Abnormality - Psychodynamic Approach

Question 1

What are the 3 key elements to Freud’s elements?

Answer 1

Model of personality
Defence Mechanisms
Stages of psychosexual development

Question 2

What is the Id?

Answer 2

A seething (intense & unexpressed anger) mass of contradictory desires oblivious to reason and morality

Question 3

What is the unconscious?

Answer 3

Instinctive aspect of personality

Question 4

What is libido?

Answer 4

Sexual energy

Question 5

What is the Ego?

Answer 5

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

Question 6

What is the Superego?

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Why is a strong ego good?

Answer 7

A well adjusted person who can cope with demands of the Id and Superego

Question 8

Why are unchecked Id impulses not good?

Answer 8

If unchecked the might become expressed in a destructive or immoral way

Question 9

Why is a very powerful superego bad?

Answer 9

It might overpower the Id so that the person is deprived of any social pleasure

Question 10

Define defence mechanisms?

Answer 10

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

Question 11

What is repression?

Answer 11

Pushing unpleasant material into the unconscious

PTSD sufferers forget aspects of the stressful incident

Question 12

What is denial?

Answer 12

The refusal to face the reality of memories, desires, behaviour, etc. - denial of the importance

Question 13

What is rationalisation?

Answer 13

Coming up with a spurious justification for behaviour - “you could get hit by a bus tomorrow”

Question 14

What is sublimation?

Answer 14

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

Question 15

What is projection?

Answer 15

When ones own faults and desires are attributed to someone else

Politician using opponent to hide his flaws

Question 16

What is regression?

Answer 16

Behaving in a way reminiscent of children

Thumb sucking when stressed

Question 17

What is displacement?

Answer 17

Pushing an anxiety or emotion about one thing onto another

Question 18

What is the reaction formula?

Answer 18

Objecting very strongly to an unconscious desire or memory that we become the opposite of what it represents
Homophobia - repressed homosexual feelings

Question 19

What is the Oral Stage?

Answer 19

0-18 months
Focus of pleasure = mouth, feeding
Weaning Crisis
Fixation leads to thumb sucking, smoking, disordered eating, drinking and high dependency on others

Question 20

What is the Anal stage?

Answer 20

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)

Question 21

What is the Phallic stage?

Answer 21

3-6 years
Focus of pleasure - genitals
Electra crisis
Fixation leads to attraction to partners who resemble opposite sex parent

Question 22

What is the Latency stage?

Answer 22

6+ = puberty

Desires repressed

Question 23

What is the Genital stage?

Answer 23

Puberty onwards
Sexual desires emerge
Effects of first 3 stages have their impact

Question 24

What was Massie & Szajnberg’s procedure?

Answer 24

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

Question 25

What were the results of Massie and Szajnberg’s experiment?

Answer 25

Mental health problems were:

Moderately associated with poor parental relationships
Strongly associated with traumatic events in childhood

Question 26

What are the methodological issues with case studies?

Answer 26

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

Question 27

What is wrong about correlational data?

Answer 27

Difficult to get cause and effect statements

Question 28

What is wrong with the correlational data with the psychodynamic approach?

Answer 28

Freudians claimed that autism and schizophrenia were due to cold mothering
Emotionally less warm

Question 29

What is Freud’s issue with being unfalsifiable?

Answer 29

He has been criticised for his theories being so ambiguous that they can be twisted to explain any outcome

Question 30

Give an example of unfalsifiability?

Answer 30

Patient says his theory is true = he’s gaining insight

Patient says this is untrue = he’s in denial