Approaches : The Psychodynamic Approach

Question 1

What is the psychodynamic approach?

Answer 1

Psychodynamic theories emphasise the importance of unconscious motives and desires and the importance of early childhood experiences in shaping personality. It states there are parts of the mind inaccessible to conscious awareness.

Question 2

The Iceberg metaphor

Answer 2

Freud said that consciousness was the small part that we are aware of and the unconsious took up the larger propation of the human mind → we arent directly aware or able to access it freely.

Question 3

Whats psychoanalysis?

Answer 3

Any traumatic events/ memories from childnood are repressed into the unconsious mind and kept there (hidden from conscious awareness)
Psychodynamic theorists say they’re never truly forgotten and can be explored through psychoanalysis. The unconscious mind can reveal itself in dreams, fantasies and ‘slips’, etc → Freudian slips.
Psychoanalysis involves effort to understand defences and unconscious motives driving self destructive behaviours.

Question 4

The ID

Answer 4

• present from birth
• operales solely in unconscious
• ruled by the pleasure-pain principle → an innate drive to seek immediate satisfaction
• irrational, primitive part of personality (libido, etc)

Question 5

The EGO

Answer 5

• origin of consciousness
• governed by the reality principle → mediates between impulsive demands of ID, the superego and reality of external world
• how the situation actually plays out

Question 6

The SUPEREGO

Answer 6

• internalisation of social rules
• determines which behaviours are acceptable and causes feeling of guilt → governed by morals and societal compasses (morality principle)
• develops at around 5 yrs

Question 7

Whats the ego ideal?

Answer 7

what a person strives for (determined by parental standards of good behaviour)

Question 8

What are defence mechanisms?

Answer 8

The conflict between ID and superego can cause anxiety - defence mechanisms are triggered by situations too stressful to deal with.

Question 9

Examples of defence mechanisms

Answer 9

Repression, denial displacement, projection, rationalisation, sublimation

Question 10

Defence mechanisms - Repression

Answer 10

unconscious blocking of unacceptable thoughts and impulses

Question 11

Defence mechanisms - Denial

Answer 11

refusing to believe reality

Question 12

Defence mechanisms - Displacement

Answer 12

transferring feelings of the source to someone else

Question 13

Defence mechanisms - Projection

Answer 13

placing own desires onto others

Question 14

Defence mechanisms - Rationalisation

Answer 14

giving your behaviour a more socially acceptable meaning

Question 15

Defence mechanisms - Sublimination

Answer 15

negative urges, drives and behaviours channeled into more socially acceptable behaviours

Question 16

Over using defence mechanisms?

Answer 16

results in the ego becoming increasingly detached trom reality and can cause psychological disorders

Question 17

Talking therapy

Answer 17

Freud proposed talking therapy and free association (just talking about our problems can alleviate them).

Question 18

Psychosexual stages of development

Answer 18

psychodynamic theory states that events in childhood greatly influence our adult lives, shaping our personality and traumatic events in childhood can remain in the unconscious and cause problems as adults. Freud proposed all children go through 5 stages of development:
• each stage has a designated “pleasure zone” and “primary activity” and requires resolution of a particular conflict (failure to successfully navigate a stages particular conflict is ‘fixation’ )
• it can determine our adult character, personality and behavioural traits as traces of a stage will remain in adult behaviour
• fixation can occur due to trauma, un/pleasant experiences, change in enviroment, etc.

Question 19

Psychosexual stages of development - Oral stage

Answer 19

• 0-1 yrs
• ID is developed
• focus of pleasure is the mouth (mother’s breast is object of desire)
• consequences of unresolved conflict → oral fixation - smoking, biting nails, sarcastic, critical

Question 20

Psychosexual stages of development - Anal stage

Answer 20

• 1-3 yrs
• ego is developed
• Focus of pleasure is the anus (child gains pleasure holding + expelling faeces)
• consequences of unresolved conflict → anal retentive - perfectionist, obsessive / Anal expulsive - thoughtless, messy

Question 21

Psychosexual stages of development - Phallic stage

Answer 21

• 3-5 yrs
• superego is developed
• Focus of pleasure is the genitals (child experiences Oedipus/ Electra complex)
• consequences of unresolved conflict → phallic personality - narcissistic, reckless, homosexual?

Question 22

Psychosexual stages of development - latency stage

Answer 22

• earlier conflicts repressed

Question 23

Psychosexual stages of development - genital stage

Answer 23

• puberty
• sexual desires become conscious alongside puberty
• difficulty forming sexual/ romantic retationships

Question 24

Whats the Oedipus complex?

Answer 24

The driver of Phallic Phase, where boys have an unconscious desire for their mother, therefore are hostile towards their father and develop castration anxiety (worry their father will castrate them). To resolve the conflict they must identify with their father and internalise his identity. This process is traumatic and cannot be confronted directly, so the ego establishes defence mechanisms → repression and denial (to mediate psychological terrors)

Question 25

Whats the Electra complex?

Answer 25

girls (between 3-6 yrs) become subconsciously sexually attracted to their father and hostile towards their mother. They get
penis envy when realising they don’t have a penis, leading to the penis substitute (wanting a baby), To resolve the conflict they must identity with their mother and internalise her identity.

Question 26

Psychodynamic approach advs

Answer 26

• it has great explanatory powers → although Freud’s theory is controversial, it’s had huge influences on psychology and western contemporary thought. Alongside behaviourism, the psychodynamic approach has remained the dominant force in psychology for the first half of the 1900s and has been used to explain a wide range of phenomena (personality development, abnormal behaviour, moral development and gender development
• drawn attention to the connection of experiences in childhood and adulthood (eg. parental relationships and later development)

Question 27

Psychodynamic approach disadvs

Answer 27

• heavily criticised for being unscientific and untestable → the human brain cannot be dissected to reveal the id, ego or superego therefore it’s not testable. According to Popper, as the theory is not testable nor falsifiable it isn’t scientific.
• gender bias → his obsession with the Oedipus complex is androcentric and it’s irrelevant for explaing women. He also suggests women are inferior as they have ‘penis envy’. Psycho-analysist Melanie Klein showed gender-biased theories
can be adapted to study female behaviour.
• too deterministic → Freud believed all behaviour is driven by unconscious forces, ignoring free will. The psychodymanic approach explains all behaviour is determined by unconscious conflicts rooted in childhood, suggesting behaviour is a result of the success/ failure at working through psychosexual stages.