PSY 1102 Lecture : 5. Personality.docx
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PSY 1102 Full Course Notes
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Personality: an individual"s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting. In his clinical practice, freud encountered patients suffering from nervous disorders. Their complaints could not be explained in terms of purely physical causes. Freud"s clinical experience led him to develop the first comprehensive theory of personality, which included the unconscious mind, psychosexual stages, and defense mechanisms. A reservoir (unconscious mind) of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. Freud asked patients to say whatever came to their minds (free association) in order to tap the unconscious. The process of free association (chain of thoughts) leads to painful, embarrassing unconscious memories. Once these memories are retrieved and released (treatment: psychoanalysis) the patient feels better. It is mostly hidden, and below the surface lies the unconscious mind. Another method to analyze the unconscious mind is through interpreting manifest and latent contents of dreams.