PSY3120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Ego Psychology, Defence Mechanisms, Facing Reality

• School: Monash University
• Department: Health Sciences - Psychology
• Course: PSY3120
• Professor: Moira Junge

Document Summary

All pleasurable acts are in the life instincts and the sees the goal of much of life as gaining pleasure and avoiding pain: death instincts: account for the aggressive drive. People manifest through their behaviour an unconscious wish to die or to hurt themselves or others. Does not think but only wishes or acts. The keys to understanding behaviour problems of personality. Consciousness is a thin slice of the total mind the greater part of the iceberg that lies below the surface of the water, the larger part of the mind exists below the surface of awareness. The unconscious stores all experiences, memories and repressed material. Most psychological functioning exists in the out-of-awareness realm aim of psychoanalytic therapy is to make the unconscious motives conscious, for only then can an individual exercise choice. Understanding the role of the unconscious is central to grasping the essence of the psychoanalytic model of behaviour.