Reading Blog 4/12 10pm

Chapter 14 focuses on a few main concepts, with the first one that is explained, is ‘Psychodynamic Perspective’, which states that the ultimate cause of motivation and behavior derives from biologically endowed and socially acquired impulses that determine our desires, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors whether we like it or not. Psychodynamic Perspective was first modernly introduced by Sigmund Freud, and the textbook further explains the concept in that it claims that a person’s personality changes little after puberty, which means that many of the motivational impulses of an adult can be traced to events that took place in their childhood. The chapter explains that since Freud introduced his ideas there are still some researchers who fully support his ideas and then there are others who agree with most of his ideas, but also think there should some changes made to the ideas with research findings that have been found since then. The name associated with those who remain committed to most of Freud’s principles is ‘Psychoanalytic’. The more modern view associated with Freud’s principles is ‘Psychodynamic’, who believe that people can study unconscious mental processes such as: prejudice, depression, thought suppression, and defense mechanisms. Another major principle introduced by Freud is ‘Dual-Instinct Theory’, which is the idea of the human body increasing or decreasing its energies through behavior. Freud emphasized 2 general categories for these behaviors, with the first category being ‘Instincts for Life’ or Eros. These instincts maintain life and insure individual and collective survival. Examples of these instincts are food, water, sex, air, and sleep. The second category is ‘Instincts for Death’ or Thanatos, which push an individual toward rest, inactivity, and energy conservation. Freud’s primary emphasis for this category was aggression. He explained that when a person’s self focused on that person only, that aggression manifests itself in self-criticism, sadism, depression, suicide, drug addiction, and unnecessary risk taking; whereas when a person’s self focuses on others aggression manifests itself in anger, hate, prejudice, verbal insult, cruelty, rivalry, revenge, murder, and war.
The next major section of the chapter focuses on the unconscious, and the chapter explains that there are three major views on the portrayals of the unconscious. The first of those views is ‘Freudian Unconscious’, which claim that dreams provide an outlet for venting wishes and tension, and that nightmares are associated with anxiety symptoms. The conclusion on this view is that Freud’s concept of the dream was too limited because dreams are also neurophysiological, cognitive, coping, and problem-solving events that have little to do with unconscious wishes. The second view is ‘Adaptive Unconscious’, which states that the unconscious helps with appraising the environment, setting goals, making judgments, initiating action while we are consciously thinking about something else. It also states that the unconscious enacts procedural knowledge , recognizes events as familiar or not, and help with making accurate judgments of other people’s emotions with only a micro-second of expose. The third view is ‘Implicit Motivation’, which refers to all the motives, emotions, attitudes, and judgments that operate outside a person’s conscious awareness. This view calls these “Implicit” motivation, which are indirect, implied, and not well understood. The view further explains that when a person faces difficulty and challenge that they can feel good and energized or bad and anxious, and that these emotional reactions predict behavior well.
Next the chapter explains a few of the more recent categories within unconscious research. The first of those is ‘Repression’, which is the process of forgetting information or an experience by ways that are unconscious, unintentional, and automatic. The concept explains that this is the ego’s psychodynamic counterforce to the id’s demanding and distressing wishes, desires, ideas, or memories. The section explains that it is extremely difficult for researchers to study repression empirically because it involves asking people about things that they do not remember. The next category is ‘Suppression’, which is the process of removing a thought by ways that are conscious, intentional, and deliberate. The chapter explains that in general it is very difficult for a person to do this because the mind cannot help but focus on a thought even if a person wishes to not do so.
The next section explains ‘Ego Development’, in that it is a developmental progression toward what is possible in terms of psychological growth, maturity, adjustment, prosocial interdependence, competence, and autonomous functioning. The chapter explains that the ego unfolds along a developmental trajectory with 6 stages: Symbiotic, Impulsive, Self-Protective, Conformist, Conscientious, and Autonomous. In summary the ego begins by being dependent on its caretaker, to slowly understanding rules and group approval/disapproval in terms of relation to its impulses, to it having a conscious and eventually becoming autonomous. The final major point of the chapter is ‘Object Relations Theory’, which focuses on the nature and development of mental representations of the self and others and on the affective processes associated with the representations. In particular the theory focuses on how childhood mental representations of one’s caretakers are captured within the personality and how they persist into adulthood. Examples of this would be: can other be trusted? Is the self lovable? This is the part of the chapter that I found to be most interesting because I have a half-sister who is almost 5 years old, and seeing her grow up, in addition to becoming educated in what makes up or determines human behavior, motivation, and emotion, has made me interested in monitoring her progression.

Chapter fourteen is about the Unconscious Motivation. There are four main parts to this, psychodynamic perspective, the unconscious, psychodynamics, and the ego psychology. Psychodynamic perspective is the main leader in causing motivation and behavior. It is also what determines our feelings, desires and thoughts. Psychoanalysis can also be linked to aggressive and sexual urges, as well as emotional burdens, anxiety, conflict, vulnerabilities and repression, otherwise known as the dark side. Psychoanalysis, however, is much more appealing then psychodynamic perspective.
People want to know more about human nature, all the strange and mysterious things we do. Many, including me, want to know more about the human mind and how it works. Another reason why psychoanalysis is popular is because it makes up the subject of unconsciousness. This would include dreams, fantasies, and hypnosis. It’s the wanting to know why these unwanted fears and desires have made their home here.
Hidden behind the public eye/observations and private consciousness lies the unconsciousness. It is not impossible to find and study the unconsciousness, but it is difficult. According to Mr. Sigmund Freud, the unconscious is a “shadow phenomenon”. He believes that a person expresses urges and impulses when unconscious and to that, they can only be inferred when it indirectly manifestations. To get some answers, Freud tried a number of things such as; dream analysis, hypnosis, and humor. It’s been a heated debate, but the findings show that unconscious is a big part of our mental life. Now the main focus is on the three portrayals that involves the unconscious. The three are Freudain unconscious, implicit motivation, and adaptive unconscious.
The Freudian unconsciousness was developed by Freud himself. He did not believe that the consciousness was the core of all mental life; he divided it up and come out with three different parts. First is the conscious, which is the sensations, feelings, and thoughts that every person experiences. Second in the preconscious, this is the storage system that holds all the feelings, memories, and thoughts. The last and most important one, according to Freud, is the unconscious. He calls this, the “mental storehouse”.
Adaptive unconscious is the part that makes the judgment calls. It’s the part that recognizes events, and tells if they are familiar or not. Also, what I found interesting is it can imply gained knowledge to listening and remembering music.
Last is implicit motivation. This refers to every emotion, judgments, attitudes, and motives that control our conscious awareness. People can easily control their behaviors when they are emotionally activated with the implicit motivation and when they have an open mind. This is important because it shows that unconscious and conscious can work together.
Psychodynamics, to Freud, is the concern of a conflict that is between the structures of the ego, id, and superego. The id controls the unconsciousness, hedonistic, impulse-driven, and involuntary. The ego is a little of the unconsciousness and consciousness. Inside the Psychodynamics are repressions and suppressions. Repressions is how we forget information through unconsciousness or unintentionally. Suppression has the power to stop thoughts.
That last main factor is the unconscious motivations of the ego psychology. Freud believes that at birth, babies only have ids. Then as they continue to grow into childhood they begin to develop an ego. Ego development forms by psychological growth such as maturity, competence, and adjustment. When the ego is growing in infants, it is immature and is more of an impulse. In the next stage, as the ego starts to mature, it starts to understand rules and consequences. In the next stage, the ego starts to become one with plans, thoughts, and plans. This part of the stage is the self regulating and motivating.
I liked this chapter. It was really interesting to learn about the unconsciousness. I did find implicit motivation to be a little confusing, but other than that this was the best chapter to read. I learned a lot from it.

Terms: psychodynamic perspective, the unconscious, psychodynamics, ego psychology, psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, Freudain unconscious, implicit motivation, adaptive unconscious, conscious, preconscious, ego, id, superego, repression, suppression, ego development.

Chapter fourteen looks at unconscious motivation. The psychodynamic perspective claims that the ultimate cause of motivation is due to biological reasons or impulses acquired in society that determines our desires, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This changes very little from puberty, and there’s nothing we can do to change it. In this perspective motivation is caused by something that happened to us in childhood rather than something we created. It is considered a more pessimistic perspective as it attributes motivation to sexual and aggressive urges, conflict, anxiety, repression, defense mechanisms, anxiety, burdens, and vulnerabilities. It, however, has been a very popular theory due to the fact that it studies the unconscious and reveals the secrets of the mind. Psychoanalytic theorists are those who are committed to the traditional principles set out by Freud. Psychodynamic is the study of dynamic unconscious mental processes. Freud emphasized two categories for bodily drives: instincts for life and instincts for death or Eros and Thanatos. Eros, the instincts for life, maintain life and species survival such as food, water, air, sleep, and sex. Thanatos, the instincts for death, push people toward rest, inactivity, and energy conservation. He emphasized aggression in this area. Sex and aggression are considered psychological wishes rather than drives. Psychodynamic has changed a lot since Freud and is now contained in four basic principles including the unconscious, psychodynamics, ego development, and object relations theory.
The first theory states that much of mental life is unconscious and states that thoughts, feelings, and desires exist at the unconscious level. Freud and his colleagues studied the unconscious through hypnosis, free association, dream analysis, humor, projective tests, and slips in speech. There are three views of the unconscious: Freudian unconscious, adaptive unconscious, and implicit motivation. The conscious includes all the thoughts and emotions that a person is aware of. The preconscious includes the thoughts and emotions that aren’t in the conscious but are easy to remember. The largest area is the unconscious, which stores instinctual impulses, repressed experiences, childhood memories before using language, and unfulfilled wishes and desires. The adaptive unconscious appraises the environment, sets goals, makes judgments, and initiates action. Implicit motivation is the motives, emotions, attitudes, and judgments that are outside of a person’s conscious. They are linked to emotional experiences and direct attention so that people automatically tend to environmental events that have emotional associations.
The second principle is psychodynamics. This is the idea that people frequently want and fear the same thing at the same time, and this means that they have conflicting feelings that motivate them in opposite directions. This brings in the ideas of the id and ego. The id is motivated by the pleasure principle, which is gain pleasure and avoid pain at all costs, and is involuntary and impulse driven. The ego is partially conscious and partially unconscious and is based around the reality principle, which is hold off the pleasure seeking until a socially acceptable need-satisfying object can be found. Repression is the process of forgetting information or an event through the unconscious and is unintentional and automatic. It is the ego’s counterforce to the id’s demanding desires. Anxiety leads events to be repressed. Suppression is the process of removing a thought through conscious and deliberate means. Usually suppression does not work.
The third principle is ego development. The ego progresses in psychological growth, maturity, adjustment, prosocial interdependence, competence, and autonomous functioning. It develops motives of its own through the development of symbiotic, impulsive, self-protective, conformist, conscientious, and autonomous. Ego development is important in two ways: it defends against anxiety and empowers the person to interact more effectively and proactively with the surroundings. The environment, id, and superego will cause anxiety and defense mechanisms act in defensive and protective ways. Ego effectiveness is the individual’s competence in dealing with environmental challenges, demands, and opportunities.
The last principle is objects relations, and it studies how people relate to objects to satisfy the emotional and psychological need for relatedness. It focuses on the nature and development of mental representations of the self and others and on the wishes and fears associated with their representations. The main focus is how childhood mental representation of their caretakers is captured within the self and persists into adulthood. Object relations stress the impact of parental abuse and neglect on the child’s developing self and others. Positive mental models of one’s self predict adult levels of self reliance, social confidence, and self-esteem. It also predicts the quality of romantic relationships. The quality of one’s mental representations of relationships can be characterized through three dimensions: unconscious tone, capacity for emotional involvement, and mutuality of autonomy with others.
There are two big criticism of Freud’s psychoanalytic. First, most of the concepts are not scientifically testable. Second, it is not good at predicting future events.
I'm very skeptical of Freud's ideas, because I have trouble believing that everything relates back to sexual desires. However, I thought this chapter did a good job of just presenting the facts and not taking a side on such a controversial theory like most text books tend to do.
ME Terms: unconscious, psychodynamic perspective, psychoanalytic, Eros, Thanatos, Freudian unconscious, adaptive unconscious, implicit motivation, psychodynamics, id, ego, ego development, symbiotic, impulsive, self-protective, conformist, conscientious, autonomous, objects relations

Chapter 14 discusses unconscious motivation. Unconscious motivation stems from the fact that humans have thoughts, feelings, and emotions that we think are our own, but in many cases have been interjected from another source. Due to this unconscious motivation becomes present in the fact that we have little idea as to the source of what we want, think, and feel.
The first theory discussed is that of the psychodynamic perspective. It encompasses both deterministic and pessimistic images of human nature. Speaking of the deterministic aspect, cause of motivation and behavior derives from biologically endowed and socially acquired impulses. The pessimistic aspect stems from the fact it centers itself around: sex and aggression urges, conflict, anxiety, repression, vulnerability etc. It looks at the difficult aspect of human nature which is really the unconscious.
The next Freudian theory presented is the dual-instinct theory which believes that motivation is regulated by impulse driven biological factors which increase or decrease body energy. He creates two categories which are instincts for life (eros) or death (Thanatos). Eros maintains life and ensure individual and collective survival. Thanatos pushes individual toward rest, inactivity, and energy conservation. So Freud's ego is supposed to provide direction to need satisfying aims.
Contemporary psychodynamic theory rests itself on 4 postulates which include: unconscious (how much mental life is), psychodynamics (mental processes operate in parallel with one another), ego development (healthy development involves moving immature to mature), and object relations theory (mental representations of self and others form in childhood that guide a person's later social motivations and relationships).
The Freudian unconscious is a division of mental life into what is conscious and unconscious. The mind is split into three components: conscious (short term memory; thoughts, feelings, sensations, memory, and experiences a person is always aware of), preconscious (stores all thoughts, feelings, and memories that can be retrieved given a prompt), and unconscious (mental storehouse of inaccessible instinctual impulses, repressed memories, childhood memories, and strong unfulfilled wishes and desires).
Implicit motivation is spoke of in relation to that it shows us how unconscious and conscious can work together. It refers to indirect, implied, or not well understood motives, emotions, attitudes, and judgments.
Psychodynamics is the clashing of will. It occurs when the conscious (ego) will and the unconscious (id) counter will are roughly equal strength. Due to this neither are satisfied.
Defense mechanisms help our consciousness against potentially overwhelming anxiety. Some defense mechanisms can occur with repression or suppression. Repression acts as a guard, judging which of our thoughts could become open to the public. Repression helps us keep our self view in tact so nothing contradicts ourselves. Suppression on the other hand is a process of removing a thought by ways that are conscious, intentional, and deliberate. Though we might try to suppress something it is much harder which shows us that we have less control over thoughts then we think.
Aside from Freud, Heinz Hartmann is discussed in ego psychology and development. He says that the ego is developmental progression toward what is possible in terms of psychological growth, maturity, adjustment, pro-social independence, competence, and autonomous functioning.
Finally the theory I found most interesting is object relations theory. This focuses on the nature and development of mental representations of the self and others on the affective processes associated with these representations. It stems from how the bond of a child to it's caretaker becomes the template for self and other representations. I think this is interesting because the child/caretaker is the first relationship formed which would obviously seem to affect perhaps all relationships.

ME terms: psychodynamic perspective, dual-instinct theory, eros, Thanatos, ego, (id), unconscious, psychodynamics, ego development, object relations theory, conscious, preconsciousness, unconscious, implicit motivation, repression, suppression, ego defense

Freud is credited with the creating the concept of unconsciousness even though the modern day concept varies greatly. Unconscious motivation is created when someone tries to control their sexual and aggressive urges by moving them to the unconscious. According to Freud there is the conscious, preconcsious, and then the huge unconscious.
There are multiple things that fall under the category of consciousness. Subjective experience which is different for everyone it is how the individual experiences the world. Awareness, altered awareness such as drug use or fatigue. Realization of environmental stimuli, awareness of mental events.
There are different types of consciousness : Non conscious which is the bodily functions such as the example as having to use the bathroom. Pre-conscious memories- they are not currently in conscious but can be readily retireved , like in class when Egypt was mentioned and then things related to that came to mind.Consciousness which was mentioned in the previous paragraph. Self-awareness, which is the personally experienced events that make up one's biography. Unconscious which used to be what Freud said was for repressed thoughts, now it is seen as a cognitive process operating without awareness.
Three contemporary views on unconsciousness are Freudian, Adaptive, and Implicit. Freudian automatically appraises the environment. Adaptive sets goals makes judgments and initiates actions. Implicit automatically attends to emotionally linked environmental events.
Freud's Dual Instinct Theory is composed of Eros and Thantos. Eros contains the instincts for sex, nurturing and affiliation. While Thantos is instincts for aggression towards self and others. The contemporary psychodynamic perspective is that the unconscious -much of mental life is unconscious. psychodynamics -mental processes operate in parallel with one another. Ego development.The Ego and the Id counterbalance one another . The ID is essentially the want and the ego mediates between the Id and the superego which is the what you should and should not do.
To cope with anxiety people use defense mechanisms to reduce the anxiety and can also be used to explain behavior that may not match what is going on. The first type is Repression which should not be confused with the scientifically validated suppression, the traumatic memories are pushed out of awareness. The second is Denial which basically is to deny that any thing happened. The third is Displacement impulse redirected such as the example given in class about the husband getting crap from his boss then going home and giving his wife crap and then the wife giving the kid crap and then the kid kicking the dog. The Fourth kind is Rationalization which is generating acceptable logical reasons for and outcome such as the reason for getting a bad grade on exam is the professors fault because they are a horrible teacher. Fifth one is Reaction Formation which is to stifle unacceptable impulse such as with the example for American beauty with the marine guy who was homophobic but in the end had homosexual impulses. The six type is Projection which is projecting one's own unacceptable qualities unto others. The seventh and most adaptive is sublimation which is converting unacceptable desire into acceptable behavior like playing football to get rid of aggression as opposed to getting in bar fights.
The limbic system is equivalent to the Id because it is the pleasure center such as the amygdala which I remember learning as the angry almond in bio psych. The neocortex is the learning and decision making and is the Ego and is the one that decides what to do based on what it gets from the ID and the Superego. Criticisms are that many of Freud's concepts are not scientifically testable and the data collection is not a representative sample since it consisted of white wealthy women. It also does not function as a very good predictive device.
What I found most interesting was the information about priming and unconscious attitudes.That subliminal presentation of information impacts behavior or thought such as the two studies mentioned with the elderly word association and the Harvard implicit association test.

Terms used: unconscious motivation,conscious, pre conscious, unconscious, non-conscious, self-awareness, implicit motivation, adaptive unconscious, Eros, Thantos, contemporary psycho dynamic perspective, Id , Ego, Superego, psycho dynamics, defense mechanisms, repression, denial, displacement, rationalization, reaction formation, projection, sublimation, priming.

Chapter 14 mostly talks about our unconscious motivations. It first talks about Psychodynamic Perspective. This particular approach shows a deterministic and pessimistic image of human nature. Deterministic means that behavior derives from biologically endowed and socially acquired impulses. These impulses determine our desires, thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Many people find this psychoanalysis as a very appealing perspective. A big part of this perspective has to deal with different aspects of human nature and digs into some of the more mysterious components (dreams, hypnosis, inaccessible memories, fantasies, and hidden forces). A lot of this perspective comes from the Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory. This states that people are most interested in sexual pleasure and shows “secrets” of the mind like crushes, jealousies, fantasies/desires, etc.

Another part of the Psychodynamic Perspective is the “Dual Instinct Theory”. This view sees the human body as an energy system that increases/decreases the energies through behavior. Freud describes there being two classes of instincts that fit into this theory. The first one being “Eros”. Eros is the life instincts. It makes sure that the individual maintains life and ensures its survival. Some of these instincts include food, water, air, sleep, etc. The second class of instincts is called “Thanatos”. This is the death instincts. They push a person towards rest, inactivity, and energy conservation. This particular instinct focuses a lot on aggression. It shows in self criticism, depression, suicide, alcoholism, and drug addiction when it’s directed towards the self. When directed towards other people, the aggressiveness is shown in anger, hate, prejudice, verbal insult, cruelty, revenge and murder. I thought this was a very interesting topic! It was interesting to learn that we have two instincts in us: a life one and a death one. I didn’t realize this before, and never viewed it that way.

The next part talks about our unconscious motivation. Freud described the unconscious as “a shadow phenomenon that cannot be known directly, but inferred from its indirect manifestations. The unconscious motivations is decided into three categories: conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. The conscious part of us includes thoughts, feelings, sensations, memories, and experiences that a person is aware of. The preconscious is what stores these that are absent from immediate consciousness. These preconscious thoughts/feelings can be retrieved into the conscious part with some prompting. The unconscious is the biggest component of our mental life. This part stores the instinctual impulses, repressed experiences, childhood memories, and unfulfilled wishes/desires. This section was probably the most interesting to me! I thought it was neat to think about three parts of our mental life all working together to show thoughts, feelings, memories, etc. I had never thought about it this way, but it makes a lot of sense. There are some memories you think about all the time (conscious) and some that only come to the surface during certain times or situations (preconscious). Still others that are buried deep inside, which are rarely remembered (unconscious).

Another part of this chapter is the “Psychodynamics”. This is what Freud described as the “clashing of will and counter will”. The will is known as the “ego” and the counter will is known as the “id”. The id is impulse driven and obeys the pleasure impulses an individual may have. On the other hand, the ego follows the reality principle. These two parts pull equal strength and go to war internally, and neither one is completely satisfied ever. Some examples of these include idea vs. counter idea, will vs. counter will, desire vs. repression, and sexual attraction vs. guilt. The psychoanalysts who study this, say that wishes, fears, values, goals, emotions, thoughts, and motives are never in harmony and constantly conflicting with one another. After I read this section, I remembered learning about id, ego, and superego in another class and how these are always conflicting with each other within us. It still is very interesting to me how the ego and id are constantly in battle with one another and we are always trying to decide which path to take.

Overall, I thought this whole chapter was very interesting and I learned a lot. There was a lot of good information. I was most interested in how we seem to be constantly fighting a battle within ourselves.

TERMS: unconscious motivation; psychodynamic perspective; deterministic; psychoanalytic theory; dual-instinct theory; eros; thanatos; unconscious motivation; conscious; preconscious; unconscious; psychodynamics; ego; id;

Chapter 14 is about unconscious motivation. The chapter talks about how Freud introduced his ideas and this is why some people have come to accept his ideas. Others have rejected his ideas because he was Freud, but many still agree with his ideas. The psychodynamic perspective presents a largely deterministic and pessimistic image of human nature. Psychoanalysis holds that the ultimate cause of motivation and behavior derives from biologically endowed and socially acquired impulses that determine our desires, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Many of the impulsive behaviors that adults do are done because of things that have happened in their childhoods. A goal of psychoanalytic therapy has always been to understand the confusing activities of the unconscious and therefore free the ego to deal with reality. A theory that is talked about in this chapter is the Duel-Instinct Theory. This theory of motivation represents psychoanalysis.

The psychodynamic theory has changed since Freud told everyone about his ideas. There are four principles that define the contemporary psychodynamic theory. They are:
1) The unconscious. Much of mental life is unconscious.
2) Psychodynamics. Mental processes operate in parallel with one another.
3) Ego development. Healthy development involves moving from an immature, socially dependent personality to one that is more mature and interdependent with others.
4) Object relations theory. Mental representations of self and others form in childhood that guides the person’s later social motivations and relationships.

The unconscious is something that Freud’s work is all about. Freud says that we do all things for a reason whether we know why we are doing them or not. If we don’t think we know why we are doing the things that we do it is because we are motivated by our unconscious. The unconscious mind is a really powerful part of us whether we realize it or not. The things that are in our unconscious are just repressed feelings that we have, meaning that we either don’t want to deal with the things in our unconscious and so that is why we have put them there or we just simply don’t know those feelings are there. Freud also shared his ideas about the ego and the id.

Chapter 14’s focus is on unconscious motivation and more specifically the psychodynamic perspective, the unconscious, psychodynamic components, ego psychology, and the object relations theory. The first main section is titled “Psychodynamic Perspective”. This perspective focuses on the psychological factors that underlie human behavior, especially the relationship between conscious motivation and unconscious motivation. The authors make a point to distinguish psychoanalytic theory and psychodynamic theory in that the latter doesn’t necessarily follow along with the traditional Freudian principles of psychoanalytic theory. The chapter continues with discussing Freud and his beliefs of the dual-instinct theory. According to Freud, instinctual bodily drives explained the source of all motivation. Freud came up with two categories of instinct: 1. Eros (life instincts) and 2. Thanatos (death instincts). Eros are instincts for self-preservation and Freud gave primary emphasis to sex. Thanatos are instincts which push someone toward rest, inactivity, and energy conservation. Freud gave primary emphasis to aggression. Under this theory, people learned from experiences to direct their behavior toward need-satisfying opportunities. Nowadays psychoanalysts don’t understand motivation as a function of the dual-instinct theory. Instead, sex and aggression are thought of as psychological wishes rather than physiological drives (this constitutes the ‘wish model’). Contemporary psychodynamic theory states four main core beliefs/postulates: “1. much of mental life is unconscious; 2. mental processes operate in parallel with one another; 3. healthy development involves moving from an immature, socially dependent personality to one that is more mature and interdependent with others; and 4. mental representations of self and others form in childhood that direct a person’s later social motivations and relationships.”
The next major section is titled “The Unconscious”. This section discusses three views of the unconscious: 1. Freudian Unconscious; 2. Adaptive Unconscious; and 3. Implicit Motivation. Within Freudian unconscious, Freud believed that the mind could be divided into three parts: 1. conscious (easily accessible); 2. preconscious (semi-accessible); and 3. unconscious (largest and most important). One thing that I always find interesting with Freud is that he believed that dreams are ways people vent their unconscious tensions and wishes, and of course always making it relate to sex and aggression. Under the first view, the Freudian unconscious automatically appraises the environment. The second section, adaptive unconscious, basically deals with how it is good at appraising the environment, setting goals, making judgments, and initiating actions all while the individual is consciously thinking about something else. One thing that I found quite interesting in this section is that the judgments made by the adaptive unconscious often turn out to be right….crazy! The third view, implicit motivation, refers to motives/emotions/etc that occur outside a person’s conscious awareness that are much different thatn self-reported motives, emotions, etc. Implicit motives are related to emotional experiences (e.g., need for achievement, affiliation, power). The chapter continues with addressing subliminal motivation, which I find very interesting after taking Social Psychology with Dr. Tan…she finds the coolest things for examples. Subliminal motivation is basically a process where a stimulus is presented to a person for a very short amount of time. One example of this is the implicit association test. Overall, subliminal motivation/subliminal advertising doesn’t work.
The next major section is titled Psychodynamics. Within this section, the topics of repression and suppression are discusses. Repression occurs when traumatic memories are pushed out of a person’s awareness. For Freud’s patients, this usually meant they were pushing out their sexual desires and doing other things. Repression is hard to study and researchers are not even sure it exists. Current researchers believe that repression may be used to protect an individual from traumatic memories, such as childhood abuse. Suppression occurs when a person tries removing a thought all together, which typically never works the way they want it to.
The next major section is titled “Ego Psychology”. According to the text, ego development is a developmental progression toward what is possible in terms of psychological growth, maturity, adjustment, prosocial interdependence, competence, and autonomous functioning. The ego is made known during six stages: 1. Symbiotic Stage; 2. Impulsive Stage; 3. Self-protective Stage; 4. Conformist Stage; 5. Conscientious Stage; and 6. Autonomous Stage. The chapter goes on to discuss different types of ego defense mechanisms such as denial, fantasy, projection, displacement, reaction formation, humor, sublimation, rationalization, etc.
The final major section is titled “Object Relations Theory” with focuses on the nature and the development of mental representations of the self and others and on the emotional processes associated with these representations. Specifically, this section focuses on childhood mental representations of caregivers are captured within the personality and how they continue to persist into adulthood (e.g. how child abuse or parental neglect effects the child’s representations of themselves and others.
ME Terms Used: Psychodynamic perspective, psychoanalytic, dual-instinct theory, drive, wish, unconscious, Freud, Freudian unconscious, adaptive unconscious, implicit motivation, subliminal motivation, psychodynamics, repression, suppression, ego, ego development/defense, object relations theory, ego defense mechanisms

The content in Chapter 14 is about unconscious motivation and the psychodynamic approach to it. Psychodynamic is defined as the study of dynamic unconscious mental processes and is associated with studying the same ideas as Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. Freud believed that motivation was regulated by impulse-driven biological forces. Instead of listing out all of the bodily forces involved in creating motivation he developed the dual-instinct theory. The dual instinct theory is made up of two general categories of bodily forces or drives, the Eros and Thanatos. The Eros is defined as instincts that maintain life and ensure individual and collective survival. An example of the instincts controlled by the Eros is the instinct for food and water. The Thanatos is defined as pushing the individual toward rest, inactivity, and energy conservation. The primary example of Freud uses for Thanatos is aggression towards yourself and others. Since the time when Freud created theories such as the psychodynamic theory and dual-instinct theory researchers have refined his ideas into four categories. The first is the unconscious mind. Freud believed that an individual must suppress strong unconscious urges and impulses. Some of Freud’s tests with the unconscious mind include hypnosis, free association, dream analysis, and projected tests. After much debate, it has been widely accepted that Freud was correct on his belief that much of an individual’s mental life is unconscious. Empirical study recently has begun on non-Freudian unconscious and discovered the adaptive unconscious. The adaptive unconscious runs automatically and carries out all of an individual’s computations and adjustments throughout the day. An example of this would be driving your car. The next part of the unconscious that non-Freudian is implicit motivation. Implicit motivation is referred to as all motives, emotions, attitudes, and judgments that operate outside a person’s conscious awareness and that fundamentally distinct from self-report motives, emotions, attitudes, and judgments. Next in the unconscious is subliminal motivation. Subliminal motivation is referred to as presenting a stimulus at a very weak energy level to an unsuspecting research participant to subliminally activate unconscious information. An example provided in the chapter is the popcorn sales boom when subliminal messages were flashed over a film shown at a theatre.
The second part of the psychodynamic approach to unconscious motivation is psychodynamics. Freud thought that psychodynamics concerned the conflict between the personality structures of the id and ego. Freud also thought that repression and suppression were normal ways to avoid mental conflict. Repression is defined as the process of forgetting information or and experience by ways that are unconscious, unintentional, and automatic. Repression has not been proven to be a reliable understanding of the unconscious mind. Suppression is defined as the process of removing a thought by ways that are conscious, intentional, and deliberate. Suppression research has shown that it fails when an individual attempts to control their thoughts.
The third part of the psychodynamic approach to unconscious motivation is ego psychology. Ego psychology is the study of the conflict between the ego and the id and the motivations caused by it. The ego isn’t present at a child’s birth but develops at the child grows. The id on the other hand is present and represents the child’s instincts. The id and ego conflict then begins. The ego is the child’s personality and influences him/her to act according to society’s standards. While the id wants the child to fulfill its internal desires. According to the chapter, the ego is vulnerable on a daily basis. It uses many defense mechanisms such as denial and displacement to protect itself against overwhelming levels of anxiety caused by conflicts with the id. An example of the ego using its defense mechanism is taking on characteristics of an individual that is viewed as successful.
The last part of the psychodynamic approach to unconscious motivation is object relations theory. Object relations theory studies how people satisfy their need for relatedness through their mental representations of and actual attachments to social and sexual objects. According to the chapter, research on objective relations theory shows the fundamental motivational significance of people’s psychological need for relatedness. When the need for relatedness is satisfied an individual develops a positive mental model of themselves and relationships.
This part of the chapter that I found most interesting is the part on repression. I thought that repression was considered to be a reliable theory. After reading the chapter, I found that repression has not been proven to be effective in the studies it was researched in. Suppression on the other hand has been proved to be a provable theory, although ineffective.

Chapter 14 is all about unconscious motivation. Most of the work done in this field was started by Sigmund Freud. Although many of his theories and concepts are no longer believed, they’re still taught in classes because he was the forerunner to psychoanalysis, which eventually lead to the more contemporary view called psychodynamics. The main aspect of each view is the affect that the unconscious has on our behavior and motivation. In Freud’s theory, he claims that our motivation comes from hidden sexual desires and feelings of aggression. That’s the main different between the old and new view. Contemporary views think that our unconscious is filled of all types of feelings and experiences.

One theory that Freud presented that is not held by the psychodynamic view is called the Dual-Instinct Theory. This theory claims that people have many drives that influence their behavior. He put all these drives into two categories: Life instincts and death instincts. Life instincts, also called Eros, maintain life and keep us alive. This includes eating, drinking, sleeping, sleeping, breathing, etc. These drives help our survival. Death instincts, also called Thanatos, lead a person towards rest or inactivity. The main goal is death. Freud’s main emphasis was to aggression and that when people are aggressive towards themselves or others; they’re acting on the death instinct. When this theory was looked at in modern times, people realized that the term “drive” doesn’t fit it very well. These drives are now considered psychological wishes because the individual is aware of their feelings and of the fact that they want to be something else. If it was a drive, it would be more instinctual and physiological.

Contemporary psychodynamic theory has four figures that define it: the unconscious, psychodynamics, ego development, and object relations theory. The unconscious is a large part of people’s lives and it consists of thoughts that are unknown to a person. Most of mental life is unconscious. Psychodynamics explains that mental processes operate in parallel with each other, meaning that people can feel things that are complete opposites, like fear and desire. Ego development deals with growth and the development from an immature person to a mature one. Object relations theory states that personality beings to form in childhood based off their experiences with others and themselves. These beliefs affect their interpersonal relationships in adulthood. Each figure will be explained in detail.

The unconscious is a difficult thing to study. It’s something that can never be truly uncovered or measured, but there has still been much work done on the subject. There are three different descriptions of the unconscious: Freudian unconscious, adaptive unconscious and implicit motivation. Freudian unconscious consists of the views Freud held that are still accepted by contemporary psychodynamic theorists. One of these is the fact that mental life is divided up into three components: conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. The conscious consists of the thoughts and feelings a person has at the present moment. The preconscious is sort of like our memory. It holds all the information that we know and can pull out at any time. The unconscious is the largest part of our mental life. It holds all the impulses and thoughts that we have but are completely unaware of. Freud believed that dreams were a window to the unconscious, but that’s been disproven because of all the other things that are going on during dreams, like neurophysiological activity, memory consolidation, coping, and problem solving.
The adaptive unconscious performs our daily routines and other actions, like tying a shoe or driving a car. It’s kind of like automatic pilot in an airplane. It does many behaviors without the “pilot” having to consciously decide to do them. Implicit motivation includes motives, emotions, attitudes, and judgments that are made without a person’s conscious awareness. These implicit motivations are shown in our social needs for affiliation, achievement, intimacy, and power. We’re not always aware that we want these needs met, but implicit motivation is the reason that they are. They’re considered to be linked to emotional experiences. When we’re aware of the fact that this implicit motivation is affecting our behavior, we’re considered mindful. When we’re not aware of this fact, we’re not affected by implicit motivation.

Another concept of Freudian unconscious is subliminal motivation. This is when something is presented for a very brief second so our conscious isn’t aware of it but our unconscious is. People used to believe that seeing subliminal messages could influence people’s decisions. For example, in movie theaters, companies would flash messages saying “Drink Coke”, in hopes that people would go buy coke. This didn’t work. Other experiments have been done and the same results occurred.

The next figure is psychodynamics. This comes from the fact that people often do things that they really don’t want to, like someone who has OCD and continually washes their hands. This shows that the conscious and unconscious compete with each other. The name for the counterwills for our conscious and unconscious are ego and id, respectively. The id is part of our unconscious and it’s driven by impulse and is considered the pleasure principle. The ego is partly conscious and unconscious. It’s the deciding factor and looks at the reality of what the id wants. The id and ego are constantly in conflict. Current psychodynamic theorists have done work to try and figure out if the id and ego could be real. They figured out that the limbic system could be considered the id because the parts of the brain in the system are related to pleasure-unpleasure. The neocortex could be considered the ego because the parts of the brain in this area are related to learning, memory, and decision making.

One concept that is present in Freud’s view is repression. This is when the individual unconsciously pushes a traumatic event “out of their mind” so they don’t have to think about it or feel the negative emotions connected to it. To this day, repression has not been proven to be a real thing. Suppression, however, has been. Suppression is consciously trying to stop a thought from happening. People do this to keep a thought out of their head to make themselves feel better, but it usually ends up doing the opposite. Constantly trying to get rid of a thought only makes the thought produce stronger emotions and the person usually ends up doing the behavior their trying not to think about. An example is of a person on a diet who’s trying not to think about eating candy. Their constant attempt to forget about candy will only make the candy more appealing and the person will probably end up eating candy.

The third figure is ego development. The development of one’s ego has 6 stages: symbiotic, impulsive, self-protective, conformist, conscientious, and autonomous. The symbiotic stage occurs at a very young age, like in infants. They depend completely on a caretaker and have very little language skills. The impulsive stage is during childhood. The child’s impulses are controlled by rules of parents. The self-protective occurs later in childhood when they understand rules and the consequences of their actions. They use these rules to protect themselves. The conformist stage is when the child is older and becomes aware of the disapproval of their peers and this helps control their actions. The conscientious stage is when the person has a sense of responsibility and their own set of rules to follow. The autonomous stage is when a person’s actions come from their own beliefs and attitudes rather than from the id. They are self-regulating and self-motivating. The ego has two ways in which it deals with anxiety: defense and effectance. Ego defense is when the ego uses defense mechanisms to deal with anxiety and to hopefully reduce it. This anxiety can come from the id, the superego, or the environment. The defense mechanisms can be put in order from most mature to least mature. People who use the mature defense mechanisms tend to have better outcomes in almost all aspects of life. Ego effectance is how the individual deals with environmental challenges, demands, and opportunities. It’s another coping response to life’s demands. It starts in childhood and continues throughout life as the person learns how to react in their environment. When the person successfully interacts with their environment, they feel accomplished and competent which will only increase the probability of doing those actions again.

The last figure is object relations theory. This theory states that people relate to others in order to meet their psychological and social needs. It focuses on how childhood views of their caretakers influence their personality and their adulthood. It stresses how influential parents are on a child’s personality and future. If a good relationship is formed early on, the individual will have a happier adulthood and have better relationships with others. The opposite is true as well. This theory displays the importance of the need for relatedness.
Psychoanalysis has many criticisms because it’s hard to be proven empirically. It’s also hard to use in therapy because the theories aren’t predictive.

Terms: unconscious, psychoanalysis, psychodynamics, motivation, dual-instinct theory, drive, life/death instinct, wish, ego development, object relations theory, freudian unconscious, adaptive unconscious, implicit motivation, conscious, preconscious, social needs, subliminal motivation, ego, id, repression, suppression, stages of ego development, ego defense, ego effectance, psychological needs, relatedeness, competence, achievement

Summary of Chapter 14.
Chapter 14 discusses unconscious motivation and the historical version versus the current views. The theories of unconscious motivation include psychoanalytic perspective and psychodynamic perspective. Psychoanalytic and psychodynamic used to be synonyms, but now represent the older theories from Freud (psychoanalytic) and the current views of unconscious processes (psychodynamic). To understand the current research, some things need to be said about theories of the past. Freud developed a Dual-Instinct Theory which says the body is motivated by biological forces and uses behavior to alter that energy. The two instincts include Eros, or the life instincts, and Thanatos, the death instincts. It leads a person to seek pleasure or to rest.
The new Psychodynamic Theory can be separated into four parts. The unconscious, psychodynamics, ego development, and object relations theory. The unconscious includes Freud’s old belief of the id and ego, but those terms are longer used and replaced with conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. The conscious represents everything going on in the brain at a given time. It is what we are thinking and experiencing at that moment. Preconscious represents things in the brain that are not being thought of at a given time, but when prompted, comes easily into conscious. The unconscious stores everything else, even some wishes and desires that a person is not aware of. Research has uncovered more information about what occurs in the brain during sleep which shows how limited Freud’s theory on dreams was. There is also adaptive unconscious which explains our autopilot brain and how we can do some things without thinking about it. The last component is implicit motivation which relates to internal goals and the different needs of individuals.
Psychodynamics represents unwanted behavior and the conflict associated with it. One way to get the conflict out of the mind is by repression. It is purposely forgetting something that conflicts with the person’s view of themselves. The other tool is suppression. Suppression takes a thought and pushes it into the unconscious to never be seen again. Unfortunately, these thoughts always come back into conscious. Once again, the issue of id and ego come up and researchers now think that the limbic system is close to the definition of id, and the neocortex is a lot like the ego.
Ego psychology expands on the ego topic by saying the ego develops over time starting in infancy and is accomplished in stages. Symbiotic is all impulse and no control, impulsive is when parents more control the impulses through rules, self-protective is when the child has learned some control from the rules, conformist is found through group rules, conscientious is when the impulses are internalized, and autonomous is the final stage when the person can self-regulate impulses. This section also includes defense mechanisms of protecting the brain from anxiety. Defense mechanisms include denial, fantasy, projection, displacement, identification, regression, reaction formation, rationalization, anticipation, humor, and sublimation.
The final piece of psychodynamic theory is the Object Relations Theory. This is how people become satisfied in their need for relatedness. It stresses the importance of relatedness as a child, and discusses how those feelings roll into adulthood and can be predicted from known childhood experiences.
The final part of the chapter discusses the criticisms of Freud. Much of the criticism comes from the inability to test his hypothesis. It was merely taken for granted as the truth without proof. It was probably his notoriety that took these theories as far as they did. The other criticism is that all of the things studied were in the past, and did not work as predictors for anything.

The most surprising thing learned in Chapter 14.
Learning more about Freud’s not so correct findings was very interesting. I am sure no one wanted to challenge his thoughts because he is famous for many other concepts in psychology. The fact that a lot of his theories cannot be proven and they are still being taught is surprising.
List of terms used in post from Chapter 14: unconscious motivation, psychoanalytic, psychodynamic, Eros, life instincts, Thanatos, death instincts, ego, object relations theory, conscious, preconscious, adaptive unconscious, implicit motivation, repression, suppression, defense mechanism, object relations theory.

Chapter 14 looks at Unconscious Motivation. It outlines 4 main subject areas then discusses how industry experts view these subject matters.

The first of these is Psychodynamic Perspective. This approach presents a largely deterministic and pessimistic image of human nature. It proposes that the ultimate cause of motivation and behavior derives from biologically endowed and socially acquired impulses that determine our desires, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. It also suggests that our personality changes very little after puberty. This is implying that much of who we are as adults is dependent on who we were as children and how we were raised. Looking from a little different perspective, Psychoanalysis believes that much of our motivation comes from the unconscious.

The transition from Psychoanalytic to Psychodynamic lies with well known but somewhat inaccurate principles developed by Sigmund Freud. 50 years ago, these two terms were interchangeable, but now, they are very separate. Much of what Freud had stated that is still prevalent in today’s psychology field is the unconscious mental processes. What many feel Freud got wrong was the dual-instinct theory. Today, psychoanalytic refers to traditional Freudian principles while psychodynamic refers to studying dynamic unconscious processes.

Stepping back briefly to discuss Dual-Instinct theory, the underlying assumption in this theory is that motivation is regulated by impulse-driven biological forces. In other words, bodily energy ebbed and flowed throughout a day, week, and lifetime to regulate and drive motivation and in turn behaviors. Freud classified much of this into two categories: instinct for life and instinct for death. Life instincts are self preservation instincts, death instincts are focused on inactivity, rest, and aggression.

This theory transitioned by the thought of a drive or wish. A drive was something that was associated with a physiological model of survival. Using a cycle of homeostasis-need-drive- goal-directed behavior- consummatory behavior- return to homeostasis, we see that aggression does not fit well in this model. These were better classified by wishes.

Jumping to today’s Contemporary Psychodynamic Theory comprising of 1) The Unconscious, 2) Psychodynamics, 3) Ego Development, and 4) Object Relations Theory. The unconscious is something that is hidden from us. We cannot see it directly in our selves, we can only observe it directly from other things. Today we believe the adaptive unconscious works behind the scenes to appraise the environment, set goals, make judgments, and initiate action. We can measure the affect of things on the subconscious through the use and observation of implicit motivation and subliminal motivation.

Psychodynamics looks at the results when a person’s will and a person’s counter will oppose each other. Today we can see this through suppression. This is when humans try to ignore a thought once it has occurred. A common mistake is to use the word repression. This describes a scenario where the individual does not have any memory of events. Many believe this to be impossible.
Ego development describes an id, an ego, and a super ego. The id is the immediate gratification portion, the ego is the mediator/defense against the id, and the super ego is the moral compass. This all continued to develop through become a theory called object relations theory. It focuses on the nature and development of mental representations of the self and others. In particular, on how childhood mental representations of one’s caretakers are captured within the personality of the child throughout their life.

Again, many people discount Freud’s theories on the basis that they have not been proven or in many cases, have been scientifically proven incorrect in recent years. I found this to be the most surprising and most interesting thing about this chapter. Much of what the average person knows about psychology is Freud. By the relationship of Freud to what psychologists believe, much of what people know is wrong.

It is also very interesting to consider how greatly our childhood affects us. Much of that is outside of our control and we need to consider why people behave the way they do and in turn what motivates them and how that is different from ourselves.

Terms: Id, Ego, Super Ego, Psychology, Suppression, Repression, Unconscious, Psychoanalytic, Psychodynamic.

Chapter 14 is all about unconscious motivation. The purpose is to bring to light that many things that we do come from motivators outside of our conscious awareness. The study of the unconscious is called psychoanalysis, now psychodynamic. Psychoanalysis is deterministic and pessimistic. It is based on the thought that personality changes very little after puberty so many of our motivational impulses stem from our early childhood experiences. Sigmund Freud is the man associated with first shedding light on the unconscious mind and his name is synonymous with psychoanalytic theory. However, Freud’s ideas were important but not always correct. Today, psychoanalytic theory is psychodynamic theory because it studies the dynamics of the unconscious mental process that take place inside us.

Freud believed our motivation was driven by impulsive biological forces. In his dual instinct theory consisted of two categories. The instinct humans have for life and the instinct for death. Eros is the name given for life instincts and those made sure we had food, water, air, sleep and essentially all things we need in order to survive. Sex is included in our life instincts. Thanatos is the death instinct and it pushes us toward rest, inactivity and energy conservation. Freud also included aggression in the death instinct. Both sex and aggression were key to all of Freud’s views. We now conceptualize sex and aggression as psychological wishes rather than drives because they do not conform to our current day definitions of physiological drives.
Psychodynamic theory today puts Freud’s views into clearer perspective and his views undergo empirical testing. There are four postulates related to current psychodynamic theory. 1) The Unconscious. Much of mental life is unconscious 2) Psychodynamics. Mental processes operate in parallel with one another 3) Ego Development. Healthy development involves moving from an immature socially dependent personality to one that is more mature and interdependent with others. 4) Object Relations theory. Mental representations of self and others form in child-hood that guide the person’s later social motivations and relationships.

The unconscious is often portrayed by three different views now. The Freudian unconscious, the adaptive unconscious and implicit motivation. Freudian unconscious views focus on repressed experiences, childhood memories, unfilled desires and inaccessible impulses. Because expression of the unconscious could provoke anxiety, the unconscious expresses itself in symbolic and latent ways such as through dreaming. While this is true that dreams can express unconscious wishes we now know other reasons why we dream such as coping, problem solving and memory consolidation.

The adaptive unconscious uses appraisals to perform routine activities. The text mentions that a man who had his hippocampus removed and therefore had no memory was brought into a lab to learn a new skill. Every day he came in and had no memory of being there but was asked to do the same skill. Although he had no memory of doing it before, he improved at the skill day by day. Our adaptive unconscious is responsible for this.

Implicit motivation refers to the motivators and emotions operating outside our unconscious that are indirect and implied. It is linked with emotional experiences. Our emotions can predict our behavior and how respond to our environment depends on how we feel about it (i.e., sad, anxious, etc).

When we think of Freud we also think of his descriptions of the Id and the ego. He believed the human mind was in conflict most of the time with the ego (the reality principle) at war with the Id (the pleasure principle). The ego is responsible for our conscious thoughts (our will) and the Id is responsible for our unconscious thoughts (our counterwill). When they are the same strength they are at war and neither principle gets satisfied. He also believed in repression which is when people forget an experience through unconscious means. This so that the unconscious does not suffer anxiety over an unpleasant experience and it tries to erase it from our minds. Repression is very difficult to study. Suppression is when we consciously try to remove a thought. It almost always fails and can instead produce obsessive preoccupation. Only unconscious thoughts that we welcome into our consciousness can be forgotten.

Another part of the chapter was devoted to the descriptions of ego defense mechanisms. Defense mechanisms are used to ease anxieties. Ego strength can be measured by the maturity of our defense mechanisms which can be ranked from least to most mature.

Denial is when we refuse to acknowledge a problem such as being an alcoholic but not admitting it and working hard to not have to acknowledge that it is a problem. Fantasy is the mechanism by which we can satisfy our desires by pretending to be something that we aren’t. Projection is when we decide that our unacceptable desires because of something or someone else such as when at student fails a test and blames it on the teachers poor lecturing. Displacement is when we release our anxiety about one thing out on something else such as yelling at our spouse when we are really angry with our boss. Identification is when we take on characteristics of someone we hold in high esteem such as getting the same hairstyle as a celebrity. Regression is when we return to an earlier stage of development when experiencing stress, distress or anxiety such as baby talking. Reaction formation is when we express feeling that are opposite of how we feel such as saying “Japan will be fine in no time, earthquakes happen all the time.” Rationalization is when we justify a thought by finding a logical reason to feel that way. People who are trying to quit smoking do this a lot such as saying, I’m young and healthy so I don’t need to worry about quitting yet. Anticipation is when we forecast future dangers in small steps such as making a safety plan. Humor is a mechanism that is more mature and gives us the capacity to not take ourselves too seriously. Sublimation is the most mature and it is when we transform a socially unacceptable anxiety into a source of energy that makes it socially acceptable.

I found reading about the different defense mechanisms the most interesting part of the chapter. It really makes you stop and think about how often you use them, which ones you use the most, which ones other people in your life use the most and how it can impact your conscious thoughts. I can definitely see where some of the mechanisms I use are immature (rationalization, projection) and some of the positives I use as well (humor, sublimation).

ME terms used: unconscious, psychoanalytic theory, psychodynamic, eros, thanatos, physiological drive, adaptive unconscious, implicit motivation, ego, id, reality principle, pleasure principle, defense mechanisms, denial, fantasy, projection, displacement, regression, reaction formation, rationalization, anticipation, humor, sublimation

Chapter 14 is about unconscious motivation. Psychoanalysis believe that the main cause of motivation and behavior comes from biologically endowed and socially acquired impulses that determine our desires, thoughts, feelings, and behavior, and they feel personality changes little after puberty so adults can trace many of their motivational impulses back to their childhood.
A long time ago the terms psychoanalytic and psychodynamic were essentially the same thing. Today they are different. Now a psychoanalytic are people who remain committed to most Freudian principles, and psychodynamic refers to the study of dynamic unconscious mental processes either inside our outside Freudian tradition.
Freud viewed motivation as regulated by impulse-driven biological forces such as hunger, playing, or thinking, and reasoned with it by calling it a dual instinct. Freud soon realized the body has many different bodily needs and decided to list them as instincts for life or instincts for death. Life instincts, also known as eros, are more easily defined than death instincts. They maintain life and ensure individual and collective survival. Death instincts, also known as thanatos, push the individual toward rest, inactivity, and energy conversation. Although many people believed in this dual-instinct theory, today few psychoanalsts understand motivation as a function of this theory.
Today there are four postulates to define psychodynamic theory: The unconscious, psychodynamics, ego development, and object relations theory. The unconscious argues that thoughts, feelings, and desires exist at the unconscious level. Psychodynamics argue that motivation and emptional processes frequently operate in parallel with one another. Ego development focuses on how we grow and develop. Lastly, object relations theory argues that stable personality patterns begin to form in childhood as people construct mental representations of the self and others.
Freud felt that the unconscious could not be known directly but could be inferred only from its indirect manifestations. Now it is accepted that much of our mental life is unconscious. What is still in question is which thought of the unconscious is correct. Is it Freudian unconscious, adaptive unconscious, or implicit motivation? The Freudian unconscious divides the mind into three components: conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. The conscious includes all the thoughts, feelings, sensations, and memories that a person is aware of at any given time. The preconscious stores all the thoughts, feelings, and memories that are absent from the immediate consciousness but can be retrieved at any moment. The unconscious is the mental storehouse of inaccessible instinctual impulses, repressed experiences, childhood memories, and wishes and desires. One form of the unconscious are your dreams and they vent unconscious tensions according to Freud. Today we have found they not only do that, but they also serve neurophysiological activity, are a memory consolidation function, a stress buffering or coping function, and a problem solving function that have little to do with unconscious wishes.
The adaptive unconscious sets goals, makes judgments, and appraises the environment. It is very good at what it does. adaptive unconscious allows people to make accurate judgments of other peoples emotions with only a micro second of exposure to the persons facial expressions and these judgments turn out to be right.
Implicit motivation are linked to emotional experiences. Implicit motives orient, direct, and select attentions such that people automatically attend to environmental events that have emotional associations. The degree to which implicit motivation processes predict behavior depends on the degree to which individuals exercise awareness of the events going on around then that affect their motivation and how they respond to these events in terms of thoughts, emotions, and behavior.
Psychodynamics concerned the conflict between the personality structures of the id and ego. The motivations of the id were unconscious, involuntary, and impulse driven, while the motivations of the ego where partly conscious and partly unconscious, steeped in defenses, and organized around the delay of gratification.
Repression contains traumatic memories that are pushed out of our awareness in order to protect us. It's the process of forgetting information by ways that are unconscious, unintentional, and automatic. Although this may be thought to be a good theory by some people it is very hard to prove and very questioned.
Suppression is the process of removing a thought by ways that are conscious, intentional, and deliberate. People rely on thought suppression to control their thoughts and actions in practically all areas of life, and for behavioral self-control. People use suppression to avoid making public the inner workings of their mind and its socially offensive wants, desires, and intentions.
Freud said that at birth everyone is born with an id that has no boundaries and no common courtsey. In order to keep control of our id our mind develops and ego through learning and experience. Ego development is a development progression toward what is possible in terms of psychological growth, maturity, adjustment, and autonomous functioning. In its beginning stages the ego is extremely immature and constantly overwhelmed by impulses. Ego goes through two stages to get to be at is full maturity: impulsive stage and conformist stage. Ego development defends against anxiety and the ego develops to empower the person to interact more effectively and more proactively with its surroundings.
The ego is always in a state of vulnerability and in order to deal with that it has developed several defense mechanisms to buffer the conscious against potential overwhelming levels of anxiety originating and environmental dangers. These mechanisms exist in a hierarchical ordering from least to most mature, from least to most adaptive. At the most mature level, defense mechanisms deny reality or invent an imaginary one. At the second level are defenses which the person recognizes reality but copes by casting its disturbing aspects away from the self. The third level defenses are the most common. This level of defenses deal effectively with short term anxiety buy fail to accomplish any long term gain in adjustment. Level four defenses are the most adaptive and mature.
Ego effectance concerns the individuals competence in dealing with environmental challenges, demands, and opportunities. The ego attempts to deal satisfactorily with the circumstances and stressors that come its way. The greater the egos effectance motivation, the greater the ally changing the environment for the better.

Terms: psychodynamic, psychoanalytic, dual-instinct theory, comtemporary psychodynamic theory, the unconsscious, ego, id, object relations, subliminal motivation, repression, supression, ego defensive, ego development,

Chapter 14 was about how the unconscious is connected to people’s actions in everyday life. Throughout the chapter Freud’s work was included as a base from which the more modern theory of psychodynamics withdrawn. Without Freud’s work in psychoanalytic therapy much of what is known or thought about the unconscious would not have been developed as early. Wishes, defining the unconscious, understanding how the unconscious impacts our behaviors, repression, suppression, and the Id and Ego are discussed in correlation with psychoanalytic and psychodynamic theory in this chapter. Overall, experiences in our lives are known to exist in the unconscious, which influences thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Therefore, past events can change our reactions, emotions, and internal dialogue in any given situation. The unconscious is largely based in the “nurture” side of nature vs. nurture and affects each person’s personality in major ways.

Derived from Freud’s dual-instinct theory, wishes are abstract goals that can be conscious or not. These goals encourage us to participate in certain behaviors to achieve a desired state of being (right now I’m tired, if I take a nap I will be less tired). These goals are situational and ever changing. Some of these goals are only present in the unconscious (such as wanting to be accepted by others if in the past I have experienced bullying). The unconscious is difficult to assess and gather evidentiary support for, however this is not impossible. Research strongly supports the fact that the unconscious exists and thusly it is proven that the material it contains directs our daily actions. For example, we are implicitly motivated to engage with others to attain affiliation. Without conscious thinking about wanting friends, we are encouraged by our unconscious to seek them out anyway.

One of the main aspects of psychoanalytic theory is repression; it is what Freud based his theory upon. However, it is one aspect of the theory that is unable to measure to prove the existence of. Freud describes repression as unconscious memories or thoughts that are always kept in the unconscious because they are too painful or horrible to think consciously or say out loud. Due to the “invisible” nature of repression, it is impossible to know if it actually exists or not. In the past people have been hypnotized to release these repressed memories, but because of the influence involved in hypnosis, it is unlikely the memories “discovered” were actually factual. Unlike repression, suppression is a factual characteristic that is prevalent in psychodynamic theory. Suppression is where thoughts are consciously “forgotten” because they are anxiety producing. However, against the toughest of attempts, suppression lasts a very short time. Unfortunately, once a thought is singled out and told to be forgotten, it becomes that much harder to forget because it is identified and sticks out in the mind. For example, it is impossible to NOT think about a pink elephant with a blue trunk…isn’t it?

Lastly, the Id, of Freud’s creation, is the immature side of people. The Id strives to gain pleasure by any means necessary and acts without consciousness of consequences. However, the Ego is the space where overly constrictive super-ego and fancy-free id meet together in harmony and balance (which is not an easy task). Balance is always tricky, so our minds are constantly attempting to attain this through different actions, thoughts, and emotions. This balance is handy because it allows people to engage with multiple types of environments effectively (effectance motivation). However, since the ego is also where personality of each person shines though the ego can sometimes be used to it’s full potential and other times only be used as necessary. However, a person completely void of ego would be chaotic to say the least.

Even though I am not a large supporter of Freud and psychoanalytic (or psychodynamic honestly) theory, it is impossible to imagine psychology or counseling without his input.
Qualities like rapport, suppression, and Id/Ego/Superego are all based in the first teachings of psychology. Despite the constant criticism of Freud due to lack of evidentiary support, I challenge many professionals to ascertain evidentiary support for other types of counseling theory such as adlerian, person centered, or gestalt (the only one I can think of is CBT). Overall, Freud created a doorway in which other theories of counseling could walk through and begin to help people in need.

ME Terms:Unconscious, Freud, psychodynamics, psychoanalytic therapy, wishes, behaviors, repression, suppression, id, ego, thoughts, feelings, behaviors, dual-instinct theory, conscious, goals, desired state, assess, evidentiary support, implicit motivation, affiliation, existence, memories, immature, pleasure, consciousness, effectance motivation