Psychodynamic Approach Flashcards
Assumptions
All behaviour has an unconscious cause
Levels of consciousness
Conscious
Preconscious
Unconscious
Conscious
What we are aware of
Preconscious
Thoguhts we become aware of through dreams and slip of the tongue
Unconscious
biological drives and instincts that influence our behaviour
Personality
ID, EGO, SUPEREGO
ID
Pleasure principle
- instant gratification
EGO
Reality principle
- mediator
SUPEREGO
Morality principle
- age 5
Psychosexual stages
Oral
Anal
Phallic
Lantency
Genital
Oral
- 0-1
- pleasure focus = mouth
- object of desire = mother’s breast
Anal
- 1-3
- pleasure focus = anus
- gains pleasure from witholding and eliminating faeces
Phallic
- 3-5
- pleasure focus = genitals
Latency
- 6
- repress earlier conflicts
Genital
- puberty
- sexual desire becomes conscious
Oedipus Complex
- phallic stage
- boys = incestious feeling for mother thereofre hate father
- repress feelings for mother + identify with father
- girls = penis envy
- boys = castration anxiety
Defence Mechanisms
Repression
Denial
Displacement
Repression
Force distressing memory out of conscious mind
Denial
Refuse to acknowledge reality
Displacement
Transfer feelings onto substitute target
AO3 + explanatory power
Can explain wide range of behaviour and draw attention to childhood influence
AO3 + psychotherapy
helps deal with every day problems by providing access to unconscious
AO3 - cannot apply to serious disorders
Like schizophrenia where patient has lost touch with reality
AO3 - untestable concepts
Unfalsifiable therefore lacks scientific rigour and is a pseudoscience
