/1964).

When Sigmund was three, the two Freud families left Freiberg. Emanuel’s family and Philipp moved to England, and the Jacob Freud family moved first to Leipzig and then to Vienna. The Austrian capital remained Sigmund Freud’s home for nearly 80 years, until 1938 when the Nazi invasion forced him to emigrate to London, where he died on September 23, 1939.

When Freud was about a year and a half old, his mother gave birth to a second son, Julius, an event that was to have a significant impact on Freud’s psychic development. Sigmund was filled with hostility toward his younger brother and harbored an unconscious wish for his death. When Julius died at 6 months of age, Sigmund was left with feelings of guilt at having caused his brother’s death. When Freud reached middle age, he began to understand that his wish did not actually cause his brother’s death and that children often have a death wish for a younger sibling. This discovery purged Freud of the guilt he had carried into adulthood and, by his own analysis, contributed to his later psychic development (Freud, 1900/1953).

Freud was drawn into medicine, not because he loved medical practice, but be- cause he was intensely curious about human nature (Ellenberger, 1970). He entered the University of Vienna Medical School with no intention of practicing medicine. Instead, he preferred teaching and doing research in physiology, which he continued even after he graduated from the university’s Physiological Institute.

Freud might have continued this work indefinitely had it not been for two fac- tors. First, he believed (probably with some justification) that, as a Jew, his opportu- nities for academic advancement would be limited. Second, his father, who helped finance his medical school expense, became less able to provide monetary aid. Re-

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luctantly, Freud turned from his laboratory to the practice of medicine. He worked for 3 years in the General Hospital of Vienna, becoming familiar with the practice of various branches of medicine, including psychiatry and nervous diseases (Freud, 1925/1959).

In 1885, he received a traveling grant from the University of Vienna and de- cided to study in Paris with the famous French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot. He spent 4 months with Charcot, from whom he learned the hypnotic technique for treating hysteria, a disorder typically characterized by paralysis or the improper functioning of certain parts of the body. Through hypnosis, Freud became convinced of a psychogenic and sexual origin of hysterical symptoms.

While still a medical student, Freud developed a close professional association and a personal friendship with Josef Breuer, a well-known Viennese physician 14 years older than Freud and a man of considerable scientific reputation (Ferris, 1997). Breuer taught Freud about catharsis, the process of removing hysterical symptoms through “talking them out.” While using catharsis, Freud gradually and laboriously discovered the free association technique, which soon replaced hypnosis as his prin- cipal therapeutic technique.

From as early as adolescence, Freud literally dreamed of making a monumen- tal discovery and achieving fame (Newton, 1995). On several occasions during the 1880s and 1890s he believed he was on the verge of such a discovery. His first op- portunity to gain recognition came in 1884–1885 and involved his experiments with cocaine, which we discussed in the opening vignette.

Freud’s second opportunity for achieving some measure of fame came in 1886 after he returned from Paris, where he had learned about male hysteria from Char- cot. He assumed that this knowledge would gain him respect and recognition from the Imperial Society of Physicians of Vienna, whom he mistakenly believed would be impressed by the young Dr. Freud’s knowledge of male hysteria. Early physicians

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Sigmund Freud with his daughter, Anna, who was a psychoanalyst in her own right.

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had believed that hysteria was strictly a female disorder because the very word had the same origins as uterus and was the result of a “wandering womb,” with the uterus traveling throughout women’s bodies and causing various parts to malfunction. How- ever, by 1886, when Freud presented a paper on male hysteria to the Society, most physicians present were already familiar with the illness and knew that it could also be a male disorder. Because originality was expected and because Freud’s paper was a rehash of what was already known, the Viennese physicians did not respond well to the presentation. Also, Freud’s constant praise of Charcot, a Frenchman, cooled the Viennese physicians to his talk. Unfortunately, in his autobiographical study, Freud (1925/1959) told a very different story, claiming that his lecture was not well received because members of the learned society could not fathom the concept of male hysteria. Freud’s account of this incident, now known to be in error, was nev- ertheless perpetuated for years, and as Sulloway (1992) argued, it is but one of many fictions created by Freud and his followers to mythologize psychoanalysis and to make a lonely hero of its founder.

Disappointed in his attempts to gain fame and afflicted with feelings (both jus- tified and otherwise) of professional opposition due to his defense of cocaine and his belief in the sexual origins of neuroses, Freud felt the need to join with a more re- spected colleague. He turned to Breuer, with whom he had worked while still a med- ical student and with whom he enjoyed a continuing personal and professional rela- tionship. Breuer had discussed in detail with Freud the case of Anna O, a young woman Freud had never met, but whom Breuer had spent many hours treating for hysteria several years earlier. Because of his rebuff by the Imperial Society of Physi- cians and his desire to establish a reputation for himself, Freud urged Breuer to col- laborate with him in publishing an account of Anna O and several other cases of hys- teria. Breuer, however, was not as eager as the younger and more revolutionary Freud to publish a full treatise on hysteria built on only a few case studies. He also could not accept Freud’s notion that childhood sexual experiences were the source of adult hysteria. Finally, and with some reluctance, Breuer agreed to publish with Freud Studies on Hysteria (Breuer & Freud, 1895/1955). In this book, Freud introduced the term “psychical analysis,” and during the following year, he began calling his ap- proach “psycho-analysis.”

At about the time Studies on Hysteria was published, Freud and Breuer had a professional disagreement and became estranged personally. Freud then turned to his friend Wilhelm Fliess, a Berlin physician who served as a sounding board for Freud’s newly developing ideas. Freud’s letters to Fliess (Freud, 1985) constitute a firsthand account of the beginnings of psychoanalysis and reveal the embryonic stage of Freudian theory. Freud and Fliess had become friends in 1887, but their relationship became more intimate following Freud’s break with Breuer.

During the late 1890s, Freud suffered both professional isolation and personal crises. He had begun to analyze his own dreams, and after the death of his father in 1896, he initiated the practice of analyzing himself daily. Although his self-analysis was a lifetime labor, it was especially difficult for him during the late 1890s. During this period, Freud regarded himself as his own best patient. In August of 1897, he wrote to Fliess, “the chief patient I am preoccupied with is myself. . . . The analysis is more difficult than any other. It is, in fact what paralyzes my psychic strength” (Freud, 1985, p. 261).

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A second personal crisis was his realization that he was now middle-aged and had yet to achieve the fame he so passionately desired. During this time he had suf- fered yet another disappointment in his attempt to make a major scientific contribu- tion. Again he believed himself to be on the brink of an important breakthrough with his “discovery” that neuroses have their etiology in a child’s seduction by a parent. Freud likened this finding to the discovery of the source of the Nile. However, in 1897 he abandoned the seduction theory and once again had to postpone the discov- ery that would propel him to greatness.

Why did Freud abandon his once-treasured seduction theory? In a letter dated September 21, 1897, to Wilhelm Fliess, he gave four reasons why he could no longer believe in his seduction theory. First, he said, the seduction theory had not enabled him to successfully treat even a single patient. Second, a great number of fathers, in- cluding his own, would have to be accused of sexual perversion because hysteria was quite common even among Freud’s siblings. Third, Freud believed that the uncon- scious mind could probably not distinguish reality from fiction, a belief that later evolved into the Oedipus complex. And fourth, he found that the unconscious mem- ories of advanced psychotic patients almost never revealed early childhood sexual experiences (Freud, 1985). After abandoning his seduction theory and with no Oedi- pus complex to replace it, Freud sank even more deeply into his midlife crisis.

Freud’s official biographer, Ernest Jones (1953, 1955, 1957), believed that Freud suffered from a severe psychoneurosis during the late 1890s, although Max Schur (1972), Freud’s personal physician during the final decade of his life, con- tended that his illness was due to a cardiac lesion, aggravated by addiction to nico- tine. Peter Gay (1988) suggested that during the time immediately after his father’s death, Freud “relived his oedipal conflicts with peculiar ferocity” (p. 141). But Henri Ellenberger (1970) described this period in Freud’s life as a time of “creative illness,” a condition characterized by depression, neurosis, psychosomatic ailments, and an intense preoccupation with some form of creative activity. In any event, at midlife, Freud was suffering from self-doubts, depression, and an obsession with his own death.

Despite these difficulties, Freud completed his greatest work, Interpretation of Dreams (1900/1953), during this period. This book, finished in 1899, was an out- growth of his self-analysis, much of which he had revealed to his friend Wilhelm Fliess. The book contained many of Freud’s own dreams, some disguised behind fic- titious names.

Almost immediately after the publication of Interpretation of Dreams, his friendship with Fliess began to cool, eventually to rupture in 1903. This breakup par- alleled Freud’s earlier estrangement from Breuer, which took place almost immedi- ately after they had published Studies on Hysteria together. It was also a harbinger of his breaks with Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, and several other close associates. Why did Freud have difficulties with so many former friends? Freud himself answered this question, stating that “it is not the scientific differences that are so important; it is usually some other kind of animosity, jealousy or revenge, that gives the impulse to enmity. The scientific differences come later” (Wortis, 1954, p. 163).

Although Interpretation of Dreams did not create the instant international stir Freud had hoped, it eventually gained for him the fame and recognition he had sought. In the 5-year period following its publication, Freud, now filled with renewed

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self-confidence, wrote several important works that helped solidify the foundation of psychoanalysis, including On Dreams (1901/1953), written because Interpretation of Dreams had failed to capture much interest; Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901/1960), which introduced the world to Freudian slips; Three Essays on the The- ory of Sexuality (1905/1953b), which established sex as the cornerstone of psycho- analysis; and Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905/1960), which pro- posed that jokes, like dreams and Freudian slips, have an unconscious meaning. These publications helped Freud attain some local prominence in scientific and med- ical circles.

In 1902, Freud invited a small group of somewhat younger Viennese physi- cians to meet in his home to discuss psychological issues. Then, in the fall of that year, these five men—Freud, Alfred Adler, Wilhelm Stekel, Max Kahane, and Rudolf Reitler—formed the Wednesday Psychological Society, with Freud as discussion leader. In 1908, this organization adopted a more formal name—the Vienna Psycho- analytic Society.

In 1910, Freud and his followers founded the International Psychoanalytic As- sociation with Carl Jung of Zürich as president. Freud was attracted to Jung because of his keen intellect and also because he was neither Jewish nor Viennese. Between 1902 and 1906, all 17 of Freud’s disciples had been Jewish (Kurzweil, 1989), and Freud was interested in giving psychoanalysis a more cosmopolitan flavor. Although Jung was a welcome addition to the Freudian circle and had been designated as the “Crown Prince” and “the man of the future,” he, like Adler and Stekel before him, eventually quarreled bitterly with Freud and left the psychoanalytic movement. The seeds of disagreement between Jung and Freud were probably sown when the two men, along with Sandor Ferenczi, traveled to the United States in 1909 to deliver a series of lectures at Clark University near Boston. To pass the time during their trav- els, Freud and Jung interpreted each other’s dreams, a potentially explosive practice that eventually led to the end of their relationship in 1913 (McGuire, 1974).

The years of World War I were difficult for Freud. He was cut off from com- munication with his faithful followers, his psychoanalytic practice dwindled, his home was sometimes without heat, and he and his family had little food. After the war, despite advancing years and pain suffered from 33 operations for cancer of the mouth, he made important revisions in his theory. The most significant of these were the elevation of aggression to a level equal to that of the sexual drive, the inclusion of repression as one of the defenses of the ego; and his attempt to clarify the female Oedipus complex, which he was never able to completely accomplish.

What personal qualities did Freud possess? A more complete insight into his personality can be found in Breger (2000), Clark (1980), Ellenberger (1970), Ferris (1997), Gay (1988), Handlbauer (1998), Isbister (1985), E. Jones (1953, 1955, 1957), Newton (1995), Noland (1999), Roazen (1993, 1995, 2001), Silverstein (2003), Sulloway (1992), Vitz (1988), and dozens of other books on Freud’s life. Above all, Freud was a sensitive, passionate person who had the capacity for inti- mate, almost secretive friendships. Most of these deeply emotional relationships came to an unhappy end, and Freud often felt persecuted by his former friends and regarded them as enemies. He seemed to have needed both types of relationship. In Interpretation of Dreams, Freud both explained and predicted this succession of in- terpersonal ruptures: “My emotional life has always insisted that I should have an in-

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timate friend and a hated enemy. I have always been able to provide myself afresh with both” (Freud, 1900/1953, p. 483). Until he was well past 50, all these relation- ships were with men. Interestingly, Freud, the man who seemed to be constantly thinking of sex, had a very infrequent sex life himself. After Anna, his youngest child was born in 1895, Freud, not yet 40 years old, had no sexual intercourse for several years. Much of his sparse sexual life stemmed from his belief that use of a condom, coitus interruptus, as well as masturbation were unhealthy sexual practices. Because Freud wanted no more children after Anna was born, sexual abstinence was his only alternative (Breger, 2000; Freud, 1985).

In addition to balancing his emotional life between an intimate friend and a hated enemy, Freud possessed an outstanding talent as a writer, a gift that helped him become a leading contributor to 20th-century thought. He was a master of the Ger- man tongue and knew several other languages. Although he never won the coveted Nobel prize for science, he was awarded the Goethe prize for literature in 1930.

Freud also possessed intense intellectual curiosity; unusual moral courage (demonstrated by his daily self-analysis); extremely ambivalent feelings toward his father and other father figures; a tendency to hold grudges disproportionate to the al- leged offense; a burning ambition, especially during his earlier years; strong feelings of isolation even while surrounded by many followers; and an intense and somewhat irrational dislike of America and Americans, an attitude that became more intense after his trip to the United States in 1909.

Why did Freud have such a disdain for Americans? Perhaps the most impor- tant reason is that he rightly believed Americans would trivialize psychoanalysis by trying to make it popular. In addition, he had several experiences during his trip to the United States that were foreign to a proper bourgeois Viennese gentleman. Even before he embarked on the George Washington, he saw his name misspelled as “Freund” on the passenger list (Ferris, 1997). A number of other events—some of which seem almost humorous—made Freud’s visit more unpleasant than it might have been. First, Freud experienced chronic indigestion and diarrhea throughout his visit, probably because the drinking water did not agree with him. In addition, he found it both peculiar and problematic that American cities did not provide public restrooms on street corners, and with his chronic indigestion he was frequently in search of a public lavatory. Also, several Americans addressed him as Doc or Sigmund while challenging him to defend his theories, and one person tried—unsuccessfully, of course—to prevent him from smoking a cigar in a nonsmoking area. Moreover, when Freud, Ferenczi, and Jung went to a private camp in western Massachusetts, they were greeted by a barrage of flags of Imperial Germany, despite the fact that none of them was German and each had reasons to dislike Germany. Also at camp, Freud, along with the others, sat on the ground while the host grilled steaks over charcoal, a custom Freud deemed to be both savage and uncouth (Roazen, 1993).

Levels of Mental Life Freud’s greatest contribution to personality theory is his exploration of the uncon- scious and his insistence that people are motivated primarily by drives of which they have little or no awareness. To Freud, mental life is divided into two levels, the un- conscious and the conscious. The unconscious, in turn, has two different levels, the

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unconscious proper and the preconscious. In Freudian psychology the three levels of mental life are used to designate both a process and a location. The existence as a specific location, of course, is merely hypothetical and has no real existence within the body. Yet, Freud spoke of the unconscious as well as unconscious processes.

Unconscious The unconscious contains all those drives, urges, or instincts that are beyond our awareness but that nevertheless motivate most of our words, feelings, and actions. Although we may be conscious of our overt behaviors, we often are not aware of the mental processes that lie behind them. For example, a man may know that he is at- tracted to a woman but may not fully understand all the reasons for the attraction, some of which may even seem irrational.

Because the unconscious is not available to the conscious mind, how can one know if it really exists? Freud felt that its existence could be proved only indirectly. To him the unconscious is the explanation for the meaning behind dreams, slips of the tongue, and certain kinds of forgetting, called repression. Dreams serve as a par- ticularly rich source of unconscious material. For example, Freud believed that child- hood experiences can appear in adult dreams even though the dreamer has no con- scious recollection of these experiences.

Unconscious processes often enter into consciousness but only after being dis- guised or distorted enough to elude censorship. Freud (1917/1963) used the analogy of a guardian or censor blocking the passage between the unconscious and precon- scious and preventing undesirable anxiety-producing memories from entering awareness. To enter the conscious level of the mind, these unconscious images first must be sufficiently disguised to slip past the primary censor, and then they must elude a final censor that watches the passageway between the preconscious and the conscious. By the time these memories enter our conscious mind, we no longer rec- ognize them for what they are; instead, we see them as relatively pleasant, non- threatening experiences. In most cases, these images have strong sexual or aggres- sive motifs, because childhood sexual and aggressive behaviors are frequently punished or suppressed. Punishment and suppression often create feelings of anxi- ety, and the anxiety in turn stimulates repression, that is, the forcing of unwanted, anxiety-ridden experiences into the unconscious as a defense against the pain of that anxiety.

Not all unconscious processes, however, spring from repression of childhood events. Freud believed that a portion of our unconscious originates from the experi- ences of our early ancestors that have been passed on to us through hundreds of gen- erations of repetition. He called these inherited unconscious images our phyloge- netic endowment (Freud, 1917/1963, 1933/1964). Freud’s notion of phylogenetic endowment is quite similar to Carl Jung’s idea of a collective unconscious (see Chap- ter 4). However, one important difference exists between the two concepts. Whereas Jung placed primary emphasis on the collective unconscious, Freud relied on the no- tion of inherited dispositions only as a last resort. That is, when explanations built on individual experiences were not adequate, Freud would turn to the idea of collec- tively inherited experiences to fill in the gaps left by individual experiences. Later we will see that Freud used the concept of phylogenetic endowment to explain several important concepts, such as the Oedipus complex and castration anxiety.

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Unconscious drives may appear in consciousness, but only after undergoing certain transformations. A person may express either erotic or hostile urges, for ex- ample, by teasing or joking with another person. The original drive (sex or aggres- sion) is thus disguised and hidden from the conscious minds of both persons. The un- conscious of the first person, however, has directly influenced the unconscious of the second. Both people gain some satisfaction of either sexual or aggressive urges, but neither is conscious of the underlying motive behind the teasing or joking. Thus the unconscious mind of one person can communicate with the unconscious of another without either person being aware of the process.

Unconscious, of course, does not mean inactive or dormant. Forces in the un- conscious constantly strive to become conscious, and many of them succeed, al- though they may no longer appear in their original form. Unconscious ideas can and do motivate people. For example, a son’s hostility toward his father may masquerade itself in the form of ostentatious affection. In an undisguised form, the hostility would create too much anxiety for the son. His unconscious mind, therefore, moti- vates him to express hostility indirectly through an exaggerated show of love and flattery. Because the disguise must successfully deceive the person, it often takes an opposite form from the original feelings, but it is almost always overblown and os- tentatious. (This mechanism, called a reaction formation, is discussed later in the section titled Defense Mechanisms.)

Preconscious The preconscious level of the mind contains all those elements that are not conscious but can become conscious either quite readily or with some difficulty (Freud, 1933/1964).

The contents of the preconscious come from two sources, the first of which is conscious perception. What a person perceives is conscious for only a transitory pe- riod; it quickly passes into the preconscious when the focus of attention shifts to an- other idea. These ideas that alternate easily between being conscious and precon- scious are largely free from anxiety and in reality are much more similar to the conscious images than to unconscious urges.

The second source of preconscious images is the unconscious. Freud believed that ideas can slip past the vigilant censor and enter into the preconscious in a dis- guised form. Some of these images never become conscious because if we recog- nized them as derivatives of the unconscious, we would experience increased levels of anxiety, which would activate the final censor to repress these anxiety-loaded im- ages, forcing them back into the unconscious. Other images from the unconscious do gain admission to consciousness, but only because their true nature is cleverly disguised through the dream process, a slip of the tongue, or an elaborate defensive measure.

Conscious Consciousness, which plays a relatively minor role in psychoanalytic theory, can be defined as those mental elements in awareness at any given point in time. It is the only level of mental life directly available to us. Ideas can reach consciousness from two different directions. The first is from the perceptual conscious system, which is

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turned toward the outer world and acts as a medium for the perception of external stimuli. In other words, what we perceive through our sense organs, if not too threat- ening, enters into consciousness (Freud, 1933/1964).

The second source of conscious elements is from within the mental structure and includes nonthreatening ideas from the preconscious as well as menacing but well-disguised images from the unconscious. As we have seen, these latter images escaped into the preconscious by cloaking themselves as harmless elements and evading the primary censor. Once in the preconscious, they avoid a final censor and come under the eye of consciousness. By the time they reach the conscious system, these images are greatly distorted and camouflaged, often taking the form of defen- sive behaviors or dream elements.

In summary, Freud (1917/1963, pp. 295–296) compared the unconscious to a large entrance hall in which many diverse, energetic, and disreputable people are milling about, crowding one another, and striving incessantly to escape to a smaller adjoining reception room. However, a watchful guard protects the threshold between

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FIGURE 2.1 Levels of Mental Life.

King

Reception room

Anteroom

Screen

Eye of consciousness

Final censorship

Preconscious

Censorship

Unconscious

Doorkeeper

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the large entrance hall and the small reception room. This guard has two methods of preventing undesirables from escaping from the entrance hall—either turn them back at the door or throw out those people who earlier had clandestinely slipped into the reception room. The effect in either case is the same; the menacing, disorderly people are prevented from coming into view of an important guest who is seated at the far end of the reception room behind a screen. The meaning of the analogy is ob- vious. The people in the entrance hall represent unconscious images. The small re- ception room is the preconscious and its inhabitants represent preconscious ideas. People in the reception room (preconscious) may or may not come into view of the important guest who, of course, represents the eye of consciousness. The doorkeeper who guards the threshold between the two rooms is the primary censor that prevents unconscious images from becoming preconscious and renders preconscious images unconscious by throwing them back. The screen that guards the important guest is the final censor, and it prevents many, but not all, preconscious elements from reach- ing consciousness. The analogy is presented graphically in Figure 2.1.

Provinces of the Mind For nearly 2 decades, Freud’s only model of the mind was the topographic one we have just outlined, and his only portrayal of psychic strife was the conflict between conscious and unconscious forces. Then, during the 1920s, Freud (1923/1961a) in- troduced a three-part structural model. This division of the mind into three provinces did not supplant the topographic model, but it helped Freud explain mental images according to their functions or purposes.

To Freud, the most primitive part of the mind was das Es, or the “it,” which is almost always translated into English as id; a second division was das Ich, or the “I,” translated as ego; and a final province was das Uber-Ich, or the “over-I,” which is rendered into English as superego. These provinces or regions have no territorial ex- istence, of course, but are merely hypothetical constructs. They interact with the three levels of mental life so that the ego cuts across the various topographic levels and has conscious, preconscious, and unconscious components, whereas the super- ego is both preconscious and unconscious and the id is completely unconscious. Fig- ure 2.2 shows the relationship between the provinces of the mind and the levels of mental life.

The Id At the core of personality and completely unconscious is the psychical region called the id, a term derived from the impersonal pronoun meaning “the it,” or the not-yet- owned component of personality. The id has no contact with reality, yet it strives con- stantly to reduce tension by satisfying basic desires. Because its sole function is to seek pleasure, we say that the id serves the pleasure principle.

A newborn infant is the personification of an id unencumbered by restrictions of ego and superego. The infant seeks gratification of needs without regard for what is possible (that is, demands of the ego) or what is proper (that is, restraints of the superego). Instead, it sucks when the nipple is either present or absent and gains pleasure in either situation. Although the infant receives life-sustaining food only by

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sucking a nurturing nipple, it continues to suck because its id is not in contact with reality. The infant fails to realize that thumb-sucking behavior cannot sustain life. Because the id has no direct contact with reality, it is not altered by the passage of time or by the experiences of the person. Childhood wish impulses remain un- changed in the id for decades (Freud, 1933/1964).

Besides being unrealistic and pleasure seeking, the id is illogical and can si- multaneously entertain incompatible ideas. For example, a woman may show con- scious love for her mother while unconsciously wishing to destroy her. These op- posing desires are possible because the id has no morality; that is, it cannot make value judgments or distinguish between good and evil. However, the id is not im- moral, merely amoral. All of the id’s energy is spent for one purpose—to seek plea- sure without regard for what is proper or just (Freud, 1923/1961a, 1933/1964).

In review, the id is primitive, chaotic, inaccessible to consciousness, un- changeable, amoral, illogical, unorganized, and filled with energy received from basic drives and discharged for the satisfaction of the pleasure principle.

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FIGURE 2.2 Levels of Mental Life and Provinces of the Mind.

Eye of consciousness

Final censorship

Preconscious

Censorship

Unconscious

Id

Ego

Superego Open to

somatic influences

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As the region that houses basic drives (primary motivates), the id operates through the primary process. Because it blindly seeks to satisfy the pleasure prin- ciple, its survival is dependent on the development of a secondary process to bring it into contact with the external world. This secondary process functions through the ego.

The Ego The ego, or I, is the only region of the mind in contact with reality. It grows out of the id during infancy and becomes a person’s sole source of communication with the external world. It is governed by the reality principle, which it tries to substitute for the pleasure principle of the id. As the sole region of the mind in contact with the ex- ternal world, the ego becomes the decision-making or executive branch of personal- ity. However, because it is partly conscious, partly preconscious, and partly uncon- scious, the ego can make decisions on each of these three levels. For instance, a woman’s ego may consciously motivate her to choose excessively neat, well-tailored clothes because she feels comfortable when well dressed. At the same time, she may be only dimly (i.e., preconsciously) aware of previous experiences of being rewarded for choosing nice clothes. In addition, she may be unconsciously motivated to be ex- cessively neat and orderly due to early childhood experiences of toilet training. Thus, her decision to wear neat clothes can take place in all three levels of mental life.

When performing its cognitive and intellectual functions, the ego must take into consideration the incompatible but equally unrealistic demands of the id and the superego. In addition to these two tyrants, the ego must serve a third master—the ex- ternal world. Thus, the ego constantly tries to reconcile the blind, irrational claims of the id and the superego with the realistic demands of the external world. Finding it- self surrounded on three sides by divergent and hostile forces, the ego reacts in a pre- dictable manner—it becomes anxious. It then uses repression and other defense mechanisms to defend itself against this anxiety (Freud, 1926/1959a).

According to Freud (1933/1964), the ego becomes differentiated from the id when infants learn to distinguish themselves from the outer world. While the id re- mains unchanged, the ego continues to develop strategies for handling the id’s unre- alistic and unrelenting demands for pleasure. At times the ego can control the pow- erful, pleasure-seeking id, but at other times it loses control. In comparing the ego to the id, Freud used the analogy of a person on horseback. The rider checks and in- hibits the greater strength of the horse but is ultimately at the mercy of the animal. Similarly, the ego must check and inhibit id impulses, but it is more or less constantly at the mercy of the stronger but more poorly organized id. The ego has no strength of its own but borrows energy from the id. In spite of this dependence on the id, the ego sometimes comes close to gaining complete control, for instance, during the prime of life of a psychologically mature person.

As children begin to experience parental rewards and punishments, they learn what to do in order to gain pleasure and avoid pain. At this young age, pleasure and pain are ego functions because children have not yet developed a conscience and ego-ideal: that is, a superego. As children reach the age of 5 or 6 years, they identify with their parents and begin to learn what they should and should not do. This is the origin of the superego.

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The Superego In Freudian psychology, the superego, or above-I, represents the moral and ideal as- pects of personality and is guided by the moralistic and idealistic principles as op- posed to the pleasure principle of the id and the realistic principle of the ego. The superego grows out of the ego, and like the ego, it has no energy of its own. How- ever, the superego differs from the ego in one important respect—it has no contact with the outside world and therefore is unrealistic in its demands for perfection (Freud, 1923/1961a).

The superego has two subsystems, the conscience and the ego-ideal. Freud did not clearly distinguish between these two functions, but, in general, the conscience results from experiences with punishments for improper behavior and tells us what we should not do, whereas the ego-ideal develops from experiences with rewards for proper behavior and tells us what we should do. A primitive conscience comes into existence when a child conforms to parental standards out of fear of loss of love or approval. Later, during the Oedipal phase of development, these ideals are internal- ized through identification with the mother and father. (We discuss the Oedipus com- plex in a later section titled Stages of Development.)

A well-developed superego acts to control sexual and aggressive impulses through the process of repression. It cannot produce repressions by itself, but it can order the ego to do so. The superego watches closely over the ego, judging its actions and intentions. Guilt is the result when the ego acts—or even intends to act—con- trary to the moral standards of the superego. Feelings of inferiority arise when the ego is unable to meet the superego’s standards of perfection. Guilt, then, is a func- tion of the conscience, whereas inferiority feelings stem from the ego-ideal (Freud, 1933/1964).

The superego is not concerned with the happiness of the ego. It strives blindly and unrealistically toward perfection. It is unrealistic in the sense that it does not take

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FIGURE 2.3 The Relationship among Id, Ego, and Superego in Three Hypothetical Persons.

A pleasure-seeking person dominated by the id

A guilt-ridden or inferior- feeling person dominated by the superego

A psychologically healthy person dominated by the ego

Id Ego Superego

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into consideration the difficulties or impossibilities faced by the ego in carrying out its orders. Not all its demands, of course, are impossible to fulfill, just as not all de- mands of parents and other authority figures are impossible to fulfill. The superego, however, is like the id in that it is completely ignorant of, and unconcerned with, the practicability of its requirements.

Freud (1933/1964) pointed out that the divisions among the different regions of the mind are not sharp and well defined. The development of the three divisions varies widely in different individuals. For some people, the superego does not grow after childhood; for others, the superego may dominate the personality at the cost of guilt and inferiority feelings. For yet others, the ego and superego may take turns controlling personality, which results in extreme fluctuations of mood and alternat- ing cycles of self-confidence and self-deprecation. In the healthy individual, the id and superego are integrated into a smooth functioning ego and operate in harmony and with a minimum of conflict. Figure 2.3 shows the relationships among id, ego, and superego in three hypothetical persons. For the first person, the id dominates a weak ego and a feeble superego, preventing the ego from counterbalancing its in- cessant demands of the id and leaving the person nearly constantly striving for plea- sure regardless of what is possible or proper. The second person, with strong feelings of either guilt or inferiority and a weak ego, will experience many conflicts because the ego cannot arbitrate the strong but opposing demands of the superego and the id. The third person, with a strong ego that has incorporated many of the demands of both the id and the superego, is psychologically healthy and in control of both the pleasure principle and the moralistic principle.

Dynamics of Personality Levels of mental life and provinces of the mind refer to the structure or composition of personality; but personalities also do something. Thus, Freud postulated a dy- namic, or motivational principle, to explain the driving forces behind people’s ac- tions. To Freud, people are motivated to seek pleasure and to reduce tension and anx- iety. This motivation is derived from psychical and physical energy that springs from their basic drives.

Drives Freud used the German word Trieb to refer to a drive or a stimulus within the per- son. Freud’s official translators rendered this term as instinct, but more accurately the word should be “drive” or “impulse.” Drives operate as a constant motivational force. As an internal stimulus, drives differ from external stimuli in that they cannot be avoided through flight.

According to Freud (1933/1964), the various drives can all be grouped under two major headings: sex or Eros and aggression, distraction, or Thanatos. These drives originate in the id, but they come under the control of the ego. Each drive has its own form of psychic energy: Freud used the word libido for the sex drive, but en- ergy from the aggressive drive remains nameless.

Every basic drive is characterized by an impetus, a source, an aim, and an ob- ject. A drive’s impetus is the amount of force it exerts; its source is the region of the

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body in a state of excitation or tension; its aim is to seek pleasure by removing that excitation or reducing the tension; and its object is the person or thing that serves as the means through which the aim is satisfied (Freud, 1915/1957a).

Sex The aim of the sexual drive is pleasure, but this pleasure is not limited to genital sat- isfaction. Freud believed that the entire body is invested with libido. Besides the gen- itals, the mouth and anus are especially capable of producing sexual pleasure and are called erogenous zones. The ultimate aim of the sexual drive (reduction of sexual tension) cannot be changed, but the path by which the aim is reached can be varied. It can take either an active or a passive form, or it can be temporarily or permanently inhibited (Freud, 1915/1957a). Because the path is flexible and because sexual pleas- ure stems from organs other than the genitals, much behavior originally motivated by Eros is difficult to recognize as sexual behavior. To Freud, however, all pleasura- ble activity is traceable to the sexual drive.

The flexibility of the sexual object or person can bring about a further disguise of Eros. The erotic object can easily be transformed or displaced. Libido can be with- drawn from one person and placed in a state of free-floating tension, or it can be rein- vested in another person, including the self. For example, an infant prematurely forced to give up the nipple as a sexual object may substitute the thumb as an object of oral pleasure.

Sex can take many forms, including narcissism, love, sadism, and masochism. The latter two also possess generous components of the aggressive drive.

Infants are primarily self-centered, with their libido invested almost exclu- sively on their own ego. This condition, which is universal, is known as primary narcissism. As the ego develops, children usually give up much of their primary nar- cissism and develop a greater interest in other people. In Freud’s language, narcis- sistic libido is then transformed into object libido. During puberty, however, adoles- cents often redirect their libido back to the ego and become preoccupied with personal appearance and other self-interests. This pronounced secondary narcis- sism is not universal, but a moderate degree of self-love is common to nearly every- one (Freud, 1914/1957).

A second manifestation of Eros is love, which develops when people invest their libido on an object or person other than themselves. Children’s first sexual in- terest is the person who cares for them, generally the mother. During infancy chil- dren of either sex experience sexual love for the mother. Overt sexual love for mem- bers of one’s family, however, ordinarily is repressed, which brings a second type of love into existence. Freud called this second kind of love aim-inhibited because the original aim of reducing sexual tension is inhibited or repressed. The kind of love people feel for their siblings or parents is generally aim-inhibited.

Obviously, love and narcissism are closely interrelated. Narcissism involves love of self, whereas love is often accompanied by narcissistic tendencies, as when people love someone who serves as an ideal or model of what they would like to be.

Two other drives that are also intertwined are sadism and masochism. Sadism is the need for sexual pleasure by inflicting pain or humiliation on another person. Carried to an extreme, it is considered a sexual perversion, but in moderation, sadism is a common need and exists to some extent in all sexual relationships. It is

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perverted when the sexual aim of erotic pleasure becomes secondary to the destruc- tive aim (Freud, 1933/1964).

Masochism, like sadism, is a common need, but it becomes a perversion when Eros becomes subservient to the destructive drive. Masochists experience sexual pleasure from suffering pain and humiliation inflicted either by themselves or by oth- ers. Because masochists can provide self-inflicted pain, they do not depend on an- other person for the satisfaction of masochistic needs. In contrast, sadists must seek and find another person on whom to inflict pain or humiliation. In this respect, they are more dependent than masochists on other people.

Aggression Partially as a result of his unhappy experiences during World War I and partially as a consequence of the death of his beloved daughter Sophie, Freud (1920/1955a) wrote Beyond the Pleasure Principle, a book that elevated aggression to the level of the sexual drive. As he did with many of his other concepts, Freud set forth his ideas tentatively and with some caution. With time, however, aggression, like several other tentatively proposed concepts, became dogma.

The aim of the destructive drive, according to Freud, is to return the organism to an inorganic state. Because the ultimate inorganic condition is death, the final aim of the aggressive drive is self-destruction. As with the sexual drive, aggression is flexible and can take a number of forms, such as teasing, gossip, sarcasm, humilia- tion. humor, and the enjoyment of other people’s suffering. The aggressive tendency is present in everyone and is the explanation for wars, atrocities, and religious per- secution.

The aggressive drive also explains the need for the barriers that people have erected to check aggression. For example, commandments such as “Love thy neigh- bor as thyself ” are necessary, Freud believed, to inhibit the strong, though usually unconscious, drive to inflict injury on others. These precepts are actually reaction formations. They involve the repression of strong hostile impulses and the overt and obvious expression of the opposite tendency.

Throughout our lifetime, life and death impulses constantly struggle against one another for ascendancy, but at the same time, both must bow to the reality prin- ciple, which represents the claims of the outer world. These demands of the real world prevent a direct, covert, and unopposed fulfillment of either sex or aggression. They frequently create anxiety, which relegates many sexual and aggressive desires to the realm of the unconscious.

Anxiety Sex and aggression share the center of Freudian dynamic theory with the concept of anxiety. In defining anxiety, Freud (1933/1964) emphasized that it is a felt, affective, unpleasant state accompanied by a physical sensation that warns the person against impending danger. The unpleasantness is often vague and hard to pinpoint, but the anxiety itself is always felt.

Only the ego can produce or feel anxiety, but the id, superego, and external world each are involved in one of three kinds of anxiety—neurotic, moral, and real- istic. The ego’s dependence on the id results in neurotic anxiety; its dependence on

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the superego produces moral anxiety; and its dependence on the outer world leads to realistic anxiety.

Neurotic anxiety is defined as apprehension about an unknown danger. The feeling itself exists in the ego, but it originates from id impulses. People may expe- rience neurotic anxiety in the presence of a teacher, employer, or some other author- ity figure because they previously experienced unconscious feelings of destruction against one or both parents. During childhood, these feelings of hostility are often accompanied by fear of punishment, and this fear becomes generalized into uncon- scious neurotic anxiety.

A second type of anxiety, moral anxiety, stems from the conflict between the ego and the superego. After children establish a superego—usually by the age of 5 or 6—they may experience anxiety as an outgrowth of the conflict between realistic needs and the dictates of their superego. Moral anxiety, for example, would result from sexual temptations if a child believes that yielding to the temptation would be morally wrong. It may also result from the failure to behave consistently with what they regard as morally right, for example, failing to care for aging parents.

A third category of anxiety, realistic anxiety, is closely related to fear. It is de- fined as an unpleasant, nonspecific feeling involving a possible danger. For example, we may experience realistic anxiety while driving in heavy, fast-moving traffic in an unfamiliar city, a situation fraught with real, objective danger. However, realistic anxiety is different from fear in that it does not involve a specific fearful object. We would experience fear, for example, if our motor vehicle suddenly began sliding out of control on an icy highway.

These three types of anxiety are seldom clear-cut or easily separated. They often exist in combination, as when fear of water, a real danger, becomes dispropor- tionate to the situation and hence precipitates neurotic anxiety as well as realistic anxiety. This situation indicates that an unknown danger is connected with the ex- ternal one.

Anxiety serves as an ego-preserving mechanism because it signals us that some danger is at hand (Freud, 1933/1964). For example, an anxiety dream signals our censor of an impending danger, which allows us to better disguise the dream im- ages. Anxiety allows the constantly vigilant ego to be alert for signs of threat and danger. The signal of impending danger stimulates us to mobilize for either flight or defense.

Anxiety is also self-regulating because it precipitates repression, which in turn reduces the pain of anxiety (Freud, 1933/1964). If the ego had no recourse to defen- sive behavior, the anxiety would become intolerable. Defensive behaviors, therefore, serve a useful function by protecting the ego against the pain of anxiety.

Defense Mechanisms Freud first elaborated on the idea of defense mechanisms in 1926 (Freud, 1926/1959a), and his daughter Anna further refined and organized the concept (A. Freud, 1946). Although defense mechanisms are normal and universally used, when carried to an extreme they lead to compulsive, repetitive, and neurotic behavior. Be- cause we must expend psychic energy to establish and maintain defense mecha- nisms, the more defensive we are, the less psychic energy we have left to satisfy id

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impulses. This, of course, is precisely the ego’s purpose in establishing defense mechanisms—to avoid dealing directly with sexual and aggressive implosives and to defend itself against the anxiety that accompanies them (Freud, 1926/1959a).

The principal defense mechanisms identified by Freud include repression, re- action formation, displacement, fixation, regression, projection, introjection, and sublimation.

Repression The most basic defense mechanism, because it is involved in each of the others, is repression. Whenever the ego is threatened by undesirable id impulses, it protects it- self by repressing those impulses; that is, it forces threatening feelings into the un- conscious (Freud, 1926/1959a). In many cases the repression is then perpetuated for a lifetime. For example, a young girl may permanently repress her hostility for a younger sister because her hateful feelings create too much anxiety.

No society permits a complete and uninhibited expression of sex and aggres- sion. When children have their hostile or sexual behaviors punished or otherwise suppressed, they learn to be anxious whenever they experience these impulses. Al- though this anxiety seldom leads to a complete repression of aggressive and sexual drives, it often results in their partial repression.

What happens to these impulses after they have become unconscious? Freud (1933/1964) believed that several possibilities exist. First, the impulses may remain unchanged in the unconscious. Second, they could force their way into conscious- ness in an unaltered form, in which case they would create more anxiety than the per- son could handle, and the person would be overwhelmed with anxiety. A third and much more common fate of repressed drives is that they are expressed in displaced or disguised forms. The disguise, of course, must be clever enough to deceive the ego. Repressed drives may be disguised as physical symptoms, for example, sexual impotency in a man troubled by sexual guilt. The impotency prevents the man from having to deal with the guilt and anxiety that would result from normal enjoyable sexual activity. Repressed drives may also find an outlet in dreams, slips of the tongue, or one of the other defense mechanisms.

Reaction Formation One of the ways in which a repressed impulse may become conscious is through adopting a disguise that is directly opposite its original form. This defense mecha- nism is called a reaction formation. Reactive behavior can be identified by its ex- aggerated character and by its obsessive and compulsive form (Freud, 1926/1959a). An example of a reaction formation can be seen in a young woman who deeply re- sents and hates her mother. Because she knows that society demands affection to- ward parents, such conscious hatred for her mother would produce too much anxi- ety. To avoid painful anxiety, the young woman concentrates on the opposite impulse—love. Her “love” for her mother, however, is not genuine. It is showy, ex- aggerated, and overdone. Other people may easily see the true nature of this love, but the woman must deceive herself and cling to her reaction formation, which helps conceal the anxiety-arousing truth that she unconsciously hates her mother.

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Displacement Freud (1926/1959a) believed that reaction formations are limited to a single object; for example, people with reactive love shower affection only on the person toward whom they feel unconscious hatred. In displacement, however, people can redirect their unacceptable urges onto a variety of people or objects so that the original im- pulse is disguised or concealed. For example, a woman who is angry at her room- mate may displace her anger onto her employees, her pet cat, or a stuffed animal. She remains friendly to her roommate, but unlike the workings of a reaction formation, she does not exaggerate or overdo her friendliness.

Throughout his writings, Freud used the term “displacement” in several ways. In our discussion of the sexual drive, for example, we saw that the sexual object can be displaced or transformed onto a variety of other objects, including one’s self. Freud (1926/1959a) also used displacement to refer to the replacement of one neu- rotic symptom for another; for example, a compulsive urge to masturbate may be re- placed by compulsive hand washing. Displacement also is involved in dream forma- tion, as when the dreamer’s destructive urges toward a parent are placed onto a dog or wolf. In this event, a dream about a dog being hit by a car might reflect the dreamer’s unconscious wish to see the parent destroyed. (We discuss dream forma- tion more completely in the section on dream analysis.)

Fixation Psychical growth normally proceeds in a somewhat continuous fashion through the various stages of development. The process of psychologically growing up, however, is not without stressful and anxious moments. When the prospect of taking the next step becomes too anxiety provoking, the ego may resort to the strategy of remaining at the present, more comfortable psychological stage. Such a defense is called fixa- tion. Technically, fixation is the permanent attachment of the libido onto an earlier, more primitive stage of development (Freud, 1917/1963). Like other defense mech- anisms, fixations are universal. People who continually derive pleasure from eating, smoking, or talking may have an oral fixation, whereas those who are obsessed with neatness and orderliness may possess an anal fixation.

Regression Once the libido has passed a developmental stage, it may, during times of stress and anxiety, revert back to that earlier stage. Such a reversion is known as regression (Freud, 1917/1963). Regressions are quite common and are readily visible in chil- dren. For example, a completely weaned child may regress to demanding a bottle or nipple when a baby brother or sister is born. The attention given to the new baby poses a threat to the older child. Regressions are also frequent in older children and in adults. A common way for adults to react to anxiety-producing situations is to re- vert to earlier, safer, more secure patterns of behavior and to invest their libido onto more primitive and familiar objects. Under extreme stress one adult may adopt the fetal position, another may return home to mother, and still another may react by re- maining all day in bed, well covered from the cold and threatening world. Regressive behavior is similar to fixated behavior in that it is rigid and infantile. Regressions,

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however, are usually temporary, whereas fixations demand a more or less permanent expenditure of psychic energy.

Projection When an internal impulse provokes too much anxiety, the ego may reduce that anx- iety by attributing the unwanted impulse to an external object, usually another per- son. This is the defense mechanism of projection, which can be defined as seeing in others unacceptable feelings or tendencies that actually reside in one’s own uncon- scious (Freud, 1915/1957b). For example, a man may consistently interpret the ac- tions of older women as attempted seductions. Consciously, the thought of sexual in- tercourse with older women may be intensely repugnant to him, but buried in his unconscious is a strong erotic attraction to these women. In this example, the young man deludes himself into believing that he has no sexual feelings for older women. Although this projection erases most of his anxiety and guilt, it permits him to main- tain a sexual interest in women who remind him of his mother.

An extreme type of projection is paranoia, a mental disorder characterized by powerful delusions of jealousy and persecution. Paranoia is not an inevitable out- come of projection but simply a severe variety of it. According to Freud (1922/1955), a crucial distinction between projection and paranoia is that paranoia is always char- acterized by repressed homosexual feelings toward the persecutor. Freud believed that the persecutor is inevitably a former friend of the same sex, although sometimes people may transfer their delusions onto a person of the opposite sex. When homo- sexual impulses become too powerful, persecuted paranoiacs defend themselves by reversing these feelings and then projecting them onto their original object. For men, the transformation proceeds as follows. Instead of saying, “I love him,” the paranoid person says, “I hate him.” Because this also produces too much anxiety, he says, “He hates me.” At this point, the person has disclaimed all responsibility and can say, “I like him fine, but he’s got it in for me.” The central mechanism in all paranoia is pro- jection with accompanying delusions of jealousy and persecution.

Introjection Whereas projection involves placing an unwanted impulse onto an external object, introjection is a defense mechanism whereby people incorporate positive qualities of another person into their own ego. For example, an adolescent may introject or adopt the mannerisms, values, or lifestyle of a movie star. Such an introjection gives the adolescent an inflated sense of self-worth and keeps feelings of inferiority to a minimum. People introject characteristics that they see as valuable and that will per- mit them to feel better about themselves.

Freud (1926/1959a) saw the resolution of the Oedipus complex as the prototype of introjection. During the Oedipal period, the young child introjects the authority and values of one or both parents—an introjection that sets into motion the begin- ning of the superego. When children introject what they perceive to be their parents’ values, they are relieved from the work of evaluating and choosing their own beliefs and standards of conduct. As children advance through the latency period of devel- opment (approximately ages 6 to 12), their superego becomes more personalized;

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that is, it moves away from a rigid identification with parents. Nevertheless, people of any age can reduce the anxiety associated with feelings of inadequacy by adopt- ing or introjecting the values, beliefs, and mannerisms of other people.

Sublimation Each of these defense mechanisms serves the individual by protecting the ego from anxiety, but each is of dubious value from society’s viewpoint. According to Freud (1917/1963), one mechanism—sublimation—helps both the individual and the so- cial group. Sublimation is the repression of the genital aim of Eros by substituting a cultural or social aim. The sublimated aim is expressed most obviously in creative cultural accomplishments such as art, music, and literature, but more subtly, it is part of all human relationships and all social pursuits. Freud (1914/1953) believed that the art of Michelangelo, who found an indirect outlet for his libido in painting and sculpting, was an excellent example of sublimation. In most people, sublimations combine with direct expression of Eros and result in a kind of balance between so- cial accomplishments and personal pleasures. Most of us are capable of sublimating a part of our libido in the service of higher cultural values, while at the same time retaining sufficient amounts of the sexual drive to pursue individual erotic pleasure.

In summary, all defense mechanisms protect the ego against anxiety. They are universal in that everyone engages in defensive behavior to some degree. Each defense mechanism combines with repression, and each can be carried to the point of psychopathology. Normally, however, defense mechanisms are benefi- cial to the individual and harmless to society. In addition, one defense mechanism— sublimation—usually benefits both the individual and society.

Stages of Development Although Freud had little firsthand experience with children (including his own), his developmental theory is almost exclusively a discussion of early childhood. To Freud, the first 4 or 5 years of life, or the infantile stage, are the most crucial for per- sonality formation. This stage is followed by a 6- or 7-year period of latency during which time little or no sexual growth takes place. Then at puberty, a renaissance of sexual life occurs, and the genital stage is ushered in. Psychosexual development eventually culminates in maturity.

Infantile Period One of Freud’s (1905/1953b, 1923/1961b) most important assumptions is that in- fants possess a sexual life and go through a period of pregenital sexual development during the first 4 or 5 years after birth. At the time Freud originally wrote about in- fantile sexuality, the concept, though not new, was met with some resistance. Today, however, nearly all close observers accept the idea that children show an interest in the genitals, delight in sexual pleasure, and manifest sexual excitement. Childhood sexuality differs from adult sexuality in that it is not capable of reproduction and is exclusively autoerotic. With both children and adults, however, the sexual impulses

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can be satisfied through organs other than the genitals. The mouth and anus are par- ticularly sensitive to erogenous stimulation (Freud, 1933/1964).

Freud (1917/1963) divided the infantile stage into three phases according to which of the three primary erogenous zones is undergoing the most salient develop- ment. The oral phase begins first and is followed in order by the anal phase and the phallic phase. The three infantile stages overlap, with one another and each contin- ues after the onset of later stages.

Oral Phase Because the mouth is the first organ to provide an infant with pleasure, Freud’s first infantile stage of development is the oral phase. Infants obtain life-sustaining nour- ishment through the oral cavity, but beyond that, they also gain pleasure through the act of sucking.

The sexual aim of early oral activity is to incorporate or receive into one’s body the object-choice, that is, the nipple. During this oral-receptive phase, infants feel no ambivalence toward the pleasurable object and their needs are usually satis- fied with a minimum of frustration and anxiety. As they grow older, however, they are more likely to experience feelings of frustration and anxiety as a result of sched- uled feedings, increased time lapses between feedings, and eventual weaning. These anxieties are generally accompanied by feelings of ambivalence toward their love ob- ject (mother), and by the increased ability of their budding ego to defend itself against the environment and against anxiety (Freud, 1933/1964).

Infants’ defense against the environment is greatly aided by the emergence of teeth. At this point, they pass into a second oral phase, which Freud (1933/1964) called the oral-sadistic period. During this phase, infants respond to others through

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Infants satisfy oral needs one way or another.

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biting, cooing, closing their mouth, smiling, and crying. Their first autoerotic expe- rience is thumb sucking, a defense against anxiety that satisfies their sexual but not their nutritional needs.

As children grow older, the mouth continues to be an erogenous zone, and by the time they become adults, they are capable of gratifying their oral needs in a va- riety of ways, including sucking candy, chewing gum, biting pencils, overeating, smoking cigarettes, pipes and cigars, and making biting, sarcastic remarks.

Anal Phase The aggressive drive, which during the first year of life takes the form of oral sadism, reaches fuller development during the second year when the anus emerges as a sex- ually pleasurable zone. Because this period is characterized by satisfaction gained through aggressive behavior and through the excretory function, Freud (1933/1964) called it the sadistic-anal phase or, more briefly, the anal phase of development. This phase is divided into two subphases, the early anal and the late anal.

During the early anal period, children receive satisfaction by destroying or losing objects. At this time, the destructive nature of the sadistic drive is stronger than the erotic one, and children often behave aggressively toward their parents for frustrating them with toilet training.

Then, when children enter the late anal period, they sometimes take a friendly interest toward their feces, an interest that stems from the erotic pleasure of defecat- ing. Frequently, children will present their feces to the parents as a valued prize (Freud, 1933/1964). If their behavior is accepted and praised by their parents, then children are likely to grow into generous and magnanimous adults. However, if their “gift” is rejected in a punitive fashion, children may adopt another method of ob- taining anal pleasure—withholding the feces until the pressure becomes both painful and erotically stimulating. This mode of narcissistic and masochistic pleasure lays the foundation for the anal character—people who continue to receive erotic satis- faction by keeping and possessing objects and by arranging them in an excessively neat and orderly fashion. Freud (1933/1964) hypothesized that people who grow into anal characters were, as children, overly resistant to toilet training, often holding back their feces and prolonging the time of training beyond that usually required. This anal eroticism becomes transformed into the anal triad of orderliness, stingi- ness, and obstinacy that typifies the adult anal character.