Abnormality - Psychodynamic Approach Flashcards
What are the 3 key elements to Freud’s elements?
Model of personality
Defence Mechanisms
Stages of psychosexual development
What is the Id?
A seething (intense & unexpressed anger) mass of contradictory desires oblivious to reason and morality
What is the unconscious?
Instinctive aspect of personality
What is libido?
Sexual energy
What is the Ego?
Developed by about 3 years old
Reality principle - child learns from consequences
Partly conscious + unconscious = aware of desires of the Id and outside world
Rational and calculating - developing through experience of outside world
Balances the demands of the Id and Superego
What is the Superego?
Based on the morality principle
Relentless Judge
Voice of parents/society - formed from our experiences with parents who pose restrictions on actions allowed
Makes us feel guilty and rewards us with pride if go along with restrictions
Why is a strong ego good?
A well adjusted person who can cope with demands of the Id and Superego
Why are unchecked Id impulses not good?
If unchecked the might become expressed in a destructive or immoral way
Why is a very powerful superego bad?
It might overpower the Id so that the person is deprived of any social pleasure
Define defence mechanisms?
Ways of protecting the conscious mind from painful truths, memories, anxieties and desires
A form of unconscious ego defence
All involve some kind of repression
What is repression?
Pushing unpleasant material into the unconscious
PTSD sufferers forget aspects of the stressful incident
What is denial?
The refusal to face the reality of memories, desires, behaviour, etc. - denial of the importance
What is rationalisation?
Coming up with a spurious justification for behaviour - “you could get hit by a bus tomorrow”
What is sublimation?
Diverting emotions into a socially acceptable activity which allows for the expression of the underlying desires
Someone with an unconscious desire to play with faeces becomes a potter
What is projection?
When ones own faults and desires are attributed to someone else
Politician using opponent to hide his flaws
What is regression?
Behaving in a way reminiscent of children
Thumb sucking when stressed
What is displacement?
Pushing an anxiety or emotion about one thing onto another
What is the reaction formula?
Objecting very strongly to an unconscious desire or memory that we become the opposite of what it represents
Homophobia - repressed homosexual feelings
What is the Oral Stage?
0-18 months
Focus of pleasure = mouth, feeding
Weaning Crisis
Fixation leads to thumb sucking, smoking, disordered eating, drinking and high dependency on others
What is the Anal stage?
18-36 months
Focus of pleasure - anus
Toilet training
Fixation leads to obsession with hygiene or cleanliness, OCD and meanness with money (or the opposite can occur)
What is the Phallic stage?
3-6 years
Focus of pleasure - genitals
Electra crisis
Fixation leads to attraction to partners who resemble opposite sex parent
What is the Latency stage?
6+ = puberty
Desires repressed
What is the Genital stage?
Puberty onwards
Sexual desires emerge
Effects of first 3 stages have their impact
What was Massie & Szajnberg’s procedure?
76 ppts followed from birth to 30
Quality of parental relationships assessed in infancy
Traumatic events recorded
Mental health assessed at 30 using standard psychiatric measures
What were the results of Massie and Szajnberg’s experiment?
Mental health problems were:
Moderately associated with poor parental relationships
Strongly associated with traumatic events in childhood
What are the methodological issues with case studies?
Open to subjective interpretation and bias because of methods used to collect data
People drawing different conclusions
They are also limits in generalizability because of the small sample size
What is wrong about correlational data?
Difficult to get cause and effect statements
What is wrong with the correlational data with the psychodynamic approach?
Freudians claimed that autism and schizophrenia were due to cold mothering
Emotionally less warm
What is Freud’s issue with being unfalsifiable?
He has been criticised for his theories being so ambiguous that they can be twisted to explain any outcome
Give an example of unfalsifiability?
Patient says his theory is true = he’s gaining insight
Patient says this is untrue = he’s in denial
