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Professor Volney P. Gay E-Mail: Volney.P.Gay@Vanderbilt.

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APP Glossary
Glossary of Technical Terms & References The following are technical terms used in this course. I define them here briefly. For more extended discussion and additional discussion of major psychoanalytic terms see the following excellent reference works: The Language of Psycho-Analysis. (1967). By J. Laplanche and J. B. Pontalis. Trans. by D. NicholsonSmith. New York: Norton. Psychoanalytic Terms and Concepts. (1990). Edited by Burness Moore and Bernard Fine. New York: The American Psychoanalytic Association. These authors define central psychoanalytic terms and locate them in either Freud or later psychoanalytic authors and specific texts. For help with general psychiatric and psychological terms, see: American Psychiatric Glossary. (1988). Edited by Evelyn Stone. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press. A Dictionary of Psychotherapy. (1986). By Sue Walrond-Skinner. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Lexicon of Psychiatric and Mental Health Terms. (1989). Geneva: World Health Organization. Glossary Abandonment anxiety: According to clinicians who work with infants and young children, the anxiety both conscious and unconscious- which one feels when one contemplates loosing access to an important person or to that person's internal representation. (See also "self-object.") Adhesion of the libido: A term from Freud's classic theory, pertaining to his notion that once they are formed, "libidinal" or "erotic" ties between oneself and another (or images of the other) adhere tenaciously. Hence, the "work" of psychoanalytic therapy entails struggling against this tendency. (See also "regression.") Affects: In general a feeling, positive or negative, tied to an idea, which, in turn, is the product of instinctual wishes. Affordances: A term from the psychologist, J. J. Gibson, they are those invariant features of the relationship between a perceiver and the perceivers expectable environment such that the perceivers comprehends that environment as a place of action. An affordance is thus an actual aspect of how a particular animal situates itself in a particular environment. Aggressive instincts: In Freud's "classical theory" (which see) those innate impulsions, based in the germ plasm, that push one towards aggressive and even destructive instincts. (See also "death instincts.")

V. P. Gay

Glossary of Psychoanalytic Terms

Anal instincts: In classical libido theory, those innate impulsions that give rise to wishes and pleasures associated with the anal-urethral area of the body. Often associated with aggressive instincts, especially in so-called "anal rage." Ananke: Freud's use of the Greek term for fate or "The Fates" which control even divine powers and which determine the shape of all human instincts, and therefore of human fate as well. Anti-sexual instincts: From the classical theory, those instincts later associated with ego defense, especially repression, which impel one to resist sexual wishes, themselves driven by sexual instincts. Anxiety: In Freud's early theory, a painful, conscious state of fear caused by the damning up of libidinal impulses. In his later theory, anxiety includes both conscious and unconscious forms and is traced to unconscious defensive efforts by the ego to elicit defense against an anticipated danger. A priori structures of the mind: Terms from Immanuel Kant's treatises on the philosophy of science; those structures of mind which Kant says are prior to any experience and which determine the structure or form by which rational thinking takes place. Association: A term developed in Freud's major text on dreams, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900a); an idea (or thought or wish or feeling) elicited spontaneously by a mental stimulus. (See "Free association.") Attunement: From Object Relations Theory ; the concept that an empathic caretaker or therapist comprehends feelingly the inner experience of the other rather as one "tunes" one's instruments when playing music with another. Cathected Neurone: In classical theory, the "Project" of 1895, a hypothetical element in the brain which is "filled with" (cathected with) various forms of energy. Censorship: From the Interpretation of Dreams (1900a) and related texts; the agency in the mind which operates both consciously and unconsciously to suppress wishes the expression of which might endanger the ego. Classical Theory: Generally refers to all of Freud's corpus, which spans a period of roughly 1893 to 1939. More narrowly, it refers to his Instinct Theory and the metapsychology associated with that theory in papers he wrote between about 1909 and 1920. After 1920 his work is better described as Ego Psychology because in those papers he focused upon the ego and its "energies," and less upon the "instincts" which ultimately determine human experience. Complex: A term derived from both Freud and Carl Jung; a fixed set of behaviors and psychopathological actions that persists and commonly occurs with such regularity that it appears in most cultures and cultural forms, hence "Oedipus Complex" refers to a child's struggles with triangular relationships to its parents. Compromise formations: From Ego Psychology , refers to both minor and major forms of behaviors that simultaneously express and suppress, liberate and suppress, instinctual wishes. The resultant behavior, e.g., neurotic fears that a loved one might die, is a compromise between the two competing wishes. Compulsion to repeat: From classical theory, behaviors that manifest directly the primary instincts' tendency toward repetition and return to archaic states of being.

V. P. Gay

Glossary of Psychoanalytic Terms

Construction: From clinical theory, the joint effort by analyst and patient, using current transference events, to conceptualize the patient's early emotional environments. In cultural critiques, Freud "constructed" portraits of human pre-history as well. Containment: From clinical theory, the analyst's effort to elicit and then "contain" the patient's archaic feeling states which the patient had previously disowned, usually through projection. Counter-transference: From the clinical theory; the analyst's conscious and unconscious experience of the patient as if the patient were a person from the analyst's past (see Transference). Defense: From the clinical theory; a person's conscious and unconscious efforts to avoid psychic pain, e.g., shame or guilt. In classical theory repression was typically the defense most often discussed; in more recent theory any ego activity, including insight, can serve defensive purposes. Deficit in the ego: The lack of a major and definable skill or so-called "ego function," like judgment or reality testing, which operates in a well-developed personality. Delusion: From general psychiatry, a belief strongly held and defended even when contradicted by reality testing and social norms. Denial: A major ego defense in which one unconsciously perceives a truth about the self and then consciously denies it. Depression: A general psychiatric term for negative moods (and affects) commonly associated with deficits in self-esteem, pessimism, somatic complaints, sleep and other disturbances, some of which are obvious and some of which are hidden. Deprivations: From Object Relations Theory (which see); actions by parenting persons which actively deprive the infant and child of emotional nurture and sustenance. Depth psychology: A general term, usually referring to Freud's thought and the many schools of thought influence by his theories, which conceives of the layers of the mind, ranging from "superficial" to "deeper" strata. Developmental point of view: From classical theory, Freud's claim that all complex behaviors, including all psychopathologies, have their origins in prior interpersonal and intrapsychic events. Displacement: From classical theory, a major ego defense in which one directs attention away from an area or feeling that might provoke psychic pain, to another that seems safer. Distinctive feature: From linguistics, any perceivable aspect of speech or language that permits one to distinguish one minimal unit from another, e.g., phonemes are distinguished from one another according to the presence or absence of distinctive auditory features. Economic point of view: From classical theory, Freud's claim that all complex behaviors and all psychopathologies, have their origins in the flux of primary instincts, e.g., love and hate. Ego: From classical theory and later ego psychology: that agency which theory tells us is or should be unitary in the psyche and which is the seat or source of adaptation and survival, therefore, the seat of all defensive operations, as well as all ego functions, e.g., consciousness, judgment, reality testing. (Compare to the "self.") Ego defense: Narrowly defined, any activity by the ego which serves to decrease psychic suffering and increase psychic balance or pleasure at the cost of reality testing.

V. P. Gay

Glossary of Psychoanalytic Terms

Emic and etic: From linguistics, the work of Kenneth Pike (1962), who, using linguistics as a paradigm, argued that one can find phonemic and phonetic differences in human behavior that parallel these linguistic structures. "Emic" structures are thus rule bound, arbitrary, culture specific, and based on distinctive features, while "etic" structures are the opposite. Emotional affordances: From this text, on analogy to visual affordances (which see); those aspects of the other or symbols of the other, as in art, the presence of which informs me that they are sources of emotional sustenance. Empathy: From classical theory and later; the ego capacity to comprehend the intrapsychic experience and world of an other person. Epistemology: From philosophy, a theory of how knowledge is possible and how science develops and evolves. Fantasy: From classical and all later analytic theories; conscious and unconscious personal narratives that express (and conceal) archaic ego states and archaic solutions to psychic suffering. (See also "perversions.") Fixations: From classical libido theory; Freud's claim that infants and children, in the process of ego and libidinal development, may become mired in a particular phase, e.g., in the oral, anal, or phallic state, and not progress beyond it. Frame: Primarily from the work of Robert Langs (1985); the set of boundaries, expectations, and responsibilities that therapist and patient agree upon will provide the "space" in which all therapy is to take place, e.g, a fixed time, place, fee, and therapeutic goal. Genital sexuality: From classical theory; the most developed form of human sexual development in which a sexual relationship with another is focused primarily upon mutual genital sexual expression and in which both partners find in the other avenues for self coherence as well. Gibsonian Theory: Referring to the theories of perception, the notion of affordances, advanced by J. J. Gibson (1970; 1979) and E. Gibson as well. Guilt: From classical theory; a negative affective state in which the ego feels responsible for criminal actions and awaits punishment (form the superego). Hypercathected: From classical theory; the state in which a neurone is overfilled with psychic energy and therefore disturbs psychic equilibrium which, when expressed, appears as neurotic fixations. Hypersexual: Extreme, neurotically driven, sexual expressions. Hysteria: In classical theory, a neurosis more common in women, though appearing in men, in which a body part is hypercathected with sexualized energy, and hence impaired. (See "Dora,"in the Index). Icon, Iconic: From aesthetics, representational objects, like signs or gestures, whose structure parallels that of the item to which they refer, e.g., holding one's nose is iconic for "this smells bad." Id: From classical ego theory, the third part of Freud's tripartite theory of mind; the original matrix of psyche and soma which is the seat of the instincts and the source of later instinctual manifestations, like sexual and aggressive wishes, and which is foundational to the ego and superego.

V. P. Gay

Glossary of Psychoanalytic Terms

Idealization: From classical theory and Self Psychology: an ego defense and developmental process by which one ascribes to others images of greatness and perfection which stem from one's own narcissistic tensions. Identification: From all psychoanalytic authors, that profound, unending, and deep process by which personal identity is formed and maintained through becoming like, in part, persons one admires and wishes to "take into the self." Illusion: In classical theory, a belief driven by a wish with little or no reality support, e.g., religious beliefs in Heaven. In ORT, David Winnicott, an unending process by which persons generate a sense that there is an intermediate space, between their inner selves and the inner selves of other beings and in which they may meet. Infantile neurosis: In classical theory, a neurotic condition in infants and children, which may disappear, but to which any complete adult analysis must penetrate and resolve by resolving its reincarnated form, the adult transference neurosis. Inner world: In general analytic parlance, the set of conscious and unconscious images and feelings about self and others which take place within the mind of an individual. Instincts: In Freud, the original biological forces which undergird and predate all later psychological structures. (See "Id.") Intrapsychic point of view: A general analytic orientation toward self and others: that they and we have inner worlds from which spring many of our actions, especially neurotic actions. Introjection: Classical theory and all later: an imagined process by which a person takes in or "introjects" desired attributes of another often in an "oral" or "anal" manner. (See also "perversions.") Invariances: From Gibson (1979), those relational features between self and the external world which remain unchanging, e.g., the pull of gravity upon one's body is an invariant feature of life on this planet. Isolation: A major ego defense in which one consciously or unconsciously avoids psychic pain by severing the link between one's feelings about an event or person and one's recognition of those feelings. Latent content: From Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900a); the set of feelings and ideas hidden from conscious awareness "beneath" the manifest content. Libido: From Freud, all energies that aim to unite one thing with another, one person with another, and one body with another. (See also "anal" and "oral.") Magical thinking: See primary process thinking; thinking in which the ego's ability to judge, test reality, and postpone action (or discharge) is overcome by wishful impulses as occurs in dreams. Manifest content: From Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900a): the set of feelings and ideas which appear immediately and on the surface, e.g., the dream text as reported spontaneously by a patient. Masochism: In all analytic theory, an action which while painful also yields libidinal discharge and therefore pleasure, even if unconscious pleasures. (See also "perversion.") Metapsychology: From Freud, his general and highly abstract theory of the mental apparatus and its functioning. Metapsychology is "beyond" psychology proper because it aims to explain psychological findings using "more basic," and non-psychological concepts like energy and structure.

V. P. Gay

Glossary of Psychoanalytic Terms

Mourning: From one of Freud's greatest essays, "Mourning and Melancholia" (1917e); a psychological task, or labor, in which the ego must accept the loss of a beloved (libidinized) object and disentangle its hopes and securities tied to that object slowly, over time by "hypercathecting" memories, discharging the affect there accumulated, and so forsaking one's infantile wishes toward the object. Narcissism: In classical theory, the original state of self-love, like the Greek mythological character, Narcissus, in which one perceives no other objects worthy of sharing love. In later theory, the work of Heinz Kohut (1971; 1977), narcissism is seen as a line of development and fundamental to any form of bona fide maturity. Neurone theory: Freud's earliest metapsychology, using abstract models of the neural structure of the brain to explain psychological functioning. Neurosis, Neurotic: In all analytic theory, a long standing form of psychic suffering in which a patient's ego is basically in tact (is not submerged in unconscious processes as are psychotic persons) but severely confined by unconscious conflicts, stemming from infantile and adolescent crises not resolved fully. Noumena: From the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant; those fundamental aspects of reality which lay beyond the scope of direct human perception and manipulation. (See also "Phenomena.") Nuclear conflict: From Freud, the oedipal conflict in its fullest measure. Object: In all analytic theory the actual, external person, thing, or other being important to one. Object representations: Our conscious and unconscious images of an external object. Oedipal complex: The nuclear complex, according to Freud, of all human families and all human cultures. The triangular conflict that emerges when a child enters the phallic period, about ages three to five, and discovers that adults of both sexes have sexual live and "secrets" and "powers" denied to the child. Ontogenetic: In Freud, the ways in which a person develops over time, opposed to the development of a species or group. ORT, Object Relations Theory: In general, contemporary schools of psychoanalytic thought, often stemming from British authors like Melanie Klein and Donald Winnicott, which focus attention upon the ways in which relationships, "object relations," between parent and child influence deeply the intrapsychic realm. Other ORT authors, like Kernberg (1976) integrate these concerns with classical ego psychology. Perversion: In the classical theory, any action or fantasy leading to orgiastic discharge which is not focused primarily upon the genitals of self and the other (of the opposite sex). In Freud, perversions are expressions of primary sexual instincts, like oral and anal impulses, that have not succumbed to organization under the "higher" genital aims. In post-Freud authors, ORT, perversions are seen as symptomatic expressions of efforts to repair a psyche, through magical means, and to overcome deficits in emotional environment. Phallocentric: In classical theory, a perversion that focuses upon and idealizes the erect penis. Phenomena: From Kant, those aspects of the world as perceived and subject to scientific inquiry and dominated by a priori principles of thought and opposed to the world of noumena. Phenomenology: In general terms, a philosophic and scientific orientation toward manifest and immediate given experience; the exploration of that experience without prejudging its sources and its meanings or its ultimate nature, its "ontology."

V. P. Gay

Glossary of Psychoanalytic Terms

Phylogenetic: In Freud, the ways in which an entire species or distinct group developed over time, as opposed to ontogenetic. Pre-genital: In Freud, libidinal impulses and wishes associated with them deriving from sexual organs that develop prior to the genital stage, e.g., oral and anal sexual actions. Preoedipal: In Freud, psychological and intrapsychic events that occur prior to the oedipal stage. In general, all those events that occur within the infant's mind and between infant and parents prior to the oedipal period. Primary process: In Freud's metapsychology, the original mental set of the infantile psyche, revealed nightly in dreams, and in all other regressed moments where the adult psyche reverts from secondary process thinking to magical forms of thought. Projection: A basic and primitive ego defense in which one ascribes negative aspects of the self to others, external to the self and then, typically, responds to those aspects with aggression. Psychic pain: Any form of suffering whose origin and locus is mental. Psychodynamic: In general, a theory and point of view that sees the human psyche, or mind, as organized, in part, in response to the pressure of various "forces" or "dynamics" many of which are unconscious and therefore hidden from ordinary inspection. Psychosis: For Freud, a severe form of mental illness in which ordinary reality testing is not available to a person, in which primary process thought dominates and in which the person cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality. "Hallucinatory" thought during dreams is, Freud says, a form of controlled psychosis. Qh: Typescript shorthand for Freud's Greek symbol with which he designated a quantity of psychic energy in the "Project" of 1895. Reality testing: In Freud, a central task of the ego; to distinguish internal stimuli and thoughts or fantasy from external thoughts and stimuli. Reality testing develops slowly over time, as other secondary process functions do, and is subject to regression, as in neurosis, or disappearance, as in psychosis. Regression: In general, a state in which a person's ego functioning has reversed and operates at a prior developmental state, e.g., in dreams we "regress" to primary process thinking in which are wishes and anxieties are given hallucinatory reality. In clinical practice, regression occurs when the transference neurosis sets in and the patient experiences the analyst as if the analyst were a person from the past. Repression: A basic and primitive defense mechanism by which the ego denies attention cathexis to ideas which, if expressed, would cause psychic pain. Repression thereby causes breaks or gaps in the ego's conscious experience; hence the common experience of forgetting is typically a product of repression. Secondary process: All those mature ego functions, like reality testing, that develop after the child matures and which are liable to regression when the ego faces severe strain. Self-object: A term central to Heinz Kohut (1971; 1977); a person, for example a mother, who performs ego functions for another person who cannot perform them for himself or herself. In benign circumstances, a positive self-object relationship is one in which the self-object soothes, helps, loves, and nurtures the one in need. In hostile self-object relationships, a person with power, say an adult, demands self-object responses from a person with less power and less freedom, say the adult's child.

V. P. Gay

Glossary of Psychoanalytic Terms

Self-preservative instincts: From Freud, those ego based instincts that aim to preserve the self and which oppose the death instincts. Sexualization: A complex ego defense in which one imagines sexual pleasure with another person or thing in order to avoid feelings that would otherwise threaten to overwhelm the ego with suffering. Splitting: A major and ubiquitous ego defense in which one "splits" images of another or of oneself into acceptable parts (the "good" images) and unacceptable parts (the "bad" images). Freud first spoke of splitting per se with regard to male perversions in which the patient found sexual pleasure with a fetish object by which he denied the existence of female differences and so denied his horrible fear that he too might be "castrated." An excellent and complete discussion occurs in James Grotstein's Splitting and Projective Identification (1981). Structural Theory: Freud's last and most famous metapsychological theory; the theory of ego, superego, and id "structures" which make up the mature mental apparatus. From 1921 on, Freud and others, the school associated with "Ego Psychology," elaborated detailed theorems as to how each of these structures was energized, developed, altered through internalization, and interacted with the other two agencies and the external world. Superego: The last agency of the structural model to develop, originally amalgamated with the notion of ego ideal; after 1923 Freud ascribed to it the voice of morality and other conscious and unconscious modes by which it silently controlled the ego. Typically, guilt and shame are ascribed to a punitive superego as are other self-attacking and self-destructive urges. Transference: The central feature of psychoanalytic therapy, an unconscious set of events and fantasies in which the patient re-experiences the analyst as if the analyst were a person important in the patient's past and responds to the analyst with feelings and impulses first experienced toward that earlier person. Transference Neurosis: The central target of interpretation in classical psychoanalytic work; when a patient is fully "in" analysis, Freud said that the patient's original neurosis was now transformed into a new, transference neurosis. Hence in the here and now of the analytic hour patient and doctor could see precisely how the prior neurosis occurred and why it persisted. By curing the patient of the transference neurosis, one cures the patient entirely. Tripartite Theory: Another name for the structural theory of ego, superego, and id mental agencies.

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