explanations and treatments PSYCHODYNAMIC Flashcards
what are the 3 basic assumptions of the psychodynamic approach?
- all behaviour is caused by unconscious underlying forces
- childhood is a critical period in development
- mental disorders arise from unresolved, unconscious conflicts from childhood
Freud’s model of personality suggests that how much is unconscious?
90%
the unconscious personality is made up of 3 areas, what are they?
Id
ego
superego
If one of the areas become stronger, it can lead to an overpowering caused by something happening in the childhood.
:)
the constant disagreement between the id, the ego and the superego can lead to a lot of what?
anxiety
the mind develops a series of defence mechanisms so that it can defend itself from unwanted feelings, name these 6 defence mechanisms
repression projection denial displacement regression sublimation
describe what projection is
putting the blame onto someone else
describe what repression means
the action of suppressing a thought so that it remains unconscious
describe the study of Little Hans
he was afraid of horses pulling a laden cart as once he heard someone say “the horse will bite you if you put your hand near it” Freud suggested this was because of unconscious anxiety’s. He also asked his mother if she would like to touch his penis, so he projected one source of anxiety onto another because he was really afraid she would leave him. Hans saw a horse with a laden cart fall, the horse symbolized his wish that his father would die and the laden cart was his mother giving birth to his sister. Both events fill Hans with anxiety.
what is one weakness of the psychodynamic approach?
It is mostly retrospective data, it comes from case studies so is not representable and doesn’t have population validity. Because the approach says everything happens in your childhood, memories are often faded or wrong so when explaining what happened to e.g.e a therapist. The information is wrong so the treatment is wrong.
what is one strength to the psychodynamic approach?
It is influential. Talking therapy is an acceptable from of treatment and recovery. It influences how we look at illnesses and how we treat them.
Another weakness is that the id, ego and superego are difficult to define and research
actions motivated by them are done so at an unconscious level so there is no way of knowing they occur. So this approach has received a lack of hard evidence and research support
is the psychodynamic theory deterministic or free will?
deterministic because it states that behaviour is controlled by the unconscious mind.
TREATMENTS
what is the aim of the psychodynamic treatments?
to bring unconscious conflicts into the conscious mind where they can be dealt with
TREATMENTS
what are the 2 techniques of psychoanalysis (the treatment)
dream analysis
free association
TREATMENTS
what is dream analysis
analysing the patients dream and bringing it into the conscious mind. the therapist is trying to uncover the latent content of the patients mind by helping them to analyse the representations and symbols. This brings the unconscious wishes into the conscious mind and helps relieve the patients of any distress.
TREATMENTS
what is free association?
the individual describes their thoughts exactly as they occur. Freud believed that the person is making associations as they express themselves and they are determined by the unconscious factors that the therapist is aiming to uncover. This aims to reveal areas of conflict and being repressed memories unto the conscious mind.
TREATMENTS EVALUATION
the effectiveness is questioned with psychoanalysis, explain why?
it has limited use, there is no way you can prove that you’ve found the problem to the illness. It is difficult to evaluate the effectiveness.
TREATMENTS EVALUATION
It limits the appropriateness of psychoanalysis, explain
it is expensive and time consuming and can be said to have ethical issues as the power is with the therapist and this can mean the whole therapeutic relationship is one of power and money.
TREATMENTS EVALUATION
There are some strengths though, it can be said to be effective in fact, explain
it addresses the cause not just the symptoms so the illness wont manifest in another illness because it will have been fixed.
TREATMENTS EVALUATION
There are no side effects
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