Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionII. Psychodynamic
Theories(^62) 2. Freud: Psychoanalysis © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
the Vocabulary Test of the WAIS (an IQ test), and the Hysteroid-Obsessoid Question-
naire. The first three tests were rated by three “blind” clinical judges on their degree of
repression, and the fourth test was scored objectively for its degree of repression.
The results showed that the combined ratings from the three judges were sig-
nificantly and positively associated with the time it took for a stimulus to be con-
sciously perceived. Moreover, the objectively scored Hysteroid-Obsessoid Question-
naire confirmed the result. In other words, the more repressive style people have, the
longer it takes them to consciously perceive a stimulus. Neither age nor IQ is related
to the length of time it takes for the stimulus to be perceived. As the authors ac-
knowledge, this finding is but a first step in demonstrating how repression might op-
erate to keep things out of conscious awareness, but it is the first study to report the
neurophysiological underpinnings of repression.
Research on Dreams
In the 1950s, when the phenomenon of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep was first
discovered and found to be strongly associated with dreaming, many scientists began
to discount Freud’s theory of dreams, which was based on the idea that dreams have
meaning and are attempts at fulfilling unconscious wishes. Moreover, the REM re-
search showed that only brain-stem regions and not higher cortical regions were in-
volved with REM states. If these cortical structures were not involved in REM sleep
and yet they were where higher level thinking took place, then dreams are simply ran-
dom mental activity and could not have any inherent meaning. From the perspective
of this so-called activation-synthesis theory, meaning is what the waking mind gives
to these more or less random brain activities, but meaning is not inherent in the dream.
Solms’s primary research area is dreams and, based on current dream research,
including his own, he takes issue with each of the assumptions of the activation-
synthesis theory of dreams (Solms, 2000, 2004). Most importantly, Solms argued
that dreaming and REM are not one and the same. First, in about 5% to 30% of the
wakings during REM sleep, patients report no dreams, and during about 5% to 10%
of non-REM wakings patients do report dreaming. So there is no one-to-one corre-
spondence between REM and dreaming. Second, lesions (due to injury or surgery)
to the brain stem do not completely eliminate dreaming, whereas lesions to the fore-
brain regions (in the frontal lobes and parietal-temporal-occipital juncture) have
eliminated dreaming and yet preserved REM sleep.
In addition, dreams appear not to be random in content. Daniel Wegnerand col-
leagues (2004) tested one aspect of Freud’s theory of dreams. As Freud wrote in
Interpretation of Dreams,“wishes suppressed during the day assert themselves in
dreams” (1900/1953, p. 590). Wegner and colleagues examined whether this was so
in a group of more than 300 college students. First, participants were instructed right
before bed (they opened the instructions only directly before going to sleep) to think
of two people, one whom they had had a “crush” on and one whom they were “fond
of ” but did not have a crush on.
Next, participants were assigned to one of three conditions: suppression, ex-
pression, and mention. In the suppression condition, students were instructed not to
think about a target person (either the “crush” or the “fond of ” person) for 5 minutes;
in the expression condition, different participants were instructed to think about the
56 Part II Psychodynamic Theories