Schema Activator

• Review of Freud’s Personality Theory (Psychoanalytic Theory)

•Major concepts: Id, Ego, Superego

• Review notes from last class/homework to complete

Cat in the Hat!

• Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat is not all fun and games, the book was actually written based on Freud’s psychoanalytic theory

• You will be divided into groups

• Each person in the group will be a reader, the book will be passed around

• Consider which character is representing which part of the personality at the beginning, middle, and end of the book

WHAT IS A DEFENSE

MECHANISM?

Defense Mechanisms

• We can’t always act on the sexual/aggressive impulses of our ____________ because of the expectations of society, or our _______________• This tension = anxiety, everyone experiences• The ____________ distorts reality to protect

itself from anxiety• This distortion Freud referred to as defense

mechanisms

Defense Mechanisms

• Disguise unacceptable impulses and prevents them from reaching _______________

• Body unconsciously defends itself from disease, the ego unconsciously defends self from anxiety

Examples of Defense Mechanisms

Reaction Formation

Switching unacceptable impulses to their opposites.

Repressing angry feelings, a person displays exaggerated kindness.

Projection Disguising one’s own threatening impulses by attributing them to others.

“The thief thinks everyone else is a thief.”

RationalizationOffering self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening unconscious reasons for one’s actions

An alcoholic will claim they only drink to be social.

Examples of Defense Mechanisms

DisplacementShifting sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person.

Your mom had a bad day at work and comes home and give you an attitude.

Denial Refusing to believe or even perceive painful realities.

One significant other denies evidence of their partner’s affair.

Regression Retreating to a more infantile stage (in homework) where some energy is fixated.

A little boy on the first day of first grade is nervous, so sucks his thumb for comfort.

Repression Removes anxiety-arousing wishes and feelings from consciousness.Underlies all defense mechanisms.Symbols may appear in dreams.

An individual forgets childhood abuse because it has been removed from consciousness.

Forgetting events after a loved one’s death.