Psychodynamic Models of Personality - Handbook Of Psychology

ROBERT F. BORNSTEIN

117 THE CORE ASSUMPTIONS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 117

Primacy of the Unconscious 118 Psychic Causality 118

Critical Importance of Early Experiences 118

THE EVOLUTION OF PSYCHOANALYSIS: GAZING ACROSS THREE CENTURIES 119

Classical Psychoanalytic Theory 119 Neo-Analytic Models 122

Object Relations Theory and Self Psychology 123 Contemporary Integrative Models 124

PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSONALITY THEORIES: BRINGING ORDER TO CHAOS 124

Personality Processes and Dynamics 124

Insight, Awareness, and Coping 125 Normal and Pathological Functioning 127

PSYCHOANALYSIS AND CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOLOGY:

RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 127 Testing Psychoanalytic Theories 128 The Researcher-Practitioner Split 128 Freud’s Cognitive Revolution 128 Developmental Issues 129

Psychoanalytic Health Psychology 129

The Opportunities and Challenges of Neuroscience 130 CONCLUSION: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PSYCHODYNAMICS

AND THE PSYCHODYNAMICS OF PSYCHOLOGY 130 REFERENCES 130

Freud’s psychoanalysis is like Picasso’s cubism. Controver- sial from the outset, Picasso’s work enchanted some and alienated others, but every twentieth-century painter has re- sponded to it in some way. So it is with Freud’s psychoanalytic theory: Some psychologists love it, others hate it, but almost every psychologist has reacted to it—deliberately or inadvertently, consciously or unconsciously—in his or her own work.

Psychoanalysis and cubism are alike in at least one other respect as well. Both paradigms changed in fundamental ways our view of the world by pointing out limitations in our habit- ual manner of thinking and perceiving. Cubism compelled us to view a given object or situation from multiple perspectives simultaneously—no single viewpoint can capture the complexity of the scene. Psychoanalysis taught us much the same thing, but instead of looking outward toward the external world, psychoanalysis turned our attention inward. In the process, it altered forever the way we see ourselves.

Evaluating the validity and utility of a theory of personality is never easy, but it is particularly challenging for a theory as complex and far-reaching as psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic theory touches upon virtually every aspect of human mental life, from motivation and emotion to memory and information processing. Embedded within this larger model is a theory of personality, but it is not always obvious where the personality

portion of psychoanalysis begins and other aspects of the model leave off. Because of this, one cannot assess the psychoanalytic theory of personality without examining psychoanalytic theoryin toto,with all its complexity, intricacy, and controversy.

This chapter reviews psychodynamic models of personality and their place in contemporary psychology. The chapter begins with a brief discussion of the core assumptions of psychoanalytic theory, followed by an overview of the evolution of the theory from Freud’s classical model to today’s integrative psychodynamic frameworks. I then discuss the common elements in different psychodynamic models and the ways that these models have grappled with key questions regarding personality development and dynamics. Finally, I discuss the place of psychoanalysis within contemporary psychology and the relationship of psychoanalytic theory to other areas of the discipline.

THE CORE ASSUMPTIONS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS Given the complexity of psychoanalytic theory and the myriad incarnations that the model has assumed over the years, the core assumptions of the psychodynamic framework are surprisingly simple. Moreover, the three core assumptions of

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118 Psychodynamic Models of Personality

psychoanalysis are unique to the psychodynamic framework:

No other theories of personality accept these three premises in their purest form.

Primacy of the Unconscious

Psychodynamic theorists contend that the majority of psychological processes take place outside conscious awareness.

In psychoanalytic terms, the activities of the mind (orpsyche) are presumed to be largely unconscious, and unconscious processes are thought to be particularly revealing of personality dynamics (Brenner, 1973; Fancher, 1973). Although aspects of theprimacy of the unconsciousassumption remain controversial (see Kihlstrom, 1987; McAdams, 1997), research on implicit learning, memory, motivation, and cog- nition has converged to conﬁrm this basic premise of psychoanalysis (albeit in a slightly modiﬁed form). Many mental activities are only imperfectly accessible to conscious awareness—including those associated with emotional responding, as well as more mundane, affectively neutral activities such as the processing of linguistic material (see Bornstein & Pittman, 1992; Greenwald & Banaji, 1995;

Schacter, 1987; Stadler & Frensch, 1998). Whether unconscious processes are uniquely revealing of personality dynamics is a different matter entirely, and psychologists remain divided on this issue.

It is ironic that the existence of mental processing outside awareness—so controversial for so long—has become a cor- nerstone of contemporary experimental psychology. In fact, in summarizing the results of cognitive and social research on automaticity, Bargh and Chartrand (1999) recently concluded that evidence for mental processing outside of awareness is so pervasive and compelling that the burden of proof has actually reversed: Rather than demonstrate unconscious in- ﬂuences, researchers must now go to considerable lengths to demonstrate that a given psychological process is at least in part under conscious control. This conclusion represents a rather striking (and counterintuitive) reversal of prevailing attitudes regarding the conscious-unconscious relationship throughout much of the twentieth century.

Psychic Causality

The second core assumption of psychodynamic theory is that nothing in mental life happens by chance—that there is no such thing as a random thought, feeling, motive, or behavior (Brenner, 1973). This has come to be known as the principle of psychic causality,and it too has become less controversial over the years. Although few psychologists accept

the principle of psychic causality precisely as psychoanalysts conceive it, most theorists and researchers agree that cogni- tions, motives, emotional responses, and expressed behaviors do not arise randomly, but always stem from some combina- tion of identiﬁable biological and/or, psychological processes (Rychlak, 1988).

Although few psychologists would argue for the existence of random psychological events, researchers do disagree regarding the underlying processes that account for such events, and it is here that the psychodynamic view diverges from those of other perspectives. Whereas psychoanalysts contend that unconscious motives and affective states are key determinants of ostensibly random psychological events, psychologists with other theoretical orientations attribute such events to latent learning, cognitive bias, motivational conﬂict, chemical imbalances, or variations in neural activity (e.g., see Buss, 1991; Danzinger, 1997). The notion that a seemingly random event (e.g., a slip of the tongue) reveals something important about an individual’s personality is in its purest form unique to psychoanalysis.

Critical Importance of Early Experiences

Psychoanalytic theory is not alone in positing that early developmental experiences play a role in shaping personality, but the theory is unique in the degree to which it emphasizes childhood experiences as determinants of personality development and dynamics. In its strongest form, psychoanalytic theory hypothesizes that early experiences—even those oc- curring during the ﬁrst weeks or months of life—set in motion personality processes that are to a great extent immutable (see Emde, 1983, 1992). In other words, the events of early childhood are thought to create a trajectory that almost invariably culminates in a predictable set of adult character traits (Eagle, 1984; Stern, 1985). This is especially of events that are outside the normal range of experience (i.e., very positive or very negative).

The psychodynamic hypothesis that the ﬁrst weeks or months of life represent a critical periodin personality development contrasts with those of alternative theories (e.g., cognitive), which contend that key events in personality development occur somewhat later, after the child has ac- quired a broad repertoire of verbal and locomotive skills.

Freud’s notion of a critical early period in personality development—coupled with his corollary hypothesis that many of the most important early experiences involve sexual frustration or gratiﬁcation—was (and is) highly controversial. It helped create a decades-long divergence of psychoanalysis from mainstream developmental psychology, which has only recently begun to narrow (Emde, 1992).

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The Evolution of Psychoanalysis: Gazing Across Three Centuries 119

THE EVOLUTION OF PSYCHOANALYSIS: GAZING ACROSS THREE CENTURIES

Many psychodynamic ideas—including the core assumptions just discussed—predated Freud’s work and were anti- cipated by eighteenth and nineteenth century philosophers (Ellenberger, 1970; Hilgard, 1987). Nonetheless, psychoanalytic theory as an independent school of thought was conceived just over 100 years ago, with the publication of Breuer and Freud’s (1895/1955) Studies on Hysteria.Since that time, the history of psychoanalysis can be divided into four over- lapping phases: classical psychoanalytic theory, neo-analytic models, object relations theory and self psychology, and contemporary integrative models. Each phase introduced a novel approach to human development and personality.

Classical Psychoanalytic Theory

Given Freud’s background in neurology, it is not surprising that the ﬁrst incarnation of psychoanalytic theory was avowedly biological. In his early writings, Freud (1895/1966, 1900/1958a) set out to explain psychological phenomena in terms that could be linked to extant models of neural functioning (an ironic goal to say the least, given that psychoanalysis developed in part to explain “neurological”

symptoms that had no identiﬁable neurological basis, such as hysterical blindness and hysterical paralysis).

Because the core principles of classical psychoanalytic theory developed over more than 40 years, there were numerous revisions along the way. Thus, it is most accurate to think of classical psychoanalytic theory as a set of interrelated models, which were often (but not always) consistent with and supportive of each other: the drive model, the topographic model, the psychosexual stage model, and the structural model.

The Drive Model

One consequence of Freud’s determination to frame his theory in quasi-biological terms is that the earliest version of psychoanalyticdrive theorywas for all intents and purposes a theory of energy transformation and tension reduction (Breuer & Freud, 1895; Freud, 1896/1955c). Inborn (presum- ably inherited) instincts were central to the drive model, and most prominent among these was the sex drive, or libido.

Freud’s interest in (some might say obsession with) sexual impulses as key determinants of personality development and dynamics was controversial during his lifetime, and remains so today (e.g., see Torrey, 1992). At any rate, during the earliest phase of psychoanalytic theory, personality was seen as

a by-product of the particular way in which sexual impulses were expressed in an individual.

Freud never fully renounced the drive concept, even after he shifted the emphasis of psychoanalytic theory from inborn instincts to dynamic mental structures with no obvious biological basis (Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983). The concept of cathexis—investment of libidinal (or psychic) energy in an object or act—remained central to psychoanalytic theory even as the drive model waned in inﬂuence. As his career drew to a close during the 1930s, Freud (1933/1964a, 1940/1964b) con- tinued to use the concept of cathexis to account for a wide range of psychological processes, from infant-caregiver bonding and infantile sexuality to group behavior and para- praxes (i.e., “Freudian slips”).

As the concept of cathexis became reified in classical psychoanalytic theory, so did the companion concepts of fixation (i.e., lingering investment of psychic energy in objects and activities from an earlier developmental period), and regression (i.e., reinvestment of psychic energy in an earlier stage of development, usually under stress). As should become appar- ent, the concept of cathexis gradually faded from view, but the concepts of fixation and regression continue to be widely discussed and used to explain a wide range of issues related to personality development and dynamics.

The Topographic Model

At the same time as Freud was reﬁning the drive theory, he was elaborating his now-famous topographic model of the mind, which contended that the mind could usefully be divided into three regions: the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious (Freud, 1900/1958a, 1911/1958b). Whereas the conscious part of the mind was thought to hold only information that demanded attention and action at the moment, the preconscious contained material that was capable of becom- ing conscious but was not because attention (in the form of psychic energy) was not invested in it at that time. The unconscious contained anxiety-producing material (e.g., sexual impulses, aggressive wishes) that were deliberately repressed (i.e., held outside of awareness as a form of self-protection).

Because of the affect-laden nature of unconscious material, the unconscious was (and is) thought to play a more central role in personality than are the other two elements of Freud’s topographic model. In fact, numerous theories of personality ascribe to the notion that emotion-laden material outside of awareness plays a role in determining an individual’s personality traits and coping style (see Hogan, Johnson, &

Briggs, 1997; Loevinger, 1987).

The termsconscious, preconscious,andunconsciouscon- tinue to be used today in mainstream psychology, and research

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TABLE 5.1 The Psychosexual Stage Model

Associated Stage Age Range Developmental Task Character Traits Oral 0–18 months Moving from infantile Dependency

dependency toward autonomy and self- sufﬁciency

Anal 18–36 months Learning to exercise Obsessiveness control over one’s

body, one’s impulses, and other people

Oedipal 5–6 years Mastering competitive Competitiveness urges and acquiring

gender role related behaviors

Latency 6 years– Investing energy in —

puberty conﬂict-free (nonsexual) tasks and activities

Genital Puberty Mature sexuality —

onward (blending of

sexuality and intimacy)

Note. Dashes indicate that no associated character traits exist (ﬁxation in the latency and genital periods does not play a role in classical psychoanalytic theory).

has provided a surprising degree of support for this tripartite approach in the areas of memory and information processing (Bucci, 1997; Stein, 1997; Westen, 1998). Consciousness is indeed linked with attentional capacity, and studies show that a great deal of mental processing (including perceptual processing) occurs preconsciously (Bornstein, 1999b; Erdelyi, 1985). As noted earlier, the existence of a dynamic unconscious remains controversial, with some researchers arguing that evidence favoring this construct is compelling (Westen, 1998), and others contending that “unconscious” processing can be accounted for without positing the existence of a Freudian repository of repressed wishes and troubling urges and impulses (Kihlstrom, 1987, 1999).

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the topographic model—for Freud and for contemporary experimentalists as well—concerns the dynamics of information flow (i.e., the mechanisms through which information passes among different parts of the mind). Freud (1900/1958a, 1915/1957, 1933/1964a) used a variety of analogies to describe information movement among the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious, the most well-known of these being hisgatekeeper (who helped prevent unconscious information from reaching conscious awareness), andanteroom(where preconscious information was held temporarily before being stored in the unconscious). Contemporary researchers (e.g., Baddeley, 1990) have coined terms more scientific than those Freud used (e.g., central executive, visuospatial scratch pad), but in fact they have not been much more successful than Freud was at spec- ifying the psychological and neurological mechanisms that mediate intrapsychic information flow.

The Psychosexual Stage Model

Freud clung to the drive model (and its associated topographic framework) for several decades, in part because of his neurological background, but also because the drive model helped him bridge the gap between biological instincts and his hypothesized stages of development. By 1905, Freud had outlined the key elements of hispsychosexual stage model, which argued that early in life humans progress through an invariant sequence of developmental stages, each with its own unique challenge and its own mode of drive (i.e., sexual) gratiﬁcation (Freud, 1905/1953, 1918/1955a). Freud’s psychosexual stages—oral, anal, Oedipal, latency, and genital—

are well known even to nonpsychoanalytic psychologists. So are the oral, anal, and Oedipal (or phallic) character types associated with ﬁxation at these stages (Fisher & Greenberg, 1996). From a personality perspective, the psychosexual stage model marks a turning point in the history of psychoanalysis because it was only with the articulation of this

model that personality moved from the periphery to the cen- ter of psychoanalytic theory.

Table 5.1 illustrates the basic organization of Freud’s (1905/1953) psychosexual stage model. Frustration or over- gratification during the infantile, oral stage was hypothesized to result in oral fixation, and an inability to resolve the developmental issues that characterize this period (e.g., conflicts regarding dependency and autonomy). The psychosexual stage model further postulated that the orally fixated (or oral dependent) person would (a) remain dependent on others for nurturance, protection, and support; and (b) continue to ex- hibit behaviors in adulthood that reflect the oral stage (i.e., preoccupation with activities of the mouth, reliance on food and eating as a means of coping with anxiety). Research sup- ports the former hypothesis, but has generally failed to con- firm the latter (Bornstein, 1996).

A parallel set of dynamics (i.e., frustration or overgratifi- cation during toilet training) were assumed to produce anal fixation and the development of an anal character type. Be- cause toilet training was viewed by Freud as a struggle for control over one’s body and impulses, the anally fixated individual was thought to be preoccupied with issues of control, and his or her behavior would thus be characterized by a con- stellation of three traits, sometimes termed the anal triad:

obstinacy, orderliness, and parsimony (Masling & Schwartz, 1979). Fixation during the Oedipal stage was presumed to result in a personality style marked by aggressiveness,

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Id: Present at birth.

Ego: Age 2; develops as a result of imperfect parenting and the child’s need to develop independent coping strategies.

Superego: Age 5; develops when the child becomes capable of internalizing abstract rules and principles as communicated by parents and others.

Figure 5.1 Development of the id, ego, and superego in classical psychoanalytic theory.

TABLE 5.2 Conceptions of Personality Within Classical Psychoanalytic Theory

Model Conception of Personality

Drive Personality traits as drive (instinct) derivatives.

Topographic Unconscious (repressed) material is a primary determinant of personality.

Psychosexual Fixation at a particular psychosexual stage leads to an associated character type.

Structural Id-ego-superego dynamics determine personality traits and coping strategies.

competitiveness, and a concern with status and inﬂuence (Fisher & Greenberg, 1996; Juni, 1992).

Empirical studies have yielded mixed results with respect to the anal and Oedipal stages. Studies support the existence of an anal triad, but they do not support the critical role of toilet training in the ontogenesis of these traits (Kline, 1981).

Similarly, research offers only mixed support for the concept of an Oedipal personality type and offers little evidence for the Oedipal dynamic as Freud conceived it (Fisher & Greenberg, 1996; Masling & Schwartz, 1979).

The Structural Model

Ultimately, Freud recognized certain explanatory limitations in the topographic model (e.g., the model’s inability to account for certain forms of psychopathology), and as a result he developed an alternative, complementary framework to explain normal and abnormal personality development. Al- though the structural modelevolved over a number of years, the theoretical shift from topography to structure is most clearly demarcated by Freud’s (1923/1961) publication of The Ego and the Id,wherein he described in detail the central hypothesis underlying the structural model: the notion that intrapsychic dynamics could be understood with reference to three interacting mental structures called the id, ego, and superego. The idwas deﬁned as the seat of drives and instincts (a throwback to the original drive model), whereas the egorepresented the logical, reality-oriented part of the mind, and the superegowas akin to a conscience, or set of moral guidelines and prohibitions (Brenner, 1973). Figure 5.1 illustrates the sequence of development of the id, ego, and superego in Freud’s structural model.

According to the structural model, personality is derived from the interplay of these three psychic structures, which differ in terms of power and inﬂuence (Freud, 1933/1964a, 1940/1964b). When the id predominates, an impulsive, stimulation-seeking personality style results. When the superego is strongest, moral prohibitions inhibit impulses, and a restrained, overcontrolled personality ensues. When the ego (which serves in part to mediate id impulses and superego prohibitions) is dominant, a more balanced set of personality traits develop. Table 5.2 summarizes the psychodynamic conceptualization of personality in Freud’s structural model, as well as within the drive, topographic, and psychosexual stage models.

From 1923 until his death in 1939, Freud spent much of his time elaborating the key principles and corollaries of the structural model, and he extended the model to various areas of individual and social life (e.g., humor, mental errors, cul- tural dynamics, religious belief). He also made numerous

efforts to link the structural model to his earlier work in order to form a more cohesive psychodynamic framework. For example, Freud (and other psychoanalysts) hypothesized that oral ﬁxation was characterized in part by a prominent, powerful id, whereas Oedipal ﬁxation was characterized by strong investment in superego activities. At the time of his death, Freud was actively revising aspects of the structural model (Fancher, 1973; Gay, 1988), and it is impossible to know how the model would have developed had Freud con- tinued his work. This much is certain, however: During the decades wherein Freud explicated details of the structural model of the mind, he altered it in myriad ways, and in doing so he laid the foundation for several concepts that—many years later—became key elements of modern psychoanalytic theory.

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