Answer each question thoroughly and clearly, and ground it in course reading material.  Short essay answers must be more than 3 or 4 brief sentences (minimum 150 words), but kept within the bounds of a short-answer essay exam (Must Be 2-3 paragraphs) each question. All your writing must be in your own words. Paraphrase (restate what you read) rather than copying material from the course textbook or the Internet.  No copying is permitted in this course and doing so will result in zero points on the exam. Answers must be written in narrative, paragraph form.  Lists and/or sentence fragments also will not receive points. 1) Distinguish among the defense mechanisms of denial, repression, projection, reaction formation, and displacement. 2) In which ways is Freud's thinking no longer valid? Alternatively, what does his work provide that is useful to a modern study of personality? 3) Think about Sigmund Freud's view of children and contrast it with that of his daughter, Anna, and later neo-analytic theorists. How did each distinguish the psychology of adults from that of children in terms of the id and the ego? 4) Mahler thought that the degree of integration and separation between parent and child contributed greatly to healthy and unhealthy relationships in adulthood. What might be examples of healthy and unhealthy degrees of closeness between parents and children? READING: This week’s focus will be on some of the pioneers in what would eventually become the subspecialty of personality within the field of psychology. Both Freud and Erikson are known as stage theorists in that they viewed the development of one's personality to occur as an individual sequentially progressed through several distinct stages, characterized by a particular challenge that needed to be overcome. Healthy personality development is associated with the successful navigation through these challenges, while personality problems or limitations are related to an individual's inability to adequately negotiate the challenge(s). Early Pioneer: Sigmund Freud When we mention the name Sigmund Freud many people think about sex drives and his concepts of Id, Ego, and Superego to explain structures of the mind. He is sometimes referred to in the behavioral sciences as the father of psychology because he tried to chart the mind. He believed that it was the multidimensional essential cause of motives, thoughts, actions, reactions, feelings, and beliefs. He was an extremely intelligent and developed a theory of personality and psychotherapy that prior to him had not seen. He established new ways of viewing and interpreting human behavior. He was a physician and he considered himself to be a biological scientist. As such he was concerned with biological structures such as the mind. He wondered what effect this framework exerted on psychological reactions. Freud studied hypnosis under Jean-Martin Charcot who was a famous neuropathologist of the time. He began to use this meth ...

1. Answer each question thoroughly and clearly, and ground it in
course reading material. Short essay answers must be more than
3 or 4 brief sentences (minimum 150 words), but kept within the
bounds of a short-answer essay exam (Must Be 2-3 paragraphs)
each question. All your writing must be in your own words.
Paraphrase (restate what you read) rather than copying material
from the course textbook or the Internet. No copying is
permitted in this course and doing so will result in zero points
on the exam. Answers must be written in narrative, paragraph
form. Lists and/or sentence fragments also will not receive
points.
1) Distinguish among the defense mechanisms of denial,
repression, projection, reaction formation, and displacement.
2) In which ways is Freud's thinking no longer valid?
Alternatively, what does his work provide that is useful to a
modern study of personality?
3) Think about Sigmund Freud's view of children and contrast it
with that of his daughter, Anna, and later neo-analytic theorists.
How did each distinguish the psychology of adults from that of
children in terms of the id and the ego?
4) Mahler thought that the degree of integration and separation
between parent and child contributed greatly to healthy and
unhealthy relationships in adulthood. What might be examples
of healthy and unhealthy degrees of closeness between parents
and children?

2. READING:
This week’s focus will be on some of the pioneers in what
would eventually become the subspecialty of personality within
the field of psychology. Both Freud and Erikson are known as
stage theorists in that they viewed the development of one's
personality to occur as an individual sequentially progressed
through several distinct stages, characterized by a particular
challenge that needed to be overcome. Healthy personality
development is associated with the successful navigation
through these challenges, while personality problems or
limitations are related to an individual's inability to adequately
negotiate the challenge(s).
Early Pioneer: Sigmund Freud
When we mention the name Sigmund Freud many people think
about sex drives and his concepts of Id, Ego, and Superego to
explain structures of the mind. He is sometimes referred to in
the behavioral sciences as the father of psychology because he
tried to chart the mind. He believed that it was the
multidimensional essential cause of motives, thoughts, actions,
reactions, feelings, and beliefs. He was an extremely intelligent
and developed a theory of personality and psychotherapy that
prior to him had not seen. He established new ways of viewing
and interpreting human behavior. He was a physician and he
considered himself to be a biological scientist. As such he was
concerned with biological structures such as the mind. He
wondered what effect this framework exerted on psychological
reactions.
Freud studied hypnosis under Jean-Martin Charcot who was a
famous neuropathologist of the time. He began to use this

3. method to treat what was known at the time as hysteria.
Hysteria was considered a nervous ailment whose biological
cause could not be determined.
Freud came to realize that hypnosis was not sufficient to treat
many of his patients. He began to investigate other forms of
suggestion such as free association and dreams. He considered
dreams to be a royal road or pathway into the realm of the
unconscious. He believed that we are given symbols in dreams
that either brings us information about wishes we would want to
be fulfilled or about wishes we would want to repress. He felt
that the mind disguises our wishes with symbols when the
material is too threatening in some way to our concept of us. He
continued to posit that dreams contain two levels of material.
He called these levels manifest and latent.
The manifest content of a dream is what the person remembers
while the latent content is the hidden psychological core of the
dream. He believed if we could bring the unconscious meaning
into consciousness we could mitigate psychological distress.
Today many people insist that dreams have meaning even
stating that they believe some dreams are prophetic. It is no
wonder that Freud was so intrigued by how unconscious
motivations can influence our behavior.
Open file: Transcript
Three Parts of the Mind
Freud viewed the mind as having three parts. He labeled these
parts the Id, the Ego and the Superego. These parts are in no
way physical nor are they located in a discrete portion of the
brain. Let’s take a separate look at each of these structures.
· ID

4. ·
EGO
·
SUPER EGO
We begin with the Id. We often say that it operates on the
pleasure principle. It is the simple and instinctual piece of the
personality. It contains two instincts, Eros or the life instinct
often interpreted as sex and Thanatos or the death instinct often
interpreted as aggression. Operating under the pleasure
principle means that we solely want to satisfy our own needs
and desires. The Id is not affected by either logic or reality. The
goal is to attain what we desire in an effort to reduce inner
stress. This is most readily seen in babies. They become hungry,
they scream and cry regardless of day, time, or circumstance
and once their hunger need is met they settle down. If the baby
is denied food, they will experience some form of discomfort or
pain.
The Ego, on the other hand, is grounded in reality and the real
world. We can think of it as a kind of mediator between the
instinctual Id and the external world. It functions under the
reality principle. It finds realistic tactics to satisfy the
immediate and often unrealistic desires of the Id in order to
avoid negative societal consequences. It accomplishes this using
compromise and the delaying of gratification. The ego
integrates social norms and rules in choosing how we will
behave. Like the Id, the Ego also wants pleasure and wants to
avoid pain. However, the Ego finds realistic and pro-social
means to accomplish this.
Finally, we come to the Superego. The Superego integrates the
morals and values of a society and culture which was learned at
a young age from our parents and significant others in our lives.

5. Its function is also one of control. It tries to control the ego’s
antisocial impulses such as sex and aggression as defined by the
cultural or societal norms. It also encourages the ego to strive
for goals that are moral and not just realistic and to strive for
excellence. It operates under the morality principle.
Importance of Early Childhood Development
Freud suggested that children experience psychological
development within the framework of a series of set stages.
Further, he believed that each stage had its own conflict which
had to be successfully resolved. He proposed that there were
five distinct stages.
STAGES OF PSYCHOSEXUAL DEVELOPMENT
FIRST STAGE
The first stage is the oral stage which according to Freud takes
place between 0 and 1 year of age. At this stage, the focus is on
the baby’s mouth. The baby derives satisfaction by putting
things in its mouth such as the breast. This behavior includes
biting and sucking among other things. This meets the infant’s
need for satisfaction at this stage. The problem arises when the
infant is physically weaned from bottle or breast. Freud posits
that failure to transfer psychosexual energy or libido at this
stage to the next can result in oral fixation. This kind of
fixation can lead to many oral behaviors such as nail biting,
smoking, overindulgence in food and even sucking on
substances.
The second stage is the anal stage which occurs between 1 and 3
years of age. Freud suggests that the focus is now on the anus
and that the child obtains pleasure from expelling bodily waste.
The child at this point realizes that it is a separate entity and
has wishes and desires that may come into conflict with the

6. larger world. The conflict here is potty training. If the parent is
harsh or demanding or if training begins too early in the child’s
life the child may refuse to train or refuse to defecate at all.
Failure to transfer libido satisfactorily and resolve this conflict
can lead to fixation in the anal phase. This can result in an anal
retentive personality characterized by excessive neatness,
stubbornness and being close handed with money and other
possessions. Conversely, if the potty training method was too
liberal the result can be a person who is anal expulsive. This
personality overly shares is messy and rebellious.
The third stage is the phallic stage and occurs between the ages
of 3 and 6. At this stage, children derive pleasure by exploring
their genitals. Masturbation can occur at this stage. This
discovery of sexual pleasure and bodily differences as well as
the social unacceptance of apparent sexual behavior, according
to Freud, gives rise to both the Oedipus complex in boys and the
Electra complex in girls. The Oedipus complex simply stated is
that little boys have a desire for their mother but fear
punishment by castration by their father. They resolve this
conflict by adopting the attributes of their father. The Electra
complex in girls posits that little girls wish they had a penis and
blame their mothers for this lack. In order to resolve this
conflict, the little girl must connect with her mother’s
characteristics. In doing so she will attract a man, her penis
substitute and have a baby.
The fourth stage is the latency stage which occurs between the
ages of 5 or 6 and goes to puberty. Freud believed that the
libido is dormant at this stage because sexual desires are
repressed. He further believed that this sexual energy is
redirected into hobbies, friendships or school, etc. Because he
cites no conflict at this stage there is no fixation at this stage
The fifth and final stage is the genital stage which is from
puberty to adulthood. This is the stage when adolescents enter a

7. time of sexual investigation. It is during this stage that
successful resolution results in a stable, loving exclusive
relationship with a heterosexual partner. Freud believed that the
appropriate channel for the sexual urge was through
heterosexual intercourse. Fixation at this point can prevent this
from occurring and hence bring about the rise of sexual
corruption. If one is fixated at the oral stage, one may derive
sexual satisfaction from kissing and oral sex and not necessarily
from intercourse.
Males vs. Females
How did Freud view males versus females? In his early views
on sexuality, Freud saw women as men without penises. This
led him to believe that women were inferior because of this
obvious lack. He paid little attention to the role clitoral
stimulation played in orgasm and indeed believed that in order
for sexuality in a girl to mature, she needed to shift pleasure
seeking to the vagina. He equated a vaginal orgasm with the
penis and thus being natural, while a clitoral orgasm did not
require a penis and therefore was not natural. Modern research
beginning with Masters and Johnson does not confirm his ideas
about orgasms.
According to the zeitgeist of the late 19th century, Freud
accepted the belief that men were naturally superior to women.
His theories focused on male’s behaviors as the norm while
female behavior was considered to be a deviation from the
norm.
One of Freud’s contentions derived from his observations of
women who choose to remain in abusive or painful relationships
with men. He believed that women had an unconscious desire
for misery and indeed actually received instinctive pleasure
from suffering. Although Freud’s reflections about gender are
not supported by modern research findings, nevertheless he was

8. among the first intellectuals to explore and try to comprehend
psychological differences between the genders.
Defense Mechanisms
What are defense mechanisms and why do we need them
anyway? Freud believed that the ego utilizes a range of defense
mechanisms in order to handle the conflicts of life. These
mechanisms operate outside our conscious awareness and help
us to deflect unpleasant feelings such as anxiety or enhance our
feelings about good things. Remember the job of the ego? If it
becomes overwhelmed and cannot find a satisfactory resolution
of a problem it becomes anxious and maybe even feels
threatened. In order to deal with this threat to our ego, our
unconscious will employ one or more defense mechanisms for
our protection against the stressor. While defense mechanisms
are normal, Freud believed that when they become too dominant
neuroses develop.
According to Freud, there are several ego
defense mechanisms
.
UNCONSCIOUS DEFENSE MECHANISMS
REPRESSION
REACTION
DENIAL
PROJECTION
SUBLIMATION

9. REGRESSION
RATIONALIZATION
DISPLACEMENT
Repression is the unconscious defense mechanism that keeps
threatening thoughts or ideas in the unconscious. PTSD is
thought to manifest because of the repression of memories
considered too horrible to bring to the conscious mind. Falling
under this rubric are also memories of incest and false
memories.
Reaction formation is the pushing away of threatening impulses
by overemphasizing the opposite of a person’s thoughts or
feelings. We can see this in action when we watch some public
figures. Or consider if you really dislike a person, yet you
behave in the opposite way toward that person.
Denial involves blocking external events from consciousness in
an effort to reduce anxiety. Continuing to smoke cigarettes
despite all of the evidence of its harmful effects on health is an
example of denial.
Projection attributes our own unacceptable thoughts and ideas
unto another person. If you really dislike a family member but
feel awful about how you feel you can convince yourself that
the family member really dislikes you.
Sublimation is a mechanism by which we convert dangerous
urges into socially accepted behaviors. Excessive aggressive
urges may lead one to become a surgeon.
Regression is a dense mechanism that pushes us back to a safer
psychological time in the face of stress. A child who begins to
suck its thumb after the death of a family member is a good

10. example.
Rationalization is a defense which seeks to craft a rational
explanation for a behavior that was impulse driven. Going to
night spots of shady repute is explained as doing the necessary
research.
Displacement shifts the target impulse such as aggression unto
another target. Say the boss chews you out for something. You
really cannot aggress against the boss and hope for a positive
outcome so when you go home you kick the dog or yell at
family members.
Major Contributions
Freud was a major contributor to psychological thought. He was
the first to define and explore personality development and its
relationship to behavior. He created a guide or roadmap and a
language to explore the importance of understanding
unconscious drives. He emphasized the importance of the sexual
drive and explored its workings in adults, infants, and children
as a motivational force. Many of his observations are confirmed
by modern research on the brain and cognitive psychology.
Psychoanalytic thought is applied today in many different ways.
The most obvious of course is in the area of emotion and
motivation. Perhaps one of the most important tenets is the
finding that emotional and behavioral states can exist separately
from conscious thought. Modern research on certain emotions
reveals that we may be hardwired to produce certain facial
expressions that are universally recognized. This research is
consistent with Freud’s notion that we can experience emotion
and motivation without being fully able to understand it.
The idea of free will at first seems to be in complete opposition
to the idea of determinism. However, we must remember that

11. Freud tried to bring the unconscious into awareness and his aim
was to change behavior. This gives us an intriguing look about
his own awareness about free will. We humans often believe
that any action is preceded by intention. We have found that
this is not always the case. Intention can be unconscious or
something that follows an action. Intention can be externalized
as in the case of someone such as a schizophrenic who hears
voices and believes that the source of the voices exists outside
themselves.
Let’s say that you and your sibling are talking about when she
fell out of the tree and broke her leg. Suddenly your sibling
begins remembering other experiences that were related to the
incident. She might wonder why memories that she has not
thought of in many years came flooding back to her. This is
called hypermnesia or excess of memory. Sometimes to access
these unreported memories free association and hypnosis is
used. There is, however, no infallible way to determine if these
memories are accurate. Also, we much ask ourselves what role
does reward or punishment play in stimulating our ability to
remember.
Freud noticed that adults rarely remember events that happened
to them before the age of three or four. He was one of the first
to write about this and believed that repression of threatening
sexual desires was the basis for this forgetting. However, later
research has found that almost all memories are forgotten not
just distressing ones.
READ MORE
Compiled by Himmat Rana (May 1997). Sigmund Freud.
Retrieved from:
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/freud.htm

12. Library of Congress (n.d.). Sigmund Freud: Conflict & Culture.
Retrieved from: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/freud/freud03.html
McLeod, S.A. (2008). Id, Ego, and Superego. Retrieved from:
www.simplypsychology.org/psyche.html