Psychodynamic approach Flashcards
1
Q
Whatdid Freud sugguest about the concious mind?
Describe the role of the unconcious
A
- Freud sugguested that the concious mind is merely ‘the tip of the iceburg’
- Most of our mind is made up of the unconcious - a vast storehouse of biological drives and instincts that has a significant influence on our behaviour and personality.
- Contains threatening and disturbing memories that have been locked away.
- Can be accessed during dreams or slips of the tounge (e.g. calling female teacher mum).
2
Q
What is the personality composed of?
A
- Id
- Ego
- Superego
3
Q
What is the Id?
A
- The Id operates on the pleasure principle and is present at birth.
- It is entirely selfish and demands instant gratification of its needs.
4
Q
What is the Ego?
A
- The Ego operates on the reality prinicple and develops around the age of two.
- Its role is to reduce the conflict between demands of the Id and Superego.
- It manages this by employing defence mechanisms.
5
Q
What is the Superego?
A
- The superego operates on the morality principle and develops around the age of 5.
- It is our internalised sense of right and wrong
- It represents the moral standards of the child’s same-sex parent.
6
Q
Describe Psychosexual stages
A
- Freud claimed that child development occurred in 5 stages.
- Each stage has a different conflict that the child must resolve in order to go on to the next stage
- Unsolved conflicts leads to fixation where the child carries behaviours associated with that stage through to adult life.
Stages: Oral, Anal, Phalic, Latency, Genital
7
Q
Describe the anal stage
A
Age: 1-3 years
Focus of pleasure: Anus
Potty training to control bowel movements
Fixation: Anal retentive (become obessive perfectionist), Anal explusive (become messy)
8
Q
Desribe the Oral stage
A
- Age: 0-1 years
- Focus of pleasure: Mouth
- Pleasure through their mouth such as sucking
- Oral fixation - smoking, biting nails
9
Q
Describe the phallic stage
A
- Age: 3-6 years
- Focus of pleasure: Genitals
- Child experiences Oedipus (boys) or Electra (girls) complex
- Becomes reckless if unresolved
10
Q
Describe the latency stage
A
Earlier conflicts are repressed.
11
Q
Describe the genital stage
A
- Age: Puberty
- Sexual desires become concious
- Unresolved conflict - difficult forming heterosexual relationships.
12
Q
What are defence mechanisms?
A
- Used by ego to reduce the conflict between demands of the Id and Superego.
- The ego distorts reality so that the individual can continue with everyday life without unpleasent feelings dominating their concious awareness.
13
Q
What is the evaluations of the psychodynamic approach?
A
- Introduced psychotherapy
- Ability to explain human behaviour
- Much of it is untestable
14
Q
Evaluation: Introduced psychotherapy
A
- Strength: It introduced psychotherapy.
- Freud created a strategy to treat mental disorders psychologically - psychoanalysis.
- The therapy used techniques to access the unconcious such as dream analysis.
- It claims to help clients by bringing their repressed emotions into their concious mind.
- Increases value of the approach, as its made a significant contribution to treatment of mental disorders.
15
Q
Evaluation: Ability to explain human behaviour
A
- One strength of Frued’s theory is its ability to explain human behaviour.
- It has been used to explain a wide range of behaviours like mental disorders and gender identity.
- It has drew attention to the influence of childhood on adult personality.
- Positive impact on psychology; has been dominant for half a century.
