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Biological Theory

• Premise: Behavior is primarily determined by one's biology (genetics, health, neurological status)
• -Modification of biological factors leads to improved behavior. Psychiatry is rooted in this
• -Began with Darwin
• -Now, focus is on how both neuroanatomy and neurophysiology contribute to human behavior (neurotransmitters and their role in mental illness).
• Theorist: Hans Eysenk: Used behavioral and psychophsiological methodologies to test and develop his theories. Published his book called Dimensions of personality.
• *Developed Extraversion and Neuroticism*
• *Developed Factor-analytic research to determine personality dimensions*
• -Jeffrey Alan Gray: Student of Eysencks, studied personality traits of extraversion and introversion as individual differences in sensitivty to rewarding and punishing stimuli. Studied brains behavior of perceptual abilities
• 

Psychoanalytic theory (Freudian tips hehe)

• Basic Premise: People have unconscious drives/needs which affect their conscious behavior
• -Psychoanalysis consists of helping clients become more aware of their unconscious processes in order to behave in more adaptive ways.
• -Sigmund Freud:
• -First major personality theorist ; single most influential mental health professional to ever live
• -First suggested that we had an unconscious; that sexual abuse could impact someone/cause a mental disorder. He demonstrated that by "making the unconscious, conscious" someone could get better..
• What are the 3 components of psychoanalytic theory?
• ID-Basic psychic energy (libido), impulses, motivations-Basic drives for sex, security, and to eliminate physical & emotional pain. It operates on the pleasure principle: it is only concerned with satisfying its desires.
• Ego: Deals with reality: Solving real problems, operates on the Reality Principle. Needed to get ones needs met within the constraints of society; it's practical...Everyday stuff
• Superego: A MORALITY WHORE!!! Internalizes societal/moral rules. Includes the conscience, incorporates external rules which are learned...A lot of this stuff isn't even conscious
• What happens when the superego and id clash? MENTAL ILLNESS!! ANXIETY..Therefore the ego must find a compromise between the two...the compromises are "defenses"

Psychoanalytic Limitations

• -This theory has been incredibly influential over the years BUT it is limited to certain populations
• -It's heteronormative approach, it does not explain LGBTQ development
• Its gender bias (women get in the kitchen! You can never achieve true emotional health!)
• Its focus on early childhood to the exclusion of the rest of the lifespan

Psychosexual Stages

• 1. Oral stage: Birth-12mo
• -Conflict arises due to the baby's drives for security (to remain close to the mother) and detachment (inpdendence/differentiaion)
• Key event? Weaning!
• Resolution? Baby's differentiation is encouraged by parents (walking, talking, interacting with others); baby realizes that he/she is a seperate person from mother
• Fixation: PLeasure form oral activites (eating, drinking, smoking, chewing gum)..They are always "taking in" and have attachment/depdency issues. Psychotic level of other theorist
• 2. Anal stage: 18mo-3 yrs. Conflict arises from the desires of the id (pleasure and the emerging superego (societal limitations)
• Key event: Toilet training-moving from being free to "go" anytime, you can't piss on yourself anymore, kid! You have to control it/hold it.
• -Resolution: Child learns self-control
• Fixation? Person becomes overcontrolling, stingy, passive-aggressive. Tries very hard to avoid self-control, VERY free, expressive, creative.
• Remains preoccupied with bathroom activities breaking rules, making messes, even social/relational messes

Psychosexual stages

• 3. Phallic stage: 4
• -Sexual feelings start to emerge, conflict is the Oedipal/Electra complex, the desire to compete with the same-sex parent .
• -Girls develop penis envy..Resolution occurs when girl realizes she cannot have a penis so has a baby, most women get stuck in the phallic stage
• 4. Latency stage: 6-11 yrs
• -No important psychosexual developments during this time period
• -Sexual energy is put into children going to school and making friends. No conflict during this stage
• 5. GENITAL STAGE: 12-Adulthood
• -The attention turns away from self-pleasuring and toward normal relations, like marriage and having kids. If this DOESN'T happen, individual will have trouble having stable relationships

Freud's talking cure

• Free association was the beginning of this and then frued moved to dream analysis
• Manifest content: What the person remembers and consciously considers
• Latent content: The
• The underlying "real" meaning of the dream
• The importance of psychoanalytic theory: Freud stressed the importance of childhood experiences, the impact of sexual assault, his original idea is the basic assumption of most modern psychotherapy theories.Overall, it was just profound...

Primitive Defenses

• 1. Denial: Reducing anxiety-provoking stimuli by convining yourself they don't exisist (refusing to believe the doctors after htey tell you you have cancer)
• 2. Projection: Placing unacceptable impulses in yourself onto someone else (accousing your professor (who you dont like) of being angry with you when you get a low grade
• 3. Reaction formation: Taking an opposite belief of what one actually believes an acting on it because the true belief causes anxiety (being gay and joining Wesborough bapitst church)
• 4. Regression: Returning to baby state
• 5. Splitting: Failure in a person's thinking to bring together both positive and negative qualities of the self and others

Defences

• Mid-level defenses:
• 1.Intellectualization: Avoding unacceptable/uncomfortable emotions by focusing on details or the intellectual aspects ofa situation
• 2. Rationalization: Supplying a lgoical or rational reason as opposation to the real reason
• 3. Repression: Moving thoughts, beliefs, or feelings into the unconscious because they are too uncomfortable or unacceptable
• 4. Displacement: Taking out impulses on a less threatening target (hitting the cat rather than your wife)
• Mature Level Defenses
• 1.Assertiveness: The emphasis oa person's needs or thoughts in a manner tha tis respectful, direct, and firm.
• 2. Compensation: A process of psychologically counterbalancing perceived weaknesses by emphasizing strength in other arenas.
• 3. Sublimation: Finding social acceptable ways to act out unacceptable impulses (becoming a boxer to handle aggressive impulses).

Neo-Analytic theories: Carl Jung

• Carl Jung: Jung De-emphasized sexual energy, paying more attention to historical events in a person's life, a person's motivations, and to religious and supernatural factors.
• -Jung believed in the unconscious and drives, however, he believed that a person's goals and motivations helped to shape personality (Freud thought that personality becomes fixed in childhood).
• IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTIONS: Jung believed that repression existed, but felt that repressed drives lead to "COMPLEXES"
• -He believed that dreams were communications from the realm of the paranormal, not unconscious.
• -He believed personality was made up of 3 parts:
• 1. Ego: Self-personal identity established in early childhood
• 2. Personal Unconscious: Thoughts/feelings that are unconscious because they are either irrelevant to the situation or are too disturbing and end up repressed
• 3. Collective unconscious: The combined past experiences of our acestors; deeper unconscious
• Collective unconscious is made up of elements called "Archetypes":
• Archetypal figures: mother, child, demon, trickster, clown, hero
• Arcyetypal motifs: the creation of the world, a great flood, the apocalypse:
• JUNG ALSO BELIEVED IN....
• -Anima: The primary image of women all people have; the feminine qualities that men have
• Animus: The primary image of men all people have; the masculine qualities that women have
• What were the 4 functions of the mind that Carl Jung created?
• 1. Sensing (what you see, hear)
• 2. Thinking (processing information).
• 3.Feeling (making determinations about value).
• 4. Intuiting (problem solving; thinking ahead).

Neo-Analytic: Carl Jung con..

• What are the two major attitudes Jung described/created?
• -Introversion: Psychic energy turned inward
• -Extroversion: Psychic energy turned outward.
• His ideas were used to create the Meyers-Briggs Typde Indicator
• In summary: Carl Jung broke away from Freud and created his own school of thought. He believed in the Collective Unconscious, Introversion, Extroversion, and Archetypes/motifs. He also demphasized sexual energy; and believed that personality changed across the lifespan (unlike Freud).

Neo-Analytic: Alfred Adler

• -Another failed relationship with Freud
• -His major contribution was the Inferiority Complex
• -Children naturally feel inferior b/c they are small and powerless; the complex occurs when adults still feel this way.
• -He also focused on perfectionism, which he called "Perfection Striving". When people have unrealistic goals and continue to strive for them.
• That's all!

Neo-Analytic: Erik Erikson

• -He believed that personality develops across the entire lifespan
• -He viewed personality as a series of psychosocial containing conflicts that must be resolved
• ERIKSON'S STAGE THEORY:
• Stage/Ego Crisis* Freud Ego Skill Gained Age
• 1. Trust vs mistrust Oral Hope Infa
• 2. Autonomy vs shame Anal Anal Early
• 3. Initiative vs guilt Phallic Purpose Early
• Stage/Ego Crisis* Freud Ego Skill Gained Age
• 4. Industry vs Inferiority Latency Competence mid-2
• 5. Identitify vs Role Confu Genital Loyalty Teen yrs
• 6. Intimacy vs Isolation Love Erl Adult
• 7. Generativity vs Stagnation Caring Middle Adl