Approaches (AO1 + 3) Flashcards
What are parapraxes?
Freudian slips (or parapraxes) are temporary dysfunctions of the memory apparatus that arise due to unconscious intentions interfering with conscious ones and which manifest as slips of the tongue or pen or bungled actions.
What is psychoanalysis?
Identifying and releasing unconscious, repressed feelings, thoughts, memories, and desires that are negatively impacting your life by analyzing symbols in our dreams.
What is psychic determinism?
This is the idea that all behaviour is caused by unconscious internal conflicts, over which we have no control.
What are the 3 levels of the conscious?
The conscious, preconscious and unconscious.
What does the unconscious store?
The unconscious stores our biological drives and instincts (e.g. hunger, thirst and sex) as well as upsetting and disturbing thoughts repressed from the conscious.
What is Freud’s Tripartite Personality?
Freud viewed the personality as made up of three components i.e. ‘tripartite’. These are the Id, ego and superego.
What is the Id?
This is the innate part of the personality, and operates on the pleasure principle.
Therefore, the Id constantly demands instant gratification (e.g. to fulfill innate, biological instincts, such as hunger and thirst) and so is in conflict with the superego.
What is the Ego?
Formed during the first 3 years of life, and operates on the reality principle. The ego helps to resolve the conflict between the id and the superego through the use of defence mechanisms (repression, denial and displacement). The strength of the
unconscious depends upon how efficiently the ego resolves this conflict
What is the superego?
Formed at the end of the phallic stage, and operates on the morality principle. This contains the child’s internalised sense of right and wrong, based upon their same-sex parent. The superego is in constant conflict with the Id.
What are the 5 Psychosexual stages?
Oral (0-18months), Anal (18-3), Phallic (3-6), Latency (6-12), Genital (12+)
Describe Freuds Psychosexual Stages theory
Freud adopted a nomothetic approach by suggesting that there a series of developmental stages through which all children progress, and in the same order.
Each stage is characterised by a conflict, which must be resolved to pass to the next stage, apart from latency.
Failure to do so results in ‘fixation’ at that stage, where dysfunctional behaviours associated with that stage are carried forwards to adulthood.
How were ideas of the Oedipus and Electra complexes developed?
The ideas of the Oedipus and Electra Complexes were developed on the basis of case studies conducted on Little Hans, where Freud suggested that Little Hans’ phobia of horses stemmed from a fear towards his father, due to having sexual desires for his mother.
* This is an example of the idiographic approach to research (i.e. the use of case studied), but with a nomothetic application (i.e. all boys experience the Oedipus Complex, whilst all girls experience the Electra Complex).
Describe the Oedipus complex
While the Oedipus complex concerns the conflicts between a mother and a male child during phallic development. For boys the Oedipus complex occurs where they pursue their mother as a love interest while experiencing hostility towards their father who is seen as a rival. As these feelings are uncomfortable, they are pushed into the subconscious and the child begins to identify with the father as a means of resolving the castration anxiety they experience.
describe oral stage
The oral stage occurs between birth to about 18 months. During this time, an infant gets most of their pleasure from their mouth (focus of libido). This is associated with behaviours like eating and thumb-sucking. Freud believed an infant can develop oral fixation if their oral needs aren’t met. Adult fixations: Smoking
describe anal stage
The anal stage, in Freudian psychology, is the period of human development occurring at about one to three years of age. Around this age, the child begins to toilet train, which brings about the child’s fascination in the erogenous zone of the anus.
Describe the Phallic stage
The Phallic stages occurs from 3 to 6 years with a child’s focus moving to the genitals. For boys the Oedipus complex occurs where they pursue their mother as a love interest while experiencing hostility towards their father who is seen as a rival. For girls the Electra complex is triggered as the young girl realises both herself and her mother lack a penis and this leads to “penis envy” whereby she turns to her father as a love interest. Adult fixation: messiness
Describe the Electra complex
The Electra complex relates to the relationship between the female child and her father during the phallic stage. For girls the Electra complex is triggered as the young girl realises both herself and her mother lack a penis and this leads to “penis envy” whereby she turns to her father as a love interest. According to Freud the Electra complex is resolved once she gives birth to a male child.
Describe the latent stage
The Latent stage occurs from 6 to 12 years of age with the conflicts of the previous stages being repressed and children unable to remember much of their early years. The child may also begin to develop a mastery of the world around them and consolidate the character habits they formed in the three previous stages of psychosexual development. (Develop defence mechanisms)
Describe the Genital stage
The Genital stage spans through puberty and adult life and plays the role of psychological detachment and independence from the parents. Sexual energy is focused on the genitalia with the ego being established and the persons focus shifting from pleasure gratification to secondary process-thinking and gratification through friendships, intimate relationships and family/adult responsibilities. If all the stages were completed, then the person should be sexually matured and mentally healthy.
Give 3 negatives to the psychodynamic approach
Unconscious Concepts = it is not possible to objectively and systematically measure it. The psychodynamic approach does not meet the scientific criterion of falsification, leaving it a pseudoscience.
The use of an idiographic approach / Case studies = Many of Freud’s theories, (Little Hans), were based on data from individual case studies and interviews. There are problems with this. The first, is that participants selected to be subjects of case studies are often of some kind of special psychological interest, and so cannot represent the experiences of the general population (findings lack ecological validity). Secondly, mainly qualitative data, which means that the researcher draws their own subjective conclusions. Especially if the researcher knows what they are looking for and/or the aims of the investigation, (researcher bias). Freud’s data and theories suffer from limited applications and generalisability.
Psychic Determinism = Freud suggested that all behaviour is the product of unconscious, internal conflicts (between the Id and the superego, whilst being mediated by the ego) over which we have no control. This means that every action, even ‘accidental’ slips of the tongue, has some kind of meaning and can give us insight into our
unconscious. However, this adds to the subjectivity of interpretations of these meanings, and therefore is not in line with scientific methods of investigating behaviour.
Explanation of the case of Little Hans, using the psychosexual stages.
Aim - To discover evidence to support the Oedipus complex and displacement theories.
Procedure - A case study. Little Han’s father was a supporter of Freud and corresponded with him about his son’s fear of horses. He recorded the conversations he had with the boy between the ages of 3-5 and accounts of his dreams.
Results - Freud argued that Little Hans’ obsession with his ‘widdler’ and his mother, showed that he was in the phallic stage of psychosexual sexual development and had an unresolved Oedipus complex.
Conclusion - Little Hans’ phobia of horses was a displaced fear of his father.
Give a positive to the psychodynamic approach
+ Practical Applications = Psychotherapy and psychoanalysis are both rooted in the psychodynamic approach and still have modern uses. For example, Kohlenberg et al (2002) found that “FECT / Functional Analytic Cognitive Therapy produced a greater focus on the client-therapist relationship and is a promising approach for improving outcomes and interpersonal functioning. It also appears that a focus during sessions on clients’ problematic cognitions about the therapist adds to the efficacy”. Therefore, Freud’s psychodynamic approach has made a long-lasting contribution towards treatment of various mental disorders, such as depression
Summarise the Humanistic Approach
- Assumes that we all have free will, so we can ignore the influence of internal and external factors on our behaviour.
- Sees self-actualisation, as achieved by being the top level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, as a crucial part of being human.
- Due to having free will, we also have to ability to progress through this hierarchy of needs and better ourselves.
What does the term ‘self’ mean in the humanistic approach?
The ‘self’ is a term to describe all the ideas and values we have about ourselves, including perceptions of our abilities