Psychodynamic approach Flashcards
what is the psychodynamic approach?
a perspective that describes the different forces that operate on the mind and direct human behaviour and experience.
Freud suggested that our conscious mind is the ‘tip of the iceberg’ and that most of our mind is made up of the unconscious which contains disturbing memories which have been repressed.
under the surface of the conscious mind is the preconscious which contains thoughts and memories which are not currently in conscious awareness but can be accessed if desired.
what is the Id?
The Id is the primitive part of our personality and it operates on the pleasure principle. the Id is unconscious and is made up entirely of selfish and aggressive instincts that demand immediate gratification.
what is the Ego?
the Ego works on the reality principle and is the mediator between the other two parts of the personality. Ego develops around the age of two years and its role is to reduce the conflict between the demands of Id and Superego. manages this by employing defence mechanisms.
what is the Superego?
Superego is formed at the end of the phallic stage, around the age of five. it is our internalised sense of right and wrong. based on the morality principle it represents the moral standards of the child’s same-gender parent and punishes the Ego for wrongdoing (through guilt)
what are the psychosexual stages?
Freud claimed that child development occurred in five stages. each stage, apart from latency, is marked by a different conflict that the child must resolve in order to progress successfully to the next stage.
any unresolved conflict leads to fixation where a child becomes ‘stuck’ and carried certain behaviours and conflicts associated with that stage through to adult life.
what are defence mechanisms?
unconscious strategies that the Ego uses to manage the conflict between the Id and Superego. often these defence mechanisms involve some form of distortion from reality and as a long-term solution they are regarded as psychologically unhealthy and undesirable.
what is the real-world application value of the psychodynamic approach?
- the psychodynamic approach introduced the idea of psychotherapy
- Freud brought to the world a new form of therapy- psychoanalysis. this was the first attempt to treat mental disorders psychologically rather than physically.
- psychoanalysis claims to help clients by bringing their repressed emotions into their conscious mind so that they can be dealt with. many modern therapies such as counselling and other talking therapies are based on this.
- shows that the psychodynamic approach has value in creating new approaches to treatment.
what is another strength of the psychodynamic approach?
- the psychodynamic approach has good ability to explain human behaviour. it has been used to explain a wide range of phenomena such as personality development, origins of psychological disorders, moral development and gender identity.
- approach is also significant in drawing attention to the connection between experiences in childhood, such as relationship with parents, and our later development.
- this suggests that overall the psychodynamic approach has had a positive impact on psychology.
what is a limitation of the psychodynamic approach?
- one limitation of the psychodynamic approach is that much of it is untestable
- philosopher of science Karl Popper argued that the psychodynamic approach does not meet the scientific criterion of falsification. it is not open to empirical testing.
- many of Freud’s concepts (such as Id and the Opedius complex) are said to occur at an unconscious level making them difficult to test.
- furthermore his
what is the Opedius complex?
in the phallic stage, Freud claimed that little boys develop incestuous feelings towards their mother and hatred for their father. fearing that their father will castrate them, they repress their feelings for their mother and identify with their father taking on his gender roles and moral values.
what is the Electra complex?
Freud suggested that little girls at the same age experience penis envy: they desire their father and hate their mother. Freud suggested that girls give up their desire for their father overtime and replace it with a desire for a baby.
what is the Little Hans case study?
Freud supported his concept of the Opedius complex with his case study of Little Hans.
Hans was a five year old boy who developed a phobia of a horse after seeing one collapse on the street. Freud suggested that Hans’s phobia was a for of displacement in which his repressed fear of his father was displaced onto horses. thus horses were a symbolic representation of Hans’s real unconscious fear- fear of castration experienced during the Opedius complex.
