Psychoanalysis Human Development and Behavior 5

Question 1

What developmental role does Freud assign to 'infantile amnesia'?

Accepted Answer

Repression of early sexual and aggressive experiences prevents them from entering conscious memory

Answer

Freud attributed infantile amnesia largely to active repression of the intense, drive-laden experiences of early childhood rather than to mere neurological immaturity.

Question 2

According to Bion, what is the mother's essential contribution to the infant's early mental development?

Accepted Answer

Acting as a 'container' that transforms the infant's raw, unprocessed emotional states (beta elements) into thinkable experience (alpha elements)

Answer

Bion's concept of containment describes how the mother uses her reverie (alpha function) to receive and metabolize the infant's projections, returning them in a more bearable form.

Question 3

In Freud's theory of development, 'regression' refers to which behavioral phenomenon?

Accepted Answer

A return to modes of functioning characteristic of an earlier psychosexual stage under stress

Answer

Regression is the reversion to earlier, more primitive modes of thought or behavior when current anxiety becomes intolerable, often to a stage where fixation previously occurred.

Question 4

The concept of 'object constancy' in psychoanalytic developmental theory most closely refers to which achievement?

Accepted Answer

The capacity to maintain a stable, positive internal representation of a caregiver even when frustrated or separated

Answer

Object constancy, associated with Mahler's final separation-individuation subphase, is the ability to sustain a positive emotional tie to the caregiver despite frustration or absence.

Question 5

Which of the following best describes what psychoanalysts mean by 'secondary process' thinking?

Accepted Answer

Logical, reality-oriented thought associated with the ego that tolerates delay and contradiction

Answer

Secondary process thinking is the rational, reality-adapted cognitive mode of the ego that operates according to the reality principle, as opposed to the primary process of the id.

(Psychoanalysis) Psychoanalysis Theory Test Practice Test

(Psychoanalysis) Psychoanalysis Theory Test Practice Test

Psychoanalysis Human Development and Behavior 5