Approaches (AS): Psychodynamic Approach

Question 1

What is the main purpose of the psychodynamic approach?

Answer 1

The psychodynamic approach to psychology emphasises our unconscious thoughts and aims to understand how these thoughts conflict without experience i.e. biological, societal and those from early childhood

Question 2

What are the basic assumptions of the psychodynamic approach?

Answer 2

Unconscious activity is the key determinitne of how we behave

We possess innate drives that ‘energize’ our minds to motivate behaviour as we develop through our lives

Our (three-point) personality is comprides of the ID, Ego and SuperEgo

Childhood experiences have significant importance in determining our personality when we reach adulthood

Question 3

What are the research methods used in the psychodynamic approach?

Answer 3

Case studies using:
- Dream interpretation: expressing immediate unconscious thoughts as they happen
- Free association

Question 4

What is the unconscious mind?

Answer 4

Things we are unaware of and can not become aware of e.g. unacceptable sexual desires, violent motives, childhood trauma, shameful experiences

Question 5

What are the key roles of the unconscious?

Answer 5

Driving, motivating force behind our behaviour and personality

Protects the conscious self from trauma and conflict

Question 6

What is the ID?

Answer 6

Known as the pleasure principle. Driving us to satisfy selfish urges (exists from birth).

Question 7

What is the Ego?

Answer 7

Known as the reality principle. Acts rationally, balancing the ID and the superego (develops years 2-4). Defence mechanisms are activated when triggered by the ego. To deal with the conflict, it needs support from the other two parts of the personality: the id and superego.

Question 8

What is the SuperEgo?

Answer 8

Known as the morality principle. Concerned with keeping to moral norms and attempts to control a powerful ID with feelings of guilt (develops years 4-5).

Question 9

What are defence mechanisms?

Answer 9

These are mainly unconscious and distort reality, so anxiety is reduced.

However, they are only temporary; the only way to deal with these situations is to directly confront them in therapy.

Defence mechanisms can be psychologically damaging.

Question 10

What are the Three key mechanisms Freud proposed?

Answer 10

Repression, Displacement, and Denial

Question 11

What is repression?

Answer 11

burying an unpleasant thought or desire in the unconscious (e.g. traumatic childhood experiences may be repressed and so forgotten and stillbirth pain from mothers)

Freud states that we unconsciously block out painful memories, such as a child blocking out memories of physical and sexual abuse.

Question 12

What is displacement?

Answer 12

emotions are directed away from their source or target, towards other things/ acceptable targets (e.g. wringing a dishcloth in anger, which would have otherwise been directed at the cat scratching the furniture).

Question 13

What is denial?

Answer 13

This is the refusal to accept reality.

For example, an alcoholic refuses to accept they have a problem, even though they have been arrested several times and have lost their job and family.

Question 14

What is the Little Hans Study (1909)?

Answer 14

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 & conclusions

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.

Question 15

What are the strengths of the Little Hans Study?

Answer 15

In depth and detailed.

Led to the development of therapy – the ‘talking cure’.

Question 16

What are the weaknesses of the Little Hans Study?

Answer 16

Unfalsifiable; not capable of being proved false

Cannot generalise from a case study.

Other more plausible explanations for his fear of horses - behaviourism.

Question 17

What is meant by psychosexual development?

Answer 17

Freud believed that personality develops during early childhood through a series of stages.

Each of us must pass through these childhood stages, and if we do not have the proper nurturing and parenting during a stage, we will be stuck, or fixated, in that stage, even as adults.

These stages are: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital.

Question 18

What is the oral stage?

Answer 18

In the oral stage (birth to 1 year), pleasure is focused on the mouth.

Eating and the pleasure derived from sucking (nipples, pacifiers, and thumbs) play a large part in a baby’s first year of life.

According to Freud, an adult who smokes, drinks, overeats, or bites their nails is fixated in the oral stage of their psychosexual development; where fixation tendencies seek to ease anxiety.

Question 19

What is the anal stage?

Answer 19

After passing through the oral stage, children enter what Freud termed the anal stage (1-3 years).

In this stage, children experience pleasure in their bowel and bladder movements, so it makes sense that the conflict in this stage is over toilet training.

Freud suggested that success at the anal stage depended on how parents handled toilet training.

A number of personalities can happen if training is handled badly - anal-retentive and anal-expulsive personalities.

Question 20

What is the phallic stage?

Answer 20

Freud’s third stage of psychosexual development is the phallic stage (3–6 years), corresponding to the age when children become aware of their bodies and recognise the differences between boys and girls.

The erogenous zone in this stage is the genitals.

The conflict arises when the child feels a desire for the opposite sex parent, and jealousy and hatred toward the same-sex parent.

For boys, this is known as the Oedipus complex and for girls, the Electra complex.

Question 21

What is the latency stage?

Answer 21

Following the phallic stage of psychosexual development is a period known as the latency period (6 years to puberty).

This period is not considered a stage, because sexual feelings are dormant as children focus on other pursuits, such as school, friendships, hobbies, and sports.

Children generally engage in activities with peers of the same sex. This consolidates a child’s gender-role identity.

Question 22

What is the Genital stage?

Answer 22

The final stage is the genital stage (from puberty onwards).

In this stage, there is a sexual reawakening as the incestuous urges resurface. But the young person redirects these urges to more socially acceptable partners (who often resemble the other-sex parent).

People in this stage have mature sexual interests, which for Freud meant a strong desire for the opposite sex.

Individuals who successfully completed the previous stages, reaching the genital stage with no fixations, are said to be well-balanced, healthy adults.

Question 23

What is the evidence for Freuds theory on psychosexual development

Answer 23

Given that sex was a taboo topic, Freud assumed that negative emotional states (neuroses) stemmed from suppression of unconscious sexual and aggressive urges.

For Freud, his own recollections and interpretations of patients’ experiences and dreams were sufficient proof that psychosexual stages were universal events in early childhood.

Question 24

What are the strengths of the psychodynamic approach?

Answer 24

Freud highlighted a widely accepted link between childhood experience and adult characteristics.

Case study methodology embraces our complex behaviour by gathering rich information, and on an individual basis – an idiographic approach – when conducting research.

Some evidence supports the existence of ego defence mechanisms such as repression, e.g. adults can forget traumatic child sexual abuse (Williams, 1994).

Modern day psychiatry still utilizes Freudian psychoanalytic techniques

Question 25

What are the weaknesses of the psychodynamic approach?

Answer 25

It could be argued that Freud’s approach overemphasises childhood experience as the source of abnormality (although modern psychodynamic theories give more recognition to the adult problems of everyday life, such as the effects of negative interpersonal relationships).

By using case studies to support theories, the approach does not use controlled experiments to collect empirical evidence, so is considered far less scientific than other approaches.

Case study evidence is difficult to generalise to wider populations.

Many of Freud’s ideas are considered non-falsifiable – theories may appear to reflect evidence, but you cannot observe the relevant constructs directly (namely the unconscious mind) to test them scientifically, such that they could be proved wrong. Philosopher of science Karl Popper famously argued that a theory is not scientific if it is not falsifiable.