Psychodynamic Flashcards
Key assumptions of the approach
- Unconscious processes, of which we are unaware, determine our behaviour.
- Personality has three parts: the id, ego and superego.
- Early childhood experiences determine adult personality.
Freud
Id – This is the “selfish beast” part of the personality and we are born with it. It is the source of our unconscious desires and impulses. It demands instant gratification of its needs, which consist of hunger, thirst and sex. It is the primitive part of our personality and as it seeks to obtain pleasure, it is said to operate on the pleasure principle.
Ego – The ego represents are conscious mind. It develops around the age of 2-3 years. Its purpose is to balance the Id in society. The child realises that the demands of the Id cannot always be met. The ego is rational andlogical and seeks to satisfy the Id in socially acceptable ways. It operates according to the reality principle.
Superego – This is formed around the age of 5-6 years and contains our moral values, therefore it operates on the morality priciple. The superego is our internalised same-sex parent, so for females morality comes from the mother and for males, the father. The superego ensures that the ego does not use unacceptable means to satisfy the demands of the Id. It is around the age of 5-6 years that parents start to demand that the child acts in more socially acceptable ways. The superego gradually takes over this parental role and tells us inside our own head how we should behave. It consists of two parts, the conscience and ego ideal. The conscience tells us what we should not do, right and wrong. Whilst the ego ideal tells us what we should do. The conscience makes us feel guilty; the ego ideal makes us feel proud.
The role of the unconscious
Conscious - The small
amount of mental activity we
know about. (e.g. thoughts, perceptions)
Preconscious- Things we could be aware of if we
wanted or tried. E.g. memories, stored knowledge
Unconscious - Things we are unaware of and can
not become aware of. (e.g. instincts, deeply buried memories)
Psychosexual stage of development
This theory is very controversial because Freud suggests that sexual energy is present right from birth, an idea that many people are uncomfortable with. However, Freud is talking about unconscious desires, children are not necessarily aware of these needs and desires.
Freud thought that different parts of our bodies become particularly sensitive as we grow. Freud called these erogenous zones. He believed that we pass through 5 different stages of development, and within each stage our sexual energy, libido, is focused on a particular body organ. Freud called these stages psychosexual stages of development.
Oral stage 0-1 year – The mouth is the focus of sensation and pleasurable experiences; this is the organ of pleasure. This is the least contentious of the stages, there is biological evidence that babies do have more nerve endings in this area and from a survival point of view it makes perfect sense to derive pleasure from suckling. Freud suggested that an individual could become fixated in this stage if they were either under or over fed as a baby.
Anal stage 1-3 years – The organ of pleasure is now the anus. The child derives pleasure from retention (holding) or expulsion (letting go) of faeces. In this stage the child becomes aware of the demands of reality, as the parent begins to impose potty training on the child. For the first time the child has restrictions imposed on its behaviour. It is in this stage that the Ego develops. Too strict or too lax potty training can result in the child becoming fixated in this stage. The child may also come to realise that they can exercise power over the parents by the retention or expulsion of faeces. There are two possible outcomes to this fixation, either an anally retentive or an anally expulsive personality.
Phallic stage 3-6 years
The organ of pleasure is now the genitals, as the child becomes fully aware of gender differences; it becomes obsessed with its own genitals. According to Freud, this is the most important stage of development and is where the Oedipus complex occurs.
Oedipus complex this occurs during the phallic stage of psychosexual development. It originates from the Greek tragedy of King Oedipus who unwittingly married his mother and killed his father. Freud suggested that children in the phallic stage begin to have unconscious sexual desires for their opposite sex parent. This makes them resentful of the same sex parent, as they see them as a competitor for their parent’s love.
Boys, unconsciously desire their mothers, but realise their father is bigger and stronger, so they can’t compete. When they realise that girls don’t have a penis, they think they have been castrated and fear that their father will castrate them too, if their desire for their mother is uncovered. This is known as castration anxiety. In order to resolve this anxiety, boys identify with their father and internalise his morals and standards, which becomes the superego. Boys think that if they become more masculine their father will like them and not want to castrate them!
The Electra Complex was not clearly defined by Freud. As he was a product of his time, he concentrated on boys in his theories and added girls on, as almost, an after thought. Freud viewed femininity as failed masculinity and is therefore very unpopular with feminists. Freud argued that girls believe they do not have a penis because their mother must have already castrated them. They turn to their fathers for love in the hope of regaining their penis. Girls suffer Penis Envy for the rest of their lives. The only way a woman can resolve her penis envy is by having a male baby, taking a male lover or having a career, basically try to become more like a man as a way of compensating for the lack of penis.
Latency Stage 6 years – Puberty In this stage sexual desires remain dormant. Children want nothing to do with the opposite sex, as social and intellectual development occurs.
Genital Stage Puberty – maturity This stage marks the beginning of mature adult sexuality. The calm of latency is disrupted as the Id makes powerful demands in the form of heterosexual desires. The opposite sex is now needed to satisfy the libido.
Defence Mechanisms
Freud said that the Ego could suffer anxiety as a result of conflicts between the Id and the Superego. He believed that it developed tactics for reducing these feelings of anxiety – known as ‘defence mechanisms.’
Everyone uses defence mechanisms from time to time
Excessive use of defence mechanisms will, over time, result in the ego becoming increasingly detached from reality and, in time, can cause psychological disorder
Psychoanalysis involves effort to understand defences and unconscious motives driving self-destructive behaviours
