depth psychology

n.1. Psychology of the unconscious mind.2. Psychoanalysis.

depth psychology

n (Psychology) psychol the study of unconscious motives and attitudes

depth′ psychol`ogy

n. any approach to psychology that explains personality in terms of unconscious processes. [1925–30]

Thesaurus

Noun

depth psychology - a set of techniques for exploring underlying motives and a method of treating various mental disorders; based on the theories of Sigmund Freud; "his physician recommended psychoanalysis"psychoanalysis, analysisabreaction, catharsis, katharsis - (psychoanalysis) purging of emotional tensionspsychotherapy - the treatment of mental or emotional problems by psychological meanshypnoanalysis - the use of hypnosis in conjunction with psychoanalysisanal personality, anal retentive personality - (psychoanalysis) a personality characterized by meticulous neatness and suspicion and reserve; said to be formed in early childhood by fixation during the anal stage of development (usually as a consequence of toilet training)genital personality - (psychoanalysis) the mature personality which is not dominated by infantile pleasure drivesoral personality - (psychoanalysis) a personality characterized either by generous optimism or aggressive and ambitious selfishness; formed in early childhood by fixation during the oral stage of developmentego - (psychoanalysis) the conscious mindsuperego - (psychoanalysis) that part of the unconscious mind that acts as a conscienceid - (psychoanalysis) primitive instincts and energies underlying all psychic activityintrojection - (psychoanalysis) the internalization of the parent figures and their values; leads to the formation of the superegopleasure principle, pleasure-pain principle, pleasure-unpleasure principle - (psychoanalysis) the governing principle of the id; the principle that an infant seeks gratification and fails to distinguish fantasy from realityreality principle - (psychoanalysis) the governing principle of the ego; the principle that as a child grows it becomes aware of the real environment and the need to accommodate to itintroject - (psychoanalysis) parental figures (and their values) that you introjected as a child; the voice of conscience is usually a parent's voice internalizedego ideal - (psychoanalysis) the part of the ego that contains an ideal of personal excellence toward which a person strivesimago - (psychoanalysis) an idealized image of someone (usually a parent) formed in childhoodcondensation - (psychoanalysis) an unconscious process whereby two ideas or images combine into a single symbol; especially in dreamstransference - (psychoanalysis) the process whereby emotions are passed on or displaced from one person to another; during psychoanalysis the displacement of feelings toward others (usually the parents) is onto the analystlatent content - (psychoanalysis) hidden meaning of a fantasy or dreamcomplex - (psychoanalysis) a combination of emotions and impulses that have been rejected from awareness but still influence a person's behaviorlibido - (psychoanalysis) a Freudian term for sexual urge or desirepenis envy - (psychoanalysis) a female's presumed envy of the male's penis; said to explain femininitydeath instinct, death wish, Thanatos - (psychoanalysis) an unconscious urge to dielibidinal energy - (psychoanalysis) psychic energy produced by the libidocathexis, charge - (psychoanalysis) the libidinal energy invested in some idea or person or object; "Freud thought of cathexis as a psychic analog of an electrical charge"acathexis - (psychoanalysis) a lack of cathexis; a condition in which significant objects or memories arouse no emotion in an individualpsychosexual development - (psychoanalysis) the process during which personality and sexual behavior mature through a series of stages: first oral stage and then anal stage and then phallic stage and then latency stage and finally genital stageanaclisis - (psychoanalysis) relationship marked by strong dependence on others; especially a libidinal attachment to e.g. a parental figurecastration anxiety - (psychoanalysis) anxiety resulting from real or imagined threats to your sexual functions; originally applied only to men but can in principle apply to womenanal phase, anal stage - (psychoanalysis) the second sexual and social stage of a child's development during which bowel control is learnedgenital phase, genital stage - (psychoanalysis) the fifth sexual and social stage in a person's development occurring during adolescence; interest focuses on sexual activitylatency period, latency phase, latency stage - (psychoanalysis) the fourth period (from about age 5 or 6 until puberty) during which sexual interests are supposed to be sublimated into other activitiesoral phase, oral stage - (psychoanalysis) the first sexual and social stage of an infant's development; the mouth is the focus of the libido and satisfaction comes from suckling and chewing and bitingphallic phase, phallic stage - (psychoanalysis) the third stage in a child's development when awareness of and manipulation of the genitals is supposed to be a primary source of pleasureabreact - discharge bad feelings or tension through verbalizationanal retentive, anal - a stage in psychosexual development when the child's interest is concentrated on the anal region; fixation at this stage is said to result in orderliness, meanness, stubbornness, compulsiveness, etc.oral - a stage in psychosexual development when the child's interest is concentrated in the mouth; fixation at this stage is said to result in dependence, selfishness, and aggression

Depth Psychology

(German Tiefenpsychologie), the designation of a number of trends in contemporary foreign psychology that have taken as the subject of their investigation the so-called deep-seated forces of the personality—its drives and tendencies—placed in opposition to processes occurring on the “surface” of consciousness. The boundaries of depth psychology cannot be precisely defined as the term embraces various currents and schools, including the teachings of S. Freud, C. G. Jung, and A. Adler, as well as ego psychology and neo-Freudianism. In its interpretation of the motives of human behavior depth psychology ascribes an active, dynamic role to unconscious motivations, which are studied by specific methods, such as techniques of psychoanalysis (free association and others), projective tests, and psychodrama. Having arisen from the needs of psychotherapy, depth psychology preserved its ties with medical psychology. For its part depth psychology has stimulated the growth of a new branch of medicine, which examines the significance of psychological factors in somatic illnesses—the so-called psychosomatic orientation in medicine. Pathological conditions of the psyche, however, are interpreted by depth psychology not as illnesses in the usual sense but as an expression of general human problems and psychological conflicts that have assumed a sharply expressed and overt form. Thus, Freud, proceeding from clinical practice, introduced the idea of unconscious psychic mechanisms, which lie at the base of such phenomena as neuroses, dreams, and mistaken actions. According to Freud these phenomena were “compromise formations,” reflecting a conflict between unconscious drives and the attitudes of the conscious ego (or the result of the collision of two principles of psychic activity—the pleasure principle and reality principle). Freud formulated the basic concepts of depth psychology, including repression, symbolization, fixation, and regression. Adler singled out the individual’s striving toward self-assertion (the will to power) as the dominant motive. Adler’s system became one of the sources for the later “cultural-sociological” currents in depth psychology, primarily in the USA, whose representatives were K. Horney, E. Fromm, H. Sullivan, and others. On the other hand, Jung expanded the concept of the structure and functions of the unconscious, which in his theories includes also the collective unconscious. The teachings of Freud and Jung have become quite widespread, going beyond the bounds of psychology into the history of culture. Particularly influential has been the Jungian interpretation of myths, symbols, and religious-magical rituals as forms of the collective unconscious (archetypes). A reaction against exaggerated interest in the unconscious appeared in the so-called ego psychology, which began to be developed in the 1940’s, mainly in the USA, by H. Hartmann, P. Federn, and others. Ego psychology stresses the primary significance of the conscious ego. Most recently there have developed new trends in depth psychology under the direct influence of the philosophical conceptions of phenomenology and existentialism (mainly in Switzerland and West Germany, for example, L. Binswanger’s existential analysis in Switzerland). Together with the tendency toward the integration of depth psychology and philosophical anthropology, for example, in the medical anthropology of the German physiologist V. Weizsäcker, there is a tendency to interpret depth psychology in the spirit of neo-Thomism (the New Viennese school). Currents in depth psychology in the USA are to a considerable degree under the influence of neopositivism and behaviorism. Attempts by R. Munroe and others to arrive at a synthesis of different currents in depth psychology have not met with success.

Depth psychology is a heterogenous and complex phenomenon, and in evaluating it the therapeutic techniques that it proposes and the several new facts in the realm of the psychology of the unconscious that it has established must be separated from the often irrationalistic or mechanistic philosophic-theoretical interpretations which these techniques and facts have suggested.

REFERENCES

Morozov, V. M. “Glubinnaia psikhologiia i psikhiatriia,” Zhurnal nevropatologii i psikhiatrii im. S. S. Korsakova, 1958, vol. 58, part 11.
Sovremennaia psikhologiia v kapitalisticheskikh stranakh. Moscow, 1963.
Kakabadze, V. L. “Poniatie bessoznatel’nogo v glubinnoi psikhologii.” In Problemy soznaniia. Moscow, 1966.
Munroe, R. Schools of Psychoanalytic Thought. New York, 1956.
Wyss, D. Die tiefenpsychologischen Schulen von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, 3d ed. Göttingen, 1970.

D. N. LIALIKOV

depth psychology