Psychoanalytic Thinking with Dr Don Carveth Freud & Beyond 01: Defense Mechanisms & The Oedipus Complex
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Aug 8, 2021 AI Snips
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Splitting As Primitive Mental Organization
- Melanie Klein saw splitting as a primitive but necessary organizing defense that separates 'all good' from 'all bad'.
- Overcoming splitting allows ambivalence and the neurosis of mixed feelings to emerge as higher functioning.
Levels Of Defensive Functioning Matter
- Psychoanalytic diagnosis hinges on locating patients along levels from psychosis through borderline to neurotic defenses.
- Higher defenses include intellectualization, rationalization, and compartmentalization of the mind.
Freud's Two-Layer Unconscious
- Freud privileged the oedipal phase as the 'main event' but acknowledged an earlier maternal-focused layer beneath conscious life.
- He framed that earlier layer as a 'pre-oedipal' site tied to mother-child dynamics and archaic goddess worship.