CUADERNILLO DE

TEXTOS ESPECÍFICOS
DE
PSICOLOGÍA

INGLÉS II

2018
TEXT 1

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

His Life

Freud was born in Frieberg, Moravia in 1856, but when he was four years old his family
moved to Vienna, where Freud lived and worked until the last year of his life. In 1937
the Nazis annexed Austria, and Freud, who was Jewish, was allowed to leave for
England. For these reasons, it was above all with the city of Vienna that Freud's name
was destined to be deeply associated for posterity, founding as he did what was to
become known as the 'first Viennese school' of psychoanalysis, from which, it is fair to
say, psychoanalysis as a movement and all subsequent developments in this field
flowed. The scope of Freud's interests, and of his professional training, was very broad -
he always considered himself first and foremost a scientist, trying very hard to extend
the compass of human knowledge, and to this end (rather than to the practice of
medicine) he enrolled at the medical school at the University of Vienna in 1873. He
concentrated initially on biology, doing research in physiology for six years under the
great German scientist Ernst Brücke, who was director of the Physiology Laboratory at
the University, thereafter specializing in neurology. He received his medical degree in
1881, and having become engaged to be married in 1882, he rather reluctantly took up
more secure and financially rewarding work as a doctor at Vienna General Hospital.
Shortly after his marriage in 1886 - which was extremely happy, and gave Freud six
children, the youngest of whom, Anna, was herself to become a distinguished
psychoanalyst - Freud set up a private practice in the treatment of psychological
disorders, which gave him much of the clinical material on which he based his theories
and his pioneering techniques.

In 1885-86 Freud spent the greater part of a year in Paris, where he was deeply
impressed by the work of the French neurologist Jean Charcot, who was at that time
using hypnotism to treat hysteria and other abnormal mental conditions. When he
returned to Vienna, Freud experimented with hypnosis, but found that its beneficial
effects did not last. At this point he decided to adopt instead a method suggested by the
work of an older Viennese colleague and friend, Josef Breuer, who had discovered that
when he encouraged a hysterical patient to talk uninhibitedly about the earliest
occurrences of the symptoms, the latter sometimes gradually abated. Working with
Breuer, Freud formulated and developed the idea that many neuroses (phobias,
hysterical paralyses and pains, some forms of paranoia, etc.) had their origins in deeply
traumatic experiences which had occurred in the past life of the patient but which were
now forgotten, hidden from consciousness; the treatment was to enable the patient to
recall the experience to consciousness, to confront it in a deep way both intellectually

and emotionally, and in thus discharging it, to remove the underlying psychological
causes of the neurotic symptoms. This technique, and the theory from which it is
derived, was given its classical expression in Studies in Hysteria, jointly published by
Freud and Breuer in 1895.

Shortly thereafter, however, Breuer, found that he could not agree with what he regarded
as the excessive emphasis which Freud placed upon the sexual origins and content of
neuroses, and the two parted company, with Freud continuing to work alone to develop
and refine the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. In 1900, after a long period of self-
analysis, he published The Interpretation of Dreams, which is generally regarded as his
greatest work, and this was followed in 1901 by The Psychopathology of Everyday
Life, and in 1905 by Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Freud's psychoanalytic
theory was initially not well received - when its existence was acknowledged at all it
was usually by people who were, as Breuer had foreseen, scandalized by the emphasis
placed on sexuality by Freud - and it was not until 1908, when the first International
Psychoanalytical Congress was held at Salzburg, that Freud's importance began to be
generally recognized. This was greatly facilitated in 1909, when he was invited to give a
course of lectures in the United States, which were to form the basis of his 1916 book
Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis. From this point on Freud's reputation and fame grew
enormously, and he continued to write prolifically until his death, producing in all more
than twenty volumes of theoretical works and clinical studies. He was also not adverse
to critically revising his views, or to making fundamental alterations to his most basic
principles when he considered that the scientific evidence demanded it - this was most
clearly evidenced by his advancement of a completely new tripartite (id, ego, and super-
ego) model of the mind in his 1923 work The Ego and the Id. He was initially greatly
heartened by attracting followers of the intellectual calibre of Adler and Jung, and was
correspondingly disappointed personally when they both went on to found rival schools
of psychoanalysis - thus giving rise to the first two of many schisms in the movement -
but he knew that such disagreement over basic principles had been part of the early
development of every new science. After a life of remarkable vigour and creative
productivity, he died of cancer while exiled in England in 1939.
Answer these questions.

1- When was Sigmund Freud born?

2- How did he consider himself?

3- Why did he enroll at the medical school at the University of Vienna?

4- Who was Ernst Brucke?

5- When did he receive his medical degree?

6- Why was Freud impressed by neurologist Jean Charcot?

7- What idea did Freud formulate and develop with Breuer?

8- What was the treatment for that?

9- Why did Breuer separate from Freud?

10- Which book is regarded as Freud’s greatest work?

11- Why was Freud’s psychoanalytic theory initially not well received?

12- When did Freud’s reputation and fame grow?

13- Who were some of his followers?

14- When and where did he die?

TEXT 2

Infantile Sexuality

Freud's theory of infantile sexuality must be seen as an integral part of a broader

developmental theory of human personality. This had its origins in, and was a
generalization of, Breuer's earlier discovery that traumatic childhood events could have
devastating negative effects upon the adult individual, and took the form of the general
thesis that early childhood sexual experiences were the crucial factors in the
determination of the adult personality. From his account of the instincts or drives it
followed that from the moment of birth the infant is driven in his actions by the desire
for bodily/sexual pleasure, where this is seen by Freud in almost mechanical terms as
the desire to release mental energy. Initially, infants gain such release, and derive such
pleasure, through the act of sucking, and Freud accordingly terms this the 'oral' stage of
development. This is followed by a stage in which the locus of pleasure or energy
release is the anus, particularly in the act of defecation, and this is accordingly termed
the 'anal' stage. Then the young child develops an interest in its sexual organs as a site of
pleasure (the 'phallic' stage), and develops a deep sexual attraction for the parent of the
opposite sex, and a hatred of the parent of the same sex (the 'Oedipus complex'). This,
however, gives rise to (socially derived) feelings of guilt in the child, who recognizes
that it can never supplant the stronger parent. In the case of a male, it also puts the child
at risk, which he perceives - if he persists in pursuing the sexual attraction for his
mother, he may be harmed by the father; specifically, he comes to fear that he may be
castrated. This is termed 'castration anxiety'. Both the attraction for the mother and the
hatred are usually repressed, and the child usually resolves the conflict of the Oedipus
complex by coming to identify with the parent of the same sex. This happens at the age
of five, whereupon the child enters a 'latency' period, in which sexual motivations
become much less pronounced. This lasts until puberty, when mature genital
development begins, and the pleasure drive refocuses around the genital area.

This, Freud believed, is the sequence or progression implicit in normal human

development, and it is to be observed that at the infant level the instinctual attempts to
satisfy the pleasure drive are frequently checked by parental control and social coercion.
The developmental process, then, is for the child essentially a movement through a
series of conflicts, the successful resolution of which is crucial to adult mental health.
Many mental illnesses, particularly hysteria, Freud held, can be traced back to
unresolved conflicts experienced at this stage, or to events which otherwise disrupt the
normal pattern of infantile development. For example, homosexuality is seen by some
Freudians as resulting from a failure to resolve the conflicts of the Oedipus complex,
particularly a failure to identify with the parent of the same sex; the obsessive concern
with washing and personal hygiene which characterizes the behaviour of some neurotics
is seen as resulting from unresolved conflicts/repressions occurring at the anal stage.
Explain, according to Freud’s theory of infantile sexuality, the following terms:

a) the oral stage

b) the anal stage
c) the phallic stage
d) the Oedipus complex
e) castration anxiety
f) the latency period

TEXT 3

Primary prevention of childhood mental health problems.

Introduction

Child mental health can be defined as:” The optimal achievement of the child’s
developmental potential, intellectually, emotionally and behaviourally.” A variety of
circumstances may prevent a child’s optimal development. Identifying these risk factors
at a sufficiently early stage to stop them affecting childhood mental health constitutes
primary prevention. In relation to child mental health, primary prevention has been
defined as: “ The actual recognition of potential developmental and other problems and
intervention prevent the emergence of these problems as disabling disorders”. Before
looking at risk factors, we will briefly identify some of the commonest child mental
health problems.

The scope of childhood psychiatric disorder.

Childhood mental health problems are conventionally divided into two broad groups:
disorders of conduct or externalising problems, and disorders of emotion or
internalising problems. Children whose behaviour concerns adults around them are
often regarded as having a conduct disorder. Hyperactivity is usually put in the same
group, probably because of its strong association with behavioural difficulties. Children
with separation anxiety excessive for their age, phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder,
anorexia nervosa, depression , or somatic presentations of psychological disturbance are
said to have an emotional disorder.
In addition to the two major groups there are disorders affecting the social control of
sphincters (enuresis and encopresis), and those affecting motor impulses such as tic
disorders and Tourette’s syndrome. There are problems associated with the sleep and
feeding of young children and the rarer disorders of social and linguistic development,
including the developmental disorders such as autism. Organic psychoses and
schizophrenia are rare in childhood but become increasingly recognised in adolescence.
The same is true for substance misuse and dependency.

The classification of psychiatric disorders in childhood has limitations when applied to

individual children. One reason is comorbidity: the co-existence of several recognised
conditions in one child. For instance, a child who is emotionally disturbed because of
losses in his family or other disruptions to care may express this in a variety of ways,
including:

- withdrawal

- evident misery

- recurrence of behaviors such as enuresis or temper tantrums which the child had
grown out of (regression)

- disobedience

- aggressive behaviour.

A particular child may manifest several of these at the same time, so fitting into both the
conduct-disordered and the emotional disordered group.

Alternatively, a condition such as hyperkinetic disorder can turn the child more
vulnerable to another, such as general learning disability or dyslexia which are
sometimes classified with psychiatric disorder and which certainly predispose affected
children to further psychological difficulties.
As with diagnoses in other branches of medicine, careful categorisation can be used as a
guide to both treatment and prognosis.
Answer these questions

1-How can child mental health be defined?

2-Do you agree with this definition?

3- Why is it so important to identify the risk factors at an early stage?

4-How has primary prevention been defined?

5-How are childhood mental health problems conventionally divided?

6-Provide examples of children with emotional disorders.

7- How can a child emotionally disturbed because of losses in his family or other

disruptions to care express it?

TEXT 4

Risk factors for the development of child mental health problems

Primary prevention consists of the identification and modification of known risk factors.
These can conveniently be divided into those intrinsic to the child, qualities of
parenting, and other factors in the environment. There is some overlap between these
categories. Multiple risk factors have a multiplicative effect – increasing the total risk
by more than merely adding to each other. In other words, a risk factor which trebles the
chance of a psychiatric disorder developing can interact with another risk factor which
also trebles the risk so that the combination to the two increase the risk to nine times,
not six times, the base rate. It is not surprising that children with identified mental
health problems often have several different risk factors operating. It is also important to
consider protective factors.

Risk factors in the child Examples and comments

Low IQ -severe learning difficulties treble the risk of

psychiatric disorder

Difficult temperament -resistance to imposed change or novelty

-slow to adapt to new situations

-marked tendency to cry

-high intensity emotional responses

-unpredictable biological rhythmicity,

e. g. tiredness, hunger, elimination.

-doubles the risk of psychiatric disorder.

Specific developmental delay -language disorder

-specific reading, spelling or writing disorder

(dyslexia)
 -clumsiness

Communication difficulty -hearing loss

-autistic symptoms

Physical illness -affecting the CNS, e.g.epilepsy

-chronic illness

Low self-esteem -may be a consequence of any of the above, or

Of inadequate encouragement from adults

Many of the risk factors in the table above cannot be prevented, but they can often be
modified by providing as much support to the child and parents as possible, after the
risk factor has been recognised. Sometimes this is a primary prevention of the
psychological and social sequelae, and sometimes these are already well established
before it is possible to offer help.

Answer the following questions.

1-What does primary prevention consist of?

2-How can the risk factors be divided?

3-Mention some risk factors in the child?