| alienation | An existentialist concept; a condition of modern life that results from a failure to choose an authentic life; a kind of spiritual death, a sense of the meaninglessness of life and terror over what comes with death.
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| anal stage | In psychodynamic theory, the second stage of psychosocial development, in which the child's focus is on the pleasurable feelings of retaining and expelling the feces; occurs in the second year of life.
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| anxiety | A state of fear that affects many areas of functioning and that involves three basic components: subjective reports of tension and dread, behavioral inhibitions and impairments, and certain physiological responses.
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| castration anxiety | In psychodynamic theory, the male child's fear that his penis will be cut off as punishment for his sexual desire for his mother.
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| client-centered therapy | Style of therapy that creates a warm and accepting atmosphere for the patient by offering respect and approval, mirroring the patient's feelings, and attempting to perceive the patient's world as he or she does.
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| conditions of worth | Extraneous values imposed on children; strings attached to positive regard that dictate which self-experiences are "good" and which are "bad."
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| defense mechanism | Any psychic stratagem that reduces anxiety by concealing the source of anxiety from the self and the world.
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| depth hypothesis | Freud's view that almost all mental activity takes place unconsciously.
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| ego | According to Freud, the psychic component that mediates between the id and the forces that restrict the id's satisfactions.
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| ego psychology | School of psychology that sees the development of the personality as involving the formation of mental models of the world and how the world works; it focuses on the ego and the interplay between its conflict-solving functions and its conflict-free functions, particularly cognitive processes.
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| Electra complex | Freud's concept, complementary to the Oediupus complex, which holds that a very young girl reorients her sexual interests toward her father, because she experiences penis envy and wishes to obtain the organ vicariously.
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| genital stage | According to Freud, the final phase of mature sexuality, by which he meant heterosexual genital mating.
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| hierarchy of needs | Concept originating with Abraham Maslow, a series of needs that must be met in the process of development before the adult can begin to pursue self-actualization.
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| humanistic-existential perspective | View taken by a group of thinkers, many trained as psychoanalysts, who rejected the pessimistic determinism of the psychodynamic approach and emphasized the positive, optimistic aspects of human potential for health, creativity, and constructive living.
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| id | According to Freud, the basic psychic structure, consisting of primitive biological drives toward sex and aggression.
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| interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) | Short-term therapy for depression that looks for solutions and strategies to deal with interpersonal problems rather than spending time on interpretation and analysis.
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| interpretation | Freud's primary tool for revealing hidden, intrapsychic motives; it involves going beyond observing surface behavior to uncover its latent content.
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| latency | The dormancy of a particular behavior or response.
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| libido | Freud's term for a basic sexual drive, which he saw as the major source of psychic energy.
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| neuroses | Conditions in which maladaptive behaviors serve as a protection against a source of unconscious anxiety.
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| object relations | In psychodynamic terminology, "objects" are the people to whom one is attached by strong emotional ties. According to object-relations theorists, the most powerful determinant of psychological development is the child's interaction with the primary caregiver, the child's chief object.
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| Oedipus complex | According to Freud, the desire that all male children have during the phallic stage to do away with the parent of the same sex in order to take sexual possession of the parent of the opposite sex; a crucial stage of development which determines the child's future sexual adjustment.
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| oral stage | In psychodynamic theory, the first stage of psychosocial development, in which the mouth is the primary focus of libidinal impulses and pleasure; occurs in the first year of life.
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| phallic stage | In psychodynamic theory, the third stage of psychosocial development, in which pleasure is derived from masturbation, the stroking and handling of the genitals; occurs from the third to the fifth or sixth year of life.
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| phenomenological approach | Therapy method in which the therapist tries to see the world through clients' own perceptions and subjective experience.
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| positive psychology | Movement that focuses on helping people to live more fulfilling lives; sees psychology as a study of strength and virtue, not just disease, weakness, and damage.
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| positive regard | Affection and approval.
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| psychoanalysis | The psychodynamic therapy method that relies heavily on the techniques of free association, dream interpretation, and analysis of resistance and transference. The aim is to give patients insight into their unconscious conflicts, impulses, and motives.
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| psychodynamic perspective | A school of thought united by a common concern with the dynamics, or interaction, of forces lying deep within the mind. Almost all psychodynamic theorists agree on three basic principles: Much human behavior is determined by intrapsychic forces; such forces generally operate unconsciously; and the form taken by these forces is deeply affected by developmental factors, especially by family relationships.
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| psychosexual development | Freud's theory that personality development takes place in a series of stages, in each of which the child's central motivation is to gratify the drive for pleasure in a different zone of the body.
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| psychosis | A condition in which adaptive functioning is drastically curtailed and the person may be out of touch with reality.
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| self-actualization | The process of exploring and fulfilling one's potential—not only by staying alive but also by testing and fulfilling their vision of their highest capabilities.
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| structural hypothesis | Freud's belief that the mind can be divided into three broad forces: the id, the ego, and the superego.
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| superego | According to Freud, the part of the mind that represents the moral standards of the society and parents, as internalized by the child.
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| unconscious | In Freudian theory, the level of consciousness that contains all memories not readily available to the perceptual conscious, because they have been either forgotten or repressed.
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| valuing process | Part of process of self-actualization whereby experiences perceived as enhancing to oneself are valued as good and sought after whereas experiences perceived as not enhancing are valued as bad and are avoided.
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