PSYC102

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Personality, Development and intelligence

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The personality matrix: The matrix of differentiation survives side by side with its products' although 'its manifestations are always modified by these products of differentiation'. The Past is embedded in the Present, the Present interprets the Past. Both survive side by side and influence each other.
introject: An object that has been internalised, then fully introjected
Maternally-transmitted ('paternally imprinted') genes code for:: a) lower levels of testosterone (low-T), b) extension of the latency period in childhood, c) slender build and less aggression, d) higher intelligence
Analytical Psychology of Carl Jung: the collective psychology of the European peasantry, regarding myths and symbols. Focus on collective unconscious and theory of mythic archetypes. De-emphasises neuroses, sees personality as an emergent process, a dialogue between the Self and the Shadow, and closely integrated with the mythic structure of the individual's culture.
Sulloway - firstborns: As regards personality, Sulloway reports that firstborns are: 1) more conforming and closely tied to parents, 2) more 'responsible', achievement-oriented, organised and 'planful', 3) more jealous, neurotic, anxious, fearful and likely to affiliate under stress, and 4) more extraverted, assertive and likely to exhibit leadership, i.e. are more prone to be drawn to power for the sake of power.
Criteria which theories of personality development should satisfy: Description - dealing with complexity; Explanation - Why are there individual differences? Empirical validity - predictability; Testable concepts - operationalisation; Comprehensiveness - normal & abnormal behaviours; Parsimony - economy of concepts; Heuristic value - interest, research and bias; Applied value - empirical validity, social change
Introjection: process where parents become external objects and the introjects are the values of the parents, leads to the formation of the superego.A reactive or mirroring process in response to projection.
The Breast: Not to be taken literally, stands for the general source of nurturance
EEA: Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation
Transmarginal Stress: stress that exceeds the organism's experiential capacities to cope with. It results from 'impingement' upon the organism's experiential boundaries.
Bad Breast: the absent, mean and hoarding source.
Allan Schore: His work is the most profound and detailed neuropsychological study of attachment between infant and primary caregiver. He focuses on the role of the orbitofrontal cortex in the regulation of affect, especially on the development of the lateral and ventral tegmental dopaminergic limbic circuits. He demonstrates that the neurobiological development of the infant brain is critically dependant on the dyadic relationship with the primary caregiver. This relationship is primarily moderated through gaze transactions.During the 'practicing period', the approach-avoidance interplay between infant and primary caregiver create alternating excitations of the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the ANS - i.e. create alternating phases of hedonic and depressive affect. The modulation of these phases, their balance and equilibrium, is central in encouraging self-regulation of affect on the part of the infant with respect to others- the Emergence of the Social Self. Moderate shame dynamics serve to inhibit excessively hedonic reactions in the infant. Positive, empathic responses on the part of the caregiver restore equilibrium after a phase of depressed or fearful behaviour (parasympathetic ANS). He emphasises how the central tenets of psychoanalysis are confirmed by research into neurobiological development. - as are the origins of dysfunctional mental states and behaviours. He strongly recommends the use of complexity ('chaos theory') models in the study of developmental psychology.
Conflict between Klein & A. Freud: The overt issue was the feasibility of CHILD ANALYSIS. A. Freud, believed children could not be analysed until mature enough to form a transference. Klein believed child analysis not only possible but imperative. Analysis through observation. The deeper issue was their relation to Freud. Klein believed she was more faithful to Freud in finding an innate basis for the Death Instinct. Anna, found the idea of the death instinct irrelevant. Those affiliated with the elder psychoanalytic network supported Anna. The British ORTs supported Melanie.
Idealising selfobjects: seductive and all-powerful archetypes that ultimately derive from the 'mirroring' group and serve to boost one's narcissistic self-image in the future.
Sulloway - firstborns in science: 1) less open to scientific innovation, though willing to support technical innovations within a well-supported paradigm, 2) are especially averse to innovations with radical ideological tendencies - will only support such if and when they become 'scientifically respectable'. 3) are especially prone to initiate or support theories that sustain or promote the established social order, i.e. eugenics, vitalism, 'biology is destiny, etc. (think of inheritance laws).
Horney (1885-1952): represented a transition between classical Freudian psychology and a truly feminine (as distinct from feminist) psychology. Together with Adler, she is seen as establishing the 'Neo-Freudian' school of (psychoanalytic) Social Psychology (or 'Psychosocial Analysis). She did not consider neuroses to be essentially pathological. The neuroses are an important component of coping strategies: true origins of neuroses lie not in the repression of instinct, but in parental indifference. She outlines 10 ways of coping with parental indifference, but these can be contracted and summarised under 3 headings.
Main exponents of the Freudian-Kleinian (female) group:: Karen Horney, Nancy Chodorow and Dorothy Dinnerstein.
Selfobject: An object invested with deep emotional significance.
Main et al's parenting modes.: Secure/Autonomous (F): Coherent, collaborative relationship with infant. Objective regarding any particular event or relationship. Dismissing (Ds): Not coherent. Dismissive of attachment related experiences. Dialogue transcripts excessively brief. Preoccupied (E): Not coherent. Passive, angry or fearful. Preoccupied with past relationships or experiences (i.e. always 'somewhere else'). Dialogue transcripts excessively long and rambling. Unresolved/Disorganised (U/d): exhibits striking lapses in the monitoring of reasoning or discourse, especially when dealing with issues of loss or abuse.
The Ainsworth Strange Situation: Infant Reactions: Resistant or Ambivalent (C): Infant is wary or distressed even prior to separation. Seems angry or passive. Cannot settle with caregiver upon return.
Projection and Introjection: Guilt attempts to 'expel' hate felt outwards into Body of Mother (projective identification, projection). Infant desires to enter that Body to contain/control source of nurturance. Simultaneously introjects image of the 'Bad Breast' as bad, but the 'Good Breast' as the 'ego ideal'. The introject thus returns the hate to its source, but the true origin of the hate is now disguised. P & I always preceded by splitting, repression and denial. The Kleinian meaning goes deeper than Freud's. Freud - P = wish/impulse, Klein interprets P (and I) as a 'phantasy' of real insertion of oneself or parts of oneself into the body of another (or other object). They aren't pathological mechanisms in themselves but are the normal process of human psychogenesis. These mechanisms are vital for understanding how human beings relate to their external environment. The human personality evolves through the continual evolution and transformation of P and I relations. These relations expand and differentiate throughout life to include other people, places, things, groups etc. A 'symbiotic state' of P and I relations lies at the base of all situations of chronic conflict between two groups.
Guilt and Persecutory anxiety: Though hating the 'Bad Breast' and desiring to attack it, the infant also experiences ambivalence towards it as it comes to realise that the 'Bad Breast' is also the source of nurturance, love and comfort. The infant therefore comes to experience guilt over its oral-sadistic and anal-sadistic impulses. It fears retaliatory persecution from the object it hates.
Pre- and perinatal psychology: originated with the writings of Trigant Burrow and Otto Rank -The Trauma of Birth (1924) Rank broke with Freud and emigrated to the US in 1934. Events preceding and during birth form the archetype and foundation for all future trauma.
Genotype: the genetic constitution of an individual organism. Includes hereditary factors that may be passed on to future generations. Influences the development of individual traits.
Melanie Klein (1882-1960): Born in Vienna, youngest of 4 children. Engaged at 19 to Arthur (an engineer) while studying Art and History at the University of Vienna. Abandoned the opportunity to study medicine in order to follow and support her husband. Travelled through Slovakia and Silesia - life empty till children born. 1910 - moves to Budapest. Encounters Freud's work on dreams and becomes drawn to psychoanalysis. Enters analysis under Sandor Ferenczi, who encourages her to analyse very young children. Meets Freud in 1917. Reads first paper before the Hungarian Psychoanalytic Society - The Development of a Child. 1921 - moves to Berlin. 1922 - divorces Arthur. Encouraged by Karl Abraham to continue work in child analysis. Enters analysis with Abraham. 1925 - gives first paper on The Techniques of Child Analysis in Salzburg. Invited by Ernest Jones to come and lecture in England. Gives 6 lectures, which become the foundation of her first book - The Psychoanalysis of Children. 1927 - moves to England and is given a warm welcome by the British Psychoanalytic Society. 1950's - bitter war with Anna Freud, causing a deep split in the British Psychoanalytic Society. Strongly supported be Bowlby, Fairbairn, Winnicott and other ORT theorists. 1960 - diagnosed with cancer. Dies suddenly of post-operative haemorrhage.
Boyd & Richerson (1985): The main contribution is Dual Inheritance Theory. In dual inheritance theory memes can operate in genetically neutral environments, i.e. the level of tertiary epigenesis where cultural traits can appear to operate independently of the genetic substrate. They investigate direct and indirect, biased and unbiased transmission models and include detailed studies of childrearing, group selection, the effects of charismatic leadership and the propagation of maladaptive traits.
BPeM II: The Era of Placental Degeneration: Placental degeneration - a human evolutionary legacy (upright posture). Onset of malnutrition. Inadequate oxygenation of the blood. Wastes become increasingly toxic. Increased cramping - growth continues.The beginning of antagonism, conflict and of subjective time. This phase runs from the onset of placental degeneration to that of labour, hence first evoking a sense of increasing confinement and suffocation, and of shrinking lebensraum, eventually leading to powerful sensations of constriction and crushing, of cardiac distress and intense suffering, and finally to the feeling of being sucked towards a whirlpool - of being between Scylla and Charybdis - or of being swallowed by some monstrous placental avatar - a dragon, octopus, giant squid or many-headed Hydra. A confrontation with, and fear of engulfment by, the infinite abyss of Being.
Implantation: 'Idealised blastocystic detachment'. Fear of engulfment - here, attachment is The Fall, detachment - The Goal. Refuge in stasis and mysticism. Social constructs of this condition "forged over millenia in conditions of chronic malnutrition" (Wasdell 1990 p. 16).
The Influence of Birth Order in Personality Development - Sulloway: Parturition is more difficult for the primipara (first timer). Firstborns therefore experience more trauma than siblings. Sulloway's study of creative personalities (mostly scientists) investigates the dynamics between birth-order, caregiver-bonding and sibling dynamics with regard to personality development, scientific orientation, social and political values.In general Sulloway reports that firstborns are a) less explorative, willing to travel or entertain new experiences, b) less capable of empathy, especially to those of lower social standing and c) more prone to 'unidimensional' thinking (i.e. 'splitting'). Laterborns are a) more prone to rebel, b) more likely to initiate radical scientific, social or political revolutions, c) are more explorative, willing to travel and to seek out new experiences, d) show greater empathy and understanding to the oppressed, and e) exhibit greater laterality of thinking. Suffers from a somewhat Darwinian bias. Sulloway's exceptions to the birth-order paradigm are explored in the context of attachment. Study vindicates the primacy of generic trauma in personality development.
Id: primitive, animalistic, instinctual element, libidinous energy demanding instant satisfaction. Entirely self-contained and isolated from the world. Governed by the pleasure principle.
Infant Babbling: the articulative explosion that occurs in infants beginning at about 3-4 months of age. René Thom (1989 p. 310) describes it as 'a kind of melting, a generalised catastrophe (mathematical - my note)...the need to expel by the process of articulation some...alienating genetic forms, clearly a playful emission of forms, not a capture of forms'. This 'playful emission of forms' is in fact an exploration and testing of all phonemes that can be articulated in human speech. It is therefore a preparation for language. The infant selects those phonemes that enable her/him to interact with caregivers and significant others in the environment, and discards all others as non-relevant. If you wish your child to be multilingual there should therefore be 2 caregivers, each of whom addresses the child consistently in his/her own language. The infant then reserves a much larger set of phonemes.
Nancy Chodorow: sees herself as continuing the legacy of Klein. A transition to feminist psychoanalysis, shifting the field of focus from the biological roots of psychoanalysis to 'psychoanalytic social psychology'. Her primary emphasis is on the structuring of gender roles, the assignment of relation and identity to these roles through language, meaning and socialisation. She also rejects the patriarchal basis of classical Freudian theory, assigning primacy to the Mother's relationship with children of both sexes.
Main exponents of the ORT (female) group:: Jessica Benjamin, Madelon Sprengnether and Jane Flax.
Superego: associated with the ethical and moral conduct and conceptualised as responsible for self-imposed standards of behaviour. A kind of 'conscience', punishing transgressions with feelings of guilt. Concerned with 'the ideal'.
Panksepp & Panksepp's (2000) Critique of Evolutionary Psychology: The 'Seven Sins': Assuming Pleistocene sources of human social adaptation; Excessive species centrism; Adaptationism; Massive modularity; Conflating emotion and cognition; Failing to provide credible neural perspectives; Anti-organic bias - the computationalist fallacy.
GCCET proposes:: cultural transmission can modify selection pressures, generate new evolutionary mechanisms, and affect the rate of genetic evolution.The homogenising impact of culture throws light on genetic inertia and the collapse of complex societies. Models show the relationships between population density, environmental variability and favoured modes of cultural transmission, throws light on the generation gap problem (Laland 1993; Feldman & Laland 1996).
The Depressive Position: mental state where it becomes possible to synthesise both good and bad part-objects and perceive the whole external object more realistically.
Hermeneutic theories: Psychodynamic and humanistic
Two criticisms of Erikson's 8 stages of life: Overly prescriptive in relation to mid 20th century middle-class values. Cannot necessarily be extended to the life stages of other cultures.
Projection: Defence mechanism. One ascribes own traits etc onto another person, usually as a form of denial.
Neoteny: Heterochronic Patterns: They are an evolutionary strategy for transcending the Random Variation Barrier in evolution. They are the result of genomic imprinting, i.e, the interaction and combined effect of maternally-transmitted ('paternally imprinted') and paternally-transmitted ('maternally imprinted') genes. Gould, S. J. (1977). The process of foetalisation (neoteny) occurred through heterochronic shifts in response to the social environment. By extending the latency period, neoteny contributed to the enhancement of brain plasticity. Cultural acceleration may have produced a 'hysteresis effect', rendering the schizotypal gene a 'mixed blessing'.
Lacanian ('Feminist') and post-Lacanian Currents: Deal with the splitting of the Self into false and authentic components through the infants encounter with a mirror. Focused on the social construction of language and semiotics - i.e. 'the Unconscious is structured like a language'. But isn't it rather that the Unconscious becomes structured through language? Nevertheless, through focussing on the social construction of language, exerted a considerable influence on a generation of female French analysts. These feminist analysts include: Helène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, Juliet Mitchell and Jacqueline Rose. The theoretical position of these analysts "stresses the role of symbolic forms in the structuring of desire" (Elliott 1997, p.129).
Epigenesis: the continual impact of childrearing modes and cultural perspectives.
Kleinian psychology: Arose in direct opposition to Anna Freud's theory. Infant analysis is necessary. Death drive is important and innate. Stressed two dynamics: paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions - they develop straight after birth through interaction with primary caregiver. Key aspects of personality include: Projective and introjective identification.
Psychoanalysis: hermeneutic discipline, forms bridge between biological sciences and humanities. A methodology for research and therapy, incorporates humanistic, evolutionary and historical principles. Relates the individual to society and society to the individual.
Kleinian sexuality: artistic creativity and bodily pleasures = arenas in which the central human struggle between love, hate, and compensation played out. Men and women seen as deeply concerned about the balance between their own ability to love and hate, about their capacity to keep their objects alive, both their relationships to others as real objects and their internal objects, their inner sense of goodness and vitality. sexual intercourse = highly dramatic arena in which both one's impact on the other and the quality of one's own essence were exposed and on the line. The ability to arouse and satisfy the other represented one's own compensation capacities; to give enjoyment and pleasure suggested that one's love was stronger than one's hate. The ability to be aroused and satisfied by the other suggested that one was alive, that one's internal objects were flourishing (Mitchell & Black, 1995).
Baumrind (1967): His study is cited in Boyd & Richerson's award-winning study Culture and the Evolutionary Process (1985). He interviewed 110 pre-school children and evaluated them with respect to 5 categories: self-control, approach tendencies (curiosity), subjective mood (happiness), self-reliance and peer affiliation. 3 subgroups selected for further study on the basis of these evaluations: Group 1 - 'the most mature, competent and independent', Group 2 - 'moderately self-reliant, but scored low on approach tendencies, subjective mood and peer affiliation' and Group 3 - who scored low in all categories.The parents of each child group were evaluated according to the following categories: 1) control, 2) maturity demands, 3) communication and 4) nurturance (i.e. empathy and warmth of communication). 3 childrearing modes were subsequently identified: Group 1 - Authoritative (high in all categories), Group 2 - Authoritarian (high in control, low on nurturance), and Group 3 - Permissive (low on control, maturity demands and communication, but high in nurturance). Conclusion: the most 'mature, competent and independent' children were the products of Authoritative parenting styles, not Permissive ones, i.e. children need structure and guidance as well as love and empathy.
Denial: Defence mechanism. Disavows thoughts, feelings, wishes or needs that cause anxiety although not into the unconscious, but instead into the preconscious.
Paternally-transmitted ('maternally imprinted') genes code for:: a) high-T, b) curtailment of the latency period in childhood, c) more muscle and aggression, d) less intelligence
Gene-Culture Co-Evolutionary Theory (GCCET): studies how genes and memes interact to propel cultural evolution
Repression: Defence mechanism. Push negative thoughts/impulses/memories etc from the conscious into the unconscious to avoid anxiety
BPeM I: Intrauterine Symbiosis: The state of symbiosis with the 'Other' - the Placenta. Unlimited growth and boundless nurturance. Wastes simply 'disappear'. The central retroactively-idealised state in all religions - 'Heaven, 'Paradise' etc. Symbiosis within the womb, a state of peace, of timelessness, of Paradise, of 'union with God' and of being in touch with the 'ground of Being', during which the environment is ever bountiful, limitless in resources and endlessly supportive of unfettered growth.
Epistatic (or Interactive) Genetic Variance: most genes do not code singly for particular traits. Most genes interact with each other. EGV accounts for the percentage of genetic inheritance comprised of such interactive genes.
Reparation: In the depressive position, the initial ambivalence between good and bad is wholly or partially resolved - both Good' and 'Bad' Breasts are understood to be part of the same individual. So both guilt and persecutory anxiety are assuaged - through expression of sorrow and love. Infant fluctuates between paranoid-schizoid and depressive states until a dynamic equilibrium is achieved between them. This fluctuation matures into the approach-avoidance dynamics of the older infant, studied by Mahler et al. (1975) and by Schore (1994).
Mirroring selfobjects: develop in relation to primary and secondary caregivers in early childhood.
Additive Genetic Variance: genetic variation in behaviour that is the consequence of an individual's total genetic inheritance from her/his parents.
Social and Historical Events that re-enact the Events of the BPeM (esp. Phases II - IV): Wars and revolutions: study the poetry of WWI (Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke), first person accounts of the French and Russian Revolutions. Election campaigns: the descriptive language of the press and media. Economic cycles of growth and recession
Phenotype: The actual, physical, observable; the manifested structure, function or behaviour of an individual. Depends on an interaction with genotypes.
Evolutionary drives stimulated and exploited by Bernays:: The drive for reproduction: sexuality, seduction, body image. The drive for status within the 'tribe' - also conveyed though body image (desirability). Dominance & submission. Competitiveness.
DIT - Biased modes in memetic transmission: Direct bias: parental and familial psychodynamics (attachment dynamics, role assignment etc.). Indirect bias: the role of teachers, high status individuals and cultural group phantasies. Frequency-dependent bias: peer pressure and transient group phantasies within age cohorts.
Object Relations Theory (ORT): Bowlby and Winnicott are main theorists. Abandons instinct and drive theory, focuses on relationship of the developing child and its' environment. Stresses importance of internalised object relations.Object' stands for a person or persons or part of a person (or persons), not just the colloquial meaning of 'object'. Stresses the importance of transitional space and the conflictual relationship between the 'true' or 'authentic' Self and the 'false' or socialised Self.
Evidence for Fetal Consciousness: Substantial medical evidence and numerous clinical histories. Consultation to and analysis of, groups experiencing high stress, with a low resource base and undergoing rapid transition. Individual analysis of dreams and phantasies though subliminal art work, regression therapy and hypnosis. The analysis of group psychodrama, myth, religion, art, architecture and literature.
Phantasy: the common word fantasy is taken to mean any fanciful, whimsical or capricious notion. The Kleinian word stands for a powerful and emotionally loaded mental construct.
Projective Identification: person is aware of what is projected, i.e. feelings and impulses, but misattributes them and regards them as justified reactions to the behaviour of others involved.
Margaret Mahler: Her work was 'the most important impetus to the inception of a program of rigorous developmental psychoanalytic research' (Schore 1994, p.23). She divides the development of infant attachment into 3 main phases: 1) The earliest Autistic Phase, followed shortly by 2) the Symbiotic Phase, and 3) the most crucial 'separation-individuation' phase, divided further into 'practicing' (elated) and 'rapprochement' (depressed and fearful) subphases. Her description of 'the ontogenetic adaptation of very high levels of positive hedonic affect which occur in a circumscribed period of infancy, the early practicing period of 10 - 14 months, has been corroborated by other psychoanalytic and non-psychoanalytic researchers' (ibid.).
Aleister Crowley (1875 - 1947): A.k.a. The Beast, 666, the 'Wickedest Man in the World' - a major Satanic figure of the 1st half of the 20th century. Involved with or founded the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Argenteum Astrum, Ordo Templi Orientalis, Thelema Abbey (Cefalu, Sicily).
Dominant Genetic Variance: everyone has two copies of each gene - one maternal and the other paternal. One of these pairs will normally be dominant, and will be expressed over the recessive gene. Eye-colour is a typical example.
Main Theoretical Tenets of the Freudian/Kleinian/ORT Current: Psychical relationship is constituted in relationship with Pre-Oedipal Mother; a relation which forms internalized object relational patterns which are essential to selfhood and gender identity. Contemporary sexual divisions, especially exclusively female mothering, is pivotal to analysing the reproduction of male-dominant gender relations. The familial structure of modern societies produces male identities with isolated, instrumental relations to the world, and female identities with empathic, caring connections to others and to the social world. Sexual divisions, fuse to reproduce asymmetrical gender relations of power; relations which are directly bound up with technical frameworks involving economic, social and political institutions. Gender transformation presumes a recovery of feminine and female sexuality, rooted in reflexively negotiated relations of care, respect and emotional communication between the sexes.In studying the relationships between the infant and the Pre-Oedipal Mother, it is important to bear in mind the the bisexuality (androgeny) of the neonate and the polymorphous eroticism of the infant. Freud referred to this as polymorphous perversity. We prefer the term eroticism to perversity, following Norman O. Brown's Life against Death (1957).
Pre- and Perinatal Psychology: Historical Background: Original pioneers: Burrow and Rank (The Trauma of Birth 1923). Ongoing collaboration between Rank and Ferenczi during 1920's. Steady accumulation of medical and clinical evidence relating to fetal consciousness. Further detailed clinical and analytic research during the 1940's onward (F. J. Mott, N. Fodor, L. Peerbolte, F. Lake, P. M. Ployé, A. Janov et al.) 1960's and 70's - Stanislav Grof outlines Basic Perinatal Matrix. International Study Group for Perinatal Psychology (ISGPP) founded in 1971. Further medical research conducted by Fedor Freybergh leads to critical links between psychology and medicine and to the renaming of the ISGPP as the International Society for the Study of Pre- and Perinatal Psychology (ISSPPM) in 1986.
BPeM III: The Catastrophe of Birth: Intense crushing - pain levels exceed anything bearable by an adult. Cranial deformation. Intense hypoxia. Transition from sealed, aqueous to exposed, noisy, tumultuous air-breathing environment.The titanic struggle of birth, the 'Mother of all Battles', archetype of all wars, of Armageddon and Götterämmerdung, of all sadomasochistic orgies, of cataclysmic volcanic eruptions, nuclear detonations, rapes, mass murders, suicidal frenzies and orgies of destruction - the ultimate conflict between Life and Death.
Splitting: Defence mechanism. Deal with stress by compartmentalizing the positive or negative aspects of oneself or others. Tend to view oneself and others in alternating polar opposites, switching back and forth between positive and negative.
Classical Freudian Psychoanalysis: Representing Jewish Viennese upper class. Includes: instinctual repression as basis for neuroses, a topology of the mind, psychosexual stages, and the Oedipus complex.
Evolutionary psychology: grew out of research into animal behaviour, used to be called sociobiology, based on Darwinian principles.
Lumsden & Wilson (1981): central concepts are a) gene-culture translation and b) the so-called 'gene-culture co-evolutionary circuit' (the recursive process). The culturgen is advanced as the discrete 'unit' of cultural transmission as opposed to the meme (this was the pre-memetic era) - but the intended meaning is essentially the same.
The Ainsworth Strange Situation: Infant Reactions: Avoidant (A): Infant doesn't cry or react when caregiver disappears. Ignores stranger. Also ignores caregiver upon return.
Internalisation: Acceptance/adoption of beliefs, values etc. as one's own. For example, superego is adopted from the standards and values of parents.
Psychoanalytic anthropology: applies psychoanalytic principles to the study of non-Western peoples. Pioneers include Géza Róheim (Australian Aborigines), Ernest Jones (religion and myth) and Sandor Ferenczi. The later line includes Erik Erikson (the Sioux and Yurok), Weston La Barre (religion), Georges Devereux (South-East Asia), Maurice Apprey (Afro-Americans) and Howard Stein (rural communities of the US). Studies the origin of religion and myth, as well as comparative practices in child-rearing and socialisation, establishing which psychoanalytic concepts are truly universal and which are culturally conditioned. Transcultural psychiatry and ethnopsychiatry are part of the legacy.
Ego psychology: Main proponents were Anna Freud and Heinz Hartmann, disagreed with child analysis. Abandoned the instinct-driven theory and focused on ego development at the expense of the id. Focuses on the final stage of separation-individuation phase in early childhood. Emphasises ego defence mechanisms and stresses importance of adaptation
Horney's Oedipal Complex: rejects the idea of a universal 'penis-envy' and postulates that men suffer from various forms of 'womb-envy' -the source of creativity and conflict. She 'desexualises' it, re-interpreting it as the relation between the infant (of both genders) and the primary caregiver (see Schore, 1994). This interpretation is extended today to include the relation between the infant/caregiver dyad and the impingements and exigencies of the surrounding culture ('separation - individuation')
The Paranoid-schizoid position: Innate, the legacy of birth trauma. The extreme splitting of the external object (e.g. the primary caregiver) into good and bad part-objects (i.e. the 'Good Breast' and the 'Bad Breast')
Memes: ideas, concepts or phrases that have a strong affective valence
Biological theories: neurobiological and evolutionary
Two feminine currents in post-Freudian psychoanalysis: The Freudian-Kleinian current (strictly speaking - female psychology) - divides into the 'Kleinian' group and the ORT group . The Lacanian Current (strictly speaking - feminist psychology.
Ego: Represents a cluster of cognitive and perceptual processes including memory, problem-solving, reality testing, inference-making and self-regulated striving, that are conscious and in touch with reality, as well as specific defence mechanisms that serve to mediate between the primitive instincts of the id, the superego and the knowledge of reality - maintains psychic balance.
The Ainsworth Strange Situation: Infant Reactions: Disorganised/disoriented (D): Infant exhibits chaotic behaviours in caregiver's presence (implying temporary collapse of behavioural strategies in the experimental situation).
Self-psychology: Founded by Heinz Kohut. Strongly influenced the 'me' decades. Stresses the developmental importance of primary and secondary narcissism. Narcissism is necessary and not pathological unless deformed by early life experiences. The relational world is crucial and personality develops through transmuting internalisation of mirroring and idealised selfobjects.
Conclusions of Evolutionary Psychology: The very traits that conferred adaptive strength on the EEA may now become the evolutionary nemesis of the species. The constraints of evolutionary prescriptives and the legacy of primal (generic) trauma severely delimit the kinds of societies we can realistically envision or create. We currently stand at the evolutionary cusp point between neoteny and survival. We are 'stone-agers in the fast lane'.
Feminist psychoanalysis: developed in opposition to the patriarchal basis of classical Freudianism. Explores pre-Oedipal sexual and gender identity, mother-daughter relations, the formation and reinforcement of gender identity and role, gender asymmetry and power relations within the socio-symbolic order. Karen Horney can be considered the founder.
The Ainsworth Strange Situation: Infant Reactions: Secure (B):: infant displays moderate concern over absence of caregiver. Clearly prefers caregiver over stranger. Greets caregiver enthusiastically on return.
Good Breast: the nourishing, attentive and fulfilling source.
Transient Developmental Structures: elements of neural organisation that emerge in the infant for the sole purpose of facilitating a transition between one stable state of neural development to another, more complex state. One example is the orbitofrontal subplate zone, a developmental structure that is critical to the post-natal shaping of the frontal lobe (Kostovic & Rakic 1990, cited in Schore 1994 pp. 126, 272). These structures therefore moderate between synchronic (localised) growth and diachronic (holistic, global)
Family Role Assignment: Freud describes the family as 'the germ-cell of civilisation'. Families are the most conservative forces in history (Scott & Ainsworth 1969; Bowen 1978). Family Systems Theory. Laing (1971) shows how relationships and roles become instituted among and between family members through the dynamics of mutual projection and introjection. The nature of these relationships, though constantly acted upon, are always repressed, and the act of repression itself repressed. Laing outlines a complex set-theoretic system for the analysis of intrafamilial roles and relationships, as well as the projective-introjective dynamics that governs them. These networks are transmitted transgenerationally through the repeated dynamics of attachment, caregiver to infant. This is the source of the family's extreme 'conservatism'.
Therapy and the past: The Past can be accessed, analysed and deconstructed. This is to reveal intrapsychic defence mechanisms that have become dysfunctional, and to help the patient (client, analysand) restructure these defences in a more mature way. The Past therefore does not 'go away', but it becomes better understood through more appropriate and mature coping strategies.
Edward Bernays (1891-1995): Born in Vienna, moves to the US at 1 year old. Educated at Cornell. Opens first office in New York in 1919, describing himself as a 'public relations consultant'. Describes his technique as 'the indirect use of third party authorities' - i.e. "if you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious co-operation, you automatically influence the group which they sway". Made it respectable for women to smoke. Convinced Europe that the US was the 'Exporter of Democracy' to the world. Destabilised the Arana-Guzmán régime in Guatemala (1954). Exercised a powerful influence on Joseph Goebbels. Main publications: Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923) and Propaganda (1928).
Morphology: the ever repeating cycles of human conception, birth and morphogenesis (growth)
Adlerian psychoanalysis: Representing the immigrant working class. Consists of communitarian principles, which abandon instinct theory in favour of exploring relations of power, dominance and submission. Coined the terms inferiority complex and masculine protest (reactive behaviour of women when they are made to feel they are an inferior sex).
Melanie Klein's character:: Distant relationship with father, although admired him greatly. Remained close to mother. Close relationships with older siblings Emmanuel and Sidonie, both died young. Difficult relationship with daughter Melitta, due to early attempts to analyse her. Prone to depression (in the clinical sense). Was described as a 'difficult' person. Could not accept criticism - she perceived it as 'opposition'. Had few friends - only disciples or enemies. Possessed an extraordinary empathy for children (tell me a story...'). Had 'the character and courage, fortitude and generosity to match her gifts. Her compassion and understanding of human nature was combined with ruthlessness when she felt that scientific integrity was tampered with' (Bion et al. 1961).
John Bowlby: Based at the Tavistock Clinic during the 1950's, 'turned to animal behaviour studies in order to enrich the traditional analytic views of child attachment' (Siegel 1999, p.72). He proposed that there were two principal factors involved in the forging of attachment - 1) the pleasure of physical attachment and 2) fear of the unknown. He established that if the attachment relationship was impaired, feelings of security would be lost and later behaviours severely compromised. He also cautioned that a securely attached infant can become insecure if the attachment relationship deteriorates, and that an insecure infant can become more secure if the relationship is changed for the better. "If a woman has eight children, there are eight mothers" (Winnicott). Together with Donald W. Winnicott, he exercised a profound influence on childrearing practices in the UK.
Melanie Klein's legacy: Pioneer of child analysis through techniques of play observation - pushed the boundaries of analysis back to the 'first extrauterine stage of ontogenesis' - i.e. the immediate post natal period - and early infancy. Rejected the psychosexual stages of classical Freudian theory, but did not actively oppose them - was more concerned with the psychology of infancy irrespective of gender. Exercised a critical influence on the emergence of the British Object Relations school.
Conception: Transmission of 2 genetic legacies. 'Idealised gametal fixation' - never attaining a goal (perfectionism) or fear of engulfment. The Mystery of the Marathon Race. Identification with the Ovum - fear of invasion.
Envy: Related to greed. Infant desires the whole 'breast' for itself. When hungry and the caregiver is absent, the infant feels that the 'breast' is wilfully 'hoarding' the source of nurturance. This is compounded by the terror of abandonment and annihilation, leads to hatred.
Horney's 3 Coping strategies: COMPLIANCE: involving 'moving-toward' (in search of affection) or 'self-effacement'. AGGRESSION: involving 'moving-against' (direct confrontation) or 'expansiveness' ('tantra') in the quest for power, control, omnipotence, exploitation, status/prestige and achievement. WITHDRAWAL: involving 'moving-away-from' or resignation.
BPeM IV: The Post-Natal Phase: Acute sense of loss - of separation, alienation, eviction, fall and exposure.After birth - liberation, relief, salvation, the sensation of having been forgiven, purged, absolved, yet also of being exhausted, helpless and exposed - the anticlimax of 'what now?'
Stanislav Grof: In the 1960s and 70s, conducted studies into LSD-induced regression and outlined the Basic Perinatal Matrix (BPeM).
Inflicted (Secondary) Trauma: The dynamics of attachment will either anneal (soften) or aggravate, the legacies of primary (generic) trauma. Annealment occurs through empathic childrearing. This trauma is suffered in infancy, childhood and adolescence. Physical, sexual and psychological abuse are the most common forms. Although obviously highly variable, certain consistencies appear between the traumatic legacies of people who have experienced similar childrearing patterns. Such people constitute a psychoclass (see deMause 1982). Physical and psychological abuse can occur for a number of reasons. Sometimes, the abuse is unintentional (the exasperated caregiver temporarily 'loses it'). Often it is not, and can arise through dominance-submission relations or malice. All child sexual abuse (CSA) involves relations of power between abuser and abused. Given the vulnerability of the abused, it cannot be granted that any degree of 'consensuality' can be considered in mitigation. There are basically two types of abuser in this sense - the one out to manipulate and gain power over the abused, the other deliberately malicious and destructive. If inflicted trauma originate from a source outside the family, clearly the abused has recourse to caregivers or family who can assist in dealing with that trauma. If trauma originates from within the family (e.g. incest with an older family member) the child has no immediate recourse. Abuse generates abuse. The cycle is self-perpetuating unless intervention takes place. The work of deMause (e.g. 1982) and Siegel (1999) are useful in understanding the consequences of sexual abuse and premature sexualisation.The work of deMause (1982) posits levels of CSA as a prime determinant of human history. This work is less scholarly and less appropriately evidenced than that of other researchers (e.g. Siegel), nevertheless it contains a vast bibliography. Western perceptions of what constitutes CSA do not accord with those of other cultures. It is well worth exploring the Magnus Hirschfeld Archive in Berlin and the work of Diederik Janssen in this respect.
Neoteny (paedomorphosis/foetalisation): 'The retention of juvenile characteristics into adulthood produced by retardation of somatic development' (Gould, S. J. (1977).
Erik Erikson's 8 stages of life: Basic Trust vs. Mistrust (infancy). Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt (the 'practising period' - 1-3 years). Initiative vs. Guilt (preschool - c. 3-5 years). Industry vs. Inferiority (the 'latency period' - from school age to puberty). Identity vs. Role Confusion (adolescence & early adulthood). Intimacy vs. Isolation (young adulthood). Generativity vs. Stagnation (middle age). Ego Integrity vs, Despair (post 60's to old age).
Emergence (Synergism):: The properties of a given system are greater than the sum of its parts...
Cavalli-Sforza & Feldman (1973, 1981):: The main concept is that of the phenogenotype. Moving closer to the 'classical' evolutionary position, in the phenogenotype, genes and memes interact to maximise Darwinian fitness.
Dual Inheritance Theory (DIT): Cultural transmission can be intrademic (within a single group) or interdemic (between groups) (the Dunbar Group - Barrett et al. 2002). Intrademic meme transmission can be vertical (from parents to offspring), horizontal (through peers) or oblique (through older relatives, teachers or other extrafamilial sources such as group leaders, media figures etc. (CF). This theory (BR) accepts these modes of transmission, proposing in addition that random memetic variation is contained and controlled through various bias modes rooted in individual and group psychodynamics.
Sulloway - firstborns in social and politcal domains: 1) more politically conservative and reactionary (in the sense of both left- and right-wing!), 2) more prone to support capital punishment and other aggressive measures in order to support and sustain the social order, 3) less sensitive to the needs of the underprivileged or the dispossessed, although willing to provide support within the permissible boundaries of the dominant social system or party policy.
The BPeM Phases: I: Intrauterine symbiosis; II: Placental Degeneration; III: Birth, Primal Trauma of Transition; IV: Immediate post-natal extrauterine life. Since the events of the Basic Perinatal Matrix are the common inheritance of all humans, we refer to this collective base of traumatic experience as Generic Trauma in order to distinguish it from the individual patterns of Inflicted Trauma experienced during infancy, childhood, adolescence and later life.
Depressive: not the traditional clinical understanding, rather the process of coming to a 'sad but cathartic acknowledgement of reality'.
Object: can be the whole or part of a person (a 'part-object'), a group, an organisation, a place, a memory or a thing.
Socially based theories: Behaviourist, social learning, cognitive, trait-based.
Evolutionary Factors Contributing to the Human Birth Trauma: Upright posture - fetal weight exerts pressure downward on cervix, tightening the muscles and constricting passage. Complications in the structure of the birth canal - S-shaped spinal column to support the body, producing a bend in the birth canal in which the upper opening is is oval from side to side while the lower opening is oval from back to front - requiring a 90-degree rotation of the foetus during transition (Janus 1997; Rosenberg & Trevathan 2003 pp. 82-3). The case of the 'missing centimetre' in the ratio of cranial size to pelvic opening - foetal cranial size from back to front is approx. 10 cm., shoulder width is approx. 12 cm. while the pelvic opening in the human female ranges from 10 - 13 cm leading to frequent cases of brain haemorrhage in the average birth process (Wischnik 1989; Janus op. cit. pp. 52-3; Rosenberg & Trevathan ibid.). Cranial expansion and greater cerebral complexity in the human infant, which produce greater sensitivity to trauma and a far more psychologically-fragile state of dependency.
The Ainsworth Strange Situation: Used to study parenting styles and infants' reactions to these styles. It tests the reactions of toddlers to a period of temporary absence on the part of the caregiver, during which the child is left alone with a stranger. The study has frequently been replicated.
Topography of the mind: Consists of the id, ego, and superego, forces which affect the personality of the individual. Also refers to the conscious, preconscious and unconscious.
Why should infants be studied?: In the womb, the infant continually receives nourishment (and passes waste) in a sealed and protected environment. Birth is an extremely painful, abrupt and traumatic transition from a water-breathing to an air-breathing environment. After birth, nourishment is not continuous, but intermittent. Waste does not just 'disappear' it hangs around and creates extreme discomfort until nappies are changed. When the infant is awake and 'needy' and primary caregiver is not present, even for a moment, the infant does not understand the situation, nor how to be 'patient', but after the terrible transition of birth, suffers terrifying experiences of 'abandonment' and feels threatened with annihilation.

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