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particular circumstance while also meeting the needs of the id. For
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particular circumstance while also meeting the needs of the id. For example, when a child thinks twice about doing something inappropriate because he understands the negative outcome that will occur, this is the ego asserting itself. Superego The superego develops when a child is five years old and is nearing the end of the phallic stage. This is the part of our personality that is made up of morals and ideals that have been acquired and placed on us by society and our parents. Many people also find the superego to be equivalent to the conscience, since both terms have come to refer to the part of our personality that judges what is right from what is wrong. Freud believed that, in a truly healthy person, the ego would be stronger than the id and superego so that it could consider the reality of the situation, while both meeting the needs of the id and making sure the superego was not disturbed. In the case of the superego being strongest, a person will be guided by very strict morals, and if the id is strongest, a person will seek pleasure over morality and could end up causing great harm (rape, for example, is when one chooses pleasure-seeking over morality, and is a sign of a strong id). FREUD’S CONCEPTION OF THE HUMAN PSYCHE Freud believed that our feelings, beliefs, impulses, and underlying emotions were buried in our unconscious, and therefore not available to the waking mind. However, Freud also believed that there were levels of consciousness beyond just conscious or unconscious. To better understand Freud’s theory, imagine an iceberg. The water surrounding the iceberg is known as the “nonconscious.” This is everything that has not become part of our conscious. These are things we have not experienced and are not aware of, and therefore, they do not become part of or shape our personalities in any way. The tip of the iceberg, our conscious, is only a very small portion of our personality, and since it’s the only part of ourselves that we’re familiar with, we actually know very little of what makes up our personality. The conscious contains thoughts, perceptions, and everyday cognition. Directly below the conscious, at the base of the iceberg, is the preconscious or subconscious. If prompted, the preconscious mind can be accessed, but it is not actively part of our conscious and requires a little digging. Things such as childhood memories, our old telephone number, the name of a friend we had when we were younger, and any other deeply stored memories are found in this area. It is in the preconscious mind that the superego can be found. Since we are only aware of the tip of the iceberg at any given time, the unconscious is incredibly large and consists of those buried, inaccessible layers of our personality. It is here that we find things like fears, immoral urges, shameful experiences, selfish needs, irrational wishes, and unacceptable sexual desires. This is also where the id can be found. The ego is not fixed to one particular part of the iceberg and can be found in the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. THE ICEBERG METAPHOR There is no denying just how influential Sigmund Freud was to the fields of psychology and psychiatry. His ideas completely changed the way people viewed personality, sexuality, memory, and therapy, and he is perhaps the most well-known psychologist in the popular vernacular a century after he first arrived as a notable scholar of the mind. ANNA FREUD (1895–1982) Think about the kids Anna Freud was born on December 3rd, 1895, in Vienna, Austria, and was the youngest of Sigmund Freud’s six children. Though she felt distant with her siblings and mother, Anna was very close with her father. While she did attend a private school, she claimed to have learned very little in class and that much of her education came from being around her father’s friends and associates. Following high school, Freud began translating her father’s work into German and working as an elementary school teacher, where she began to take an interest in child therapy. In 1918, Anna contracted tuberculosis and had to leave her teaching position. During this trying time, she began giving her father accounts of her dreams. As he began to analyze her, Anna quickly cemented her interest in her father’s profession and decided to pursue psychoanalysis on her own. Although Anna Freud believed in many of the basic ideas that her father did, she was less interested in the structure of the subconscious and more interested in the ego and the dynamics, or motivations, of one’s psyche. This interest led to the publication of her groundbreaking book, The Ego and Mechanisms of Defense , in 1936. Anna Freud is perhaps best known for creating the field of child psychoanalysis, which provided great insight into child psychology; she is also recognized for developing different methods to treat children. In 1923, without ever earning a college degree, Freud began her own children’s psychoanalytic practice in Vienna and was named as the chair of the Vienna Psycho-Analytic Society. In 1938, Anna Freud and her family fled the country and moved to England as a result of the Nazi invasion. In 1941, she founded an institution in London with Dorothy Burlingham and Helen Ross called the Hampstead War Nursery, which served as a foster home and psychoanalytic program for homeless children. Her work with the nursery led to three books: Young Children in Wartime in 1942, and both Infants without Families and War and Children in 1943. In 1945, the nursery closed down and Anna Freud created and served as director of the Hampstead Child Therapy Course and Clinic, a role she maintained until her death. By the time she passed away in 1982, Anna had left a lasting and deep legacy on the field that was possibly only overshadowed by the monumental impact of her father and a handful of other psychologists. DEFENSE MECHANISMS To understand Anna Freud’s contributions to the notion of defense mechanisms, we must first take a look at the work of her father. Sigmund Freud described certain defense mechanisms the ego uses when dealing with conflicts with the id and superego. He claimed that a reduction of tension is a major drive for most people, and that this tension was largely caused by anxiety. Furthermore, he broke anxiety up into three types: 1. Reality anxiety: the fear of real-world events occurring. For example, a person is afraid of being bitten by a dog because they are near a ferocious dog. The easiest way to reduce the tension of reality anxiety is to remove oneself from the situation. 2. Neurotic anxiety: the unconscious fear that we will be overpowered by and lose control of the urges of the id, and that this will lead to punishment. 3. Moral anxiety: the fear of our moral principles and values being violated, resulting in feelings of shame or guilt. This type of anxiety comes from the superego. When anxiety occurs, Sigmund Freud claimed that defense mechanisms are used to cope with the anxiety and shield the ego from reality, the id, and the superego. He said that oftentimes these mechanisms unconsciously distort reality and can be overused by a person to avoid a problem. It can therefore be beneficial to understand and uncover these defense mechanisms so that a person may manage their anxiety in a healthier way. But where does Anna Freud come into play? Most notably, she is responsible for identifying the specific defense mechanisms that the ego uses to reduce tension. They are: Denial: refusing to admit or recognize that something is occurring or has occurred Displacement: taking one’s feelings and frustrations out on something or someone else that is less threatening Intellectualization: thinking about something from a cold and objective perspective so that you can avoid focusing on the stressful and emotional part of the situation Projection: taking your own uncomfortable feelings and attaching them to someone else so it seems as though that person is feeling that way in place of you Rationalization: while avoiding the actual reason for a feeling or behavior, a person will create credible, but false, justifications Reaction Formation: behaving in the opposite way to hide one’s true feelings Regression: reverting back to childlike behavior. Anna Freud claimed that a person would act out certain behaviors based on the stage of psychosexual development that they were fixated on. For example, a person stuck in the oral stage might begin to eat or smoke excessively, or become more verbally aggressive Repression: moving thoughts that make us uncomfortable into our subconscious Sublimation: converting unacceptable behaviors into a more acceptable form. For example, a person with rage takes up boxing as a way to vent. Sublimation, Freud believed, was a sign of maturity CHILD PSYCHOANALYSIS To create a successful therapy for children, Anna Freud originally planned on using her father’s work as a guide, so that she could make a timeline and map out a normal rate of growth and development for children. That way, if certain developments, such as hygiene, for example, had been missing or lagging, a therapist could pinpoint the cause to a specific trauma and could then use therapy to address it. However, Anna quickly came to realize that there were major differences between children and the adult patients her father had seen, and her techniques had to continually change. Whereas Sigmund Freud’s patients were self-reliant adults, Anna Freud dealt with children, for whom a major part of their lives involved the presence of their parents. Freud saw the importance of the parents early on; still, a major aspect of child therapy includes parents taking on an active role in the therapy process. For example, parents are generally informed of exactly what goes on during therapy so that they are able to apply the techniques from therapy in everyday life. Anna Freud also saw the usefulness that child’s play could have in therapy. Children could use playing as a means to adapt their reality or confront their problems, and could speak freely during therapy. While play may help a therapist identify a child’s trauma and treat it, it doesn’t reveal much from the unconscious mind because unlike adults, children have not learned to cover up and repress events and emotions. When a child says something, they mean it! While she may have begun her career under her father’s shadow, Anna Freud proved that she too was an incredibly valuable asset to the world of psychology. Her contributions to her father’s work on defense mechanisms and, most importantly, the creation of child psychoanalysis remain extremely important and influential, and a a great deal of what we understand about child psychology comes from her work. LAWRENCE KOHLBERG (1927–1987) Moral dilemma Lawrence Kohlberg was born to a wealthy family in Bronxville, New York, on October 25th, 1927. When World War II came around, Kohlberg enlisted as a sailor with the merchant marines—a decision that would prove to have a major impact on him, and subsequently on the field of psychology. As a sailor, Kohlberg worked on a freighter and helped smuggle Jewish refugees through a British blockade located in Palestine. This would be the first time Kohlberg took an interest in moral reasoning; and, later on in life, he would return to what is now Israel to study more about the moral reasoning of children growing up in kibbutzes (agricultural communities in Israel based on collectivist principles). When he returned from the war, he attended the University of Chicago and studied psychology. Kohlberg scored so highly on his admissions tests that he did not have to take many of the required courses, and he earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology in one year. He then earned his PhD in 1958. By 1967, Kohlberg was a professor of education and social psychology at Harvard University, and became widely known and respected with the creation of his theory of the “stages of moral development.” In 1971, Kohlberg was working in Belize when he contracted a parasitic infection. As a result of the disease, Kohlberg spent the next sixteen years of his life battling depression and constant, debilitating pain. On January 19th, 1987, Kohlberg requested a day of leave from the hospital where he was undergoing treatment. After leaving the hospital, Kohlberg drowned himself in Boston Harbor. He was fifty-nine years old. STAGES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT Kohlberg’s theory on the stages of moral development was a modification of the work performed by Jean Piaget, the Swiss psychologist. While Piaget described moral development as a two- stage process, Kohlberg identified six stages within three levels. Kohlberg proposed that moral development was a process that continued throughout a person’s lifespan. In order to isolate and describe these stages, Kohlberg presented a series of difficult moral dilemmas to groups of young children of different ages. He then interviewed them to find out the reasoning behind each of their decisions, and to see how moral reasoning changed as children grew older. The Heinz Dilemma In the Heinz Dilemma, Kohlberg told children a story about a woman in Europe who is near death because she has a special type of cancer. The doctors believe there is one drug that might save her: a form of radium recently discovered by the druggist of that same town. Though it is expensive to make the drug, the druggist is charging ten times what it costs to make. He paid $200 and is charging $2,000 for a small dose. Heinz, the sick woman’s husband, tries to borrow money from everyone that he knows but only manages to get $1,000—half of what the druggist is charging. Heinz tells the druggist of his dying wife and asks him if he is willing to sell it at a cheaper price or allow Heinz to pay him back later, but the druggist refuses, saying he discovered the drug and will make money from it. Heinz, desperate, breaks into the druggist’s store to steal the drug for his wife. Kohlberg then poses the question, “Should the husband have done that?” The answers to the dilemmas were not as important to Kohlberg as the reasoning behind the decisions. Based on his research, the children’s responses were classified into three levels and six stages. Level 1: Preconventional Morality Stage 1: Obedience and Punishment In this stage, children view rules as absolutes. Obeying the rules means avoiding punishment. This stage of moral development is particularly common in younger children, though adults can express this reasoning as well. Stage 2: Individualism and Exchange In this stage, children begin to take individual points of view into consideration and judge actions based on how the needs of the individual are served. In the case of the Heinz dilemma, children argued that the choice that best served Heinz’s needs was the best course of action. Level 2: Conventional Morality Stage 3: Interpersonal Relationships In this stage, children focus on living up to expectations set by society or the people close to them. In other words, it is important to be good and nice. For this reason, this is also known as the “good boy–good girl” orientation. Stage 4: Maintaining Social Order At this stage, society as a whole is taken into consideration. This means there is a focus on following the rules to maintain law and order—even in extreme situations—respecting authority, and fulfilling a duty that one has agreed to do. Level 3: Postconventional Morality Stage 5: Social Contract and Individual Rights In this stage, it becomes understood that people have different beliefs, opinions, and values, and that in order to maintain society, rules of the law should be based on standards that are agreed upon. Stage 6 : Universal Principles The final stage is based on following internal principles of justice and ethics, even if this means going against what the rules and laws state. It is important to note that Kohlberg believed that it was only possible to pass through these stages in this order and that not every person achieved all of these stages. CRITICISMS TO THE STAGES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT While extremely important and influential, Kohlberg’s model has faced criticism. It has been argued that Kohlberg’s work reflected a bias towards males (he claimed most men to be at a stage 4 and most women to be at a stage 3), that there is a notable difference between what a person says they ought to do and what they actually end up doing, and that Kohlberg focused solely on justice but did not take into consideration things like compassion and caring. The way Kohlberg performed his experiment has even been brought into question, due to the fact that he interviewed different children of different ages instead of interviewing the same children over a longer period of time. Regardless, Kohlberg’s work in morality remains incredibly influential, and the ideas he set forth are commonly applied to the field of education and are used to understand the behavior of children. STANLEY MILGRAM (1933–1984) A truly shocking psychologist Stanley Milgram was born on August 13th, 1933, to a Jewish family in New York City. His father was a Hungarian baker and his Romanian mother took over the bakery following his death in 1953. Milgram had always excelled academically and, while attending James Monroe High School, he became active in the school theatre productions. This theatrical experience would prove influential to Milgram, who utilized his background later on in life when creating the realistic experiments he is now most famous for. In 1953, after graduating from Queens College, New York, with a bachelor’s degree in political science, Milgram applied to Harvard University to earn his PhD in social psychology. Though he was initially rejected for having no academic background in psychology, Milgram was finally accepted to Harvard in 1954 and earned his PhD in social psychology in 1960. In his professional career, Milgram had a strong focus on social issues. From 1959 to 1960, Milgram studied under psychologist Solomon Asch, who was famous for his disturbing experiments on social conformity. In 1961, Milgram would begin his famous obedience study, which remains one of the most infamous and influential psychological experiments ever performed. In the fall of 1960, Milgram worked as an assistant professor at Yale, and from 1963 to 1966, he was an assistant professor in Harvard’s Department of Social Relations. In 1967, Milgram became a lecturer at Harvard; however he was denied tenure, which was likely the result of his controversial Milgram Experiment. That same year, he became a tenured professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. On December 20th, 1984, Stanley Milgram suffered from a heart attack and died in New York City. He was fifty-one years old. MILGRAM’S OBEDIENCE STUDY Stanley Milgram is perhaps most well-known for his famous, yet extremely controversial, experiment on obedience. Milgram was fascinated by the effect that authority had on obedience, and believed that people would nearly always obey orders out of a desire to seem cooperative or out of fear, even if this meant going against their better judgment or desires. Fitting Milgram’s Experiment in History Milgram began his obedience experiment in 1961. Shortly before, the world had been captivated by the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who, among other things, was charged with ordering the deaths of millions of Jews. Eichmann’s defense in the case was that he was just following instructions. Milgram conducted the experiment at Yale University, where he recruited forty men through newspaper ads. The participants were informed (falsely) that the study they were joining was focused on memory and learning. They were told that one person would take on the role of teacher and the other would take on the role of student, and that these roles would be chosen randomly. Each Yüklə 1,8 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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