Psychodynamic Flashcards
Tripartite personality
-The tripartite personality refers to the psychodynamic assumption that our personalities are controlled by 3 parts, id, ego, and superego.
Id
-The id is the part of our personality that we develop from birth to around 2 years and is unconscious, impulsive, and is run by the pleasure principle.
Ego
-The ego is part of our personality that we develop at 2 years old, which is conscious and reasonable and tries to apease both the id and superego as a referee.
-Governed by the reality principle.
Superego
-The part of our personality that develops at around 4 years old and is run by the morality principle, which gives us empathy and shame.
The influence of childhood experiences.
-The psychosexual stages are what Freud believed were our developmental stages in childhood, and he assigned each a body part at which our libido would be present during that stage.
Libido
-The ‘drive’ we are all born with and that moves through different parts of our body and what it experiences shapes our personalities.
Fixation
-A fixation occurs when our libido is either overindulged or frustrated at a psychosexual stage, causing it to become stuck, either enjoying itself too much or longing for satisfaction.
Oedipus Complex
-The oedipus complex is what boys go through during the phallic stage of development.
-They experience attraction towards their mothers and a hatred and jealousy regarding their fathers.
-Following this is castration anxiety, which the boys repress by transfering their affection to their fathers.
-This is when their superego develops.
Electra Complex
-The electra complex is what girls go through during the phallic stage of development.
-First, they have feelings of resentment towards their mothers and admiration to their father for being the head of the family.
-Then develop penis envy, which they repress by idolising the mother.
-This is when the superego develops, which is said to be weaker than a boys.
Concious Mind
-This is the part of our mind that we are aware of and is what we believe we are truly like as a person.
-This is also where our ego is contained, which uses ego defence mechanisms to ensure the unconcious mind remains unaware to us.
Preconsious Mind
-The part of our mind whichis just out of reach and can be accessed with a little bit of help, it includes our dreams and memories.
Unconcious Mind
-The largest part of our mind, which we are entirely unaware of and is composed of our childhood experiences and traumas that have been repressed, such as our id.
Ego Defense Mechanism
-These are the strategies our ego in the conscious mind uses to ensure the traumas of the unconcious mind remain repressed.
-They include repression, displacement, and projection.
Dream analysis applied to the unconcious mind
-Freud classed dreams as the ‘royal road to the unconcious’ and claimed the threatening nature of our unconscious thoughts is disguised in dreams.
-Aims to make the unconscious conscious by decoding the manifest content into latent content.
-Establishes if the root cause of the psychological problem is due to repressed issues.
Dream analysis applied to the influence of childhood experiences
-Freud said that traumatic experiences would be repressed to the unconcious mind as they are too painful to process.
-To try and work through past events, these traumas would resurface in dreams.
-Aim to uncover the hidden meaning in order to reveal and confront repressed conflicts.
Dream analysis applied to the tripartite personality
-Its thought that the unacceptable demands and desires of the id are active in our dreams.
-Dreams are a way of acting out these wishes in a more acceptable way.
-‘Dreamwork’ is an ego defence mechanism that protects us from the undesirable truths by disguising them in dreams.
-Aims to reverse the dreamwork process.
Dreams as wish fulfilment
-Freud said that dreams are the unconscious fulfilment of wishes that couldn’t be satisfied in the concious mind as they are unacceptable.
-Dreams protect the sleeper by stopping the desires from building up and threatening our sanity.
-The repression of true desires is seen as a source of mental disorders, so therapy aims to uncovet the true wishes and what they represent.
Symbolic nature of dreams
-To protect us, dreams appear in a disguised form.
-Dream analysis says that what the dreamer recalls is symbolic of the truth buried in their unconcious mind.
-‘Dreamwork’ is the defence mechanism responsible for changing latent content into manifest through several processes
-E.g displacement which involves the emotional significance of a dream object being separated and attatvhed to an entirly different one.
Dream diary
-Clients are asked to record their dreams on waking.
-The manifest content is often forgotten throughout the day, so the dream diary is kept near the bed to record manifest content while it is still in memory.
-The manifest content recorded is the basis for discussion during therapy sessions.
Role of the therapist
-Therapist aims to reverse the dreamwork process by decoding manifest content back into latent content.
-Only trained psychoanalysts should do interpretations as they have to be in context with the clients’ life experiences.
-Sometimes, the manifest content doesn’t actually represent some latent content.
Free association
-A person verbalises or writes all thoughts that come to mind when thinking or discussing specific topics and words.
Manifest content
-The dream itself (how these desires are symbolised in the dreams we remember).
Latent content
-Hidden/real meaning (the true wishes and desires)
Supported by research evidence: Depression and anxiety (effectiveness strength)
Point - DA can help people with depression and anxiety.
Evidence- Matt and Navarro reviewed 63 meta-analyses on psychotherapy, showed 75% of people receiving DA showed improvements.
Explanation-Suggests that DA is an effective therapy for many common mental health problems.
Supported by research evidence: Self esteem and insight (Effectiveness strength)
Point - Supports effectiveness of DA in helping improve self-esteem and insight into the mind.
Evidence- Folk and Hill compared 22 separate/divorcing women (age 22-57 years old) in 8-week dream interpretation groups to 12 women in a control condition. Results show improvements in self esteen and insight from women in DA.
Explanation - Suggests DA is effective in helping women adjust to life changes associated with divorce.
Subjective interpretation (effectiveness weakness)
Point - DA is based on subjective interpretations of the manifest content.
Evidence - Freud didn’t support dream dictionaries as interpretations could only be made by professionals in the context of the clients life. Sometimes, the manifest content is not a symbol of latent content.
Explanation - Difficult to scientifically demonstrate that it’s the DA that is effective in treating mental disorders. (Can be argued that this is irrelevant as long as clients show improvements)
Treats the cause, not just the symptoms ( effectiveness strength)
Point - DA provides a long-term solution as it treats the underlying cause of the problems.
Evidence - Works by uncovering and resolving repressed, unconcious conflicts that were cuading issues leading to long-term relief.
Explanation - Makes DA arguably better than other therapies that only treat the symptoms such as aversion therapy.
Psychological harm (ethical weakness)
Point - Being made aware of the unconcious conflicts may be distressing and cause psychological harm.
Evidence - DA works by revealing previously rrepressed conflicts and desires. Ego defence mechanisms repress these to protect us from the traumas.
Explanation - This is a weakness as there is the potential for psychological harm in the process of acknowledging these unconcious issues.
False memory syndrome (ethical weakness)
Point - DA has the potential to create false memories.
Evidence - There are documented cases of therapists leading people to remember instances of abuse or unpleasant experiences in the past.
Explanation - FMS can cause negative reprocussions for those accused of the unpleasant situation ( Toon suggests some therapists encourage FMS in order to make more money from clients needing further therapy)
Power imbalance (ethical weakness)
Point - Power imbalance between client and therapist.
Evidence - In DA, the therapist takes on the expert role by offering their interpretations. The client is reliant on the therapist in order to make progress.
Explanation - Unethical as it can lead to the client being overly dependent on the therapist and unable to face their problems alone.
Does addres underlying cause (ethical strength)
Point - Da addresses the long-term underlying cause of the psychological problem.
Evidence - Da works on uncovering repressed conflicts that may have occurred in childhood, and processing them should stop any further mental health problems later.
Explanation - Compared to other therapies, it treats symptoms and cause, which should avoid revoling door patients.
Effectiveness conclusion ideas
-There is evidence that shows DA is effective.
-DA treats cause to avoid revolving door patients.
-Evidence to support DA is unscientific.
-If the patients improve under DA, does it matter if the therapy was what helped or not as long as they are improving?
-DA is not commonly used in NHS compared to CBT or drug therapy.
Ethical issues conclusion ideas
-DA has the potential to cause several issues of psychological trauma.
-Potential for it to be misused to exploit vulnerable people.
-Does little to empower individuals, and they are reliant on the therapist to provide interpretations for dreams.
