Psychodynamic approach Flashcards
Freud
Believed that personality and behaviour are determined by psychological factors.
He was one of the first people to challenge the view that mental disorders were caused by physical illness.
Freud’s theory and therapy are called psychoanalysis.
They seek to explain human behaviour as an interaction between innate drives and early experiences.
Shaver et al (1988)
Claimed that what we experience as romantic love in adulthood is an integration of attachment, caregiving and sexuality systems experienced in childhood.
Bowlby
Maternal deprivation hypothesis.
The ability to form meaningful social relationships in adulthood was reliant on a close, warm, and continuous relationship with the mother (or mother figure) in the first few years of life.
The first two and a half years are the most important.
(Critical period)
This relationship acts as a prototype for all future relationships, so disruption impairs our ability to relate to others.
Solms (2000)
Used PET scans to highlight the regions of the brain that are active during dreaming.
The results showed that the rational part of the brain is inactive during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.
However, the centres concerned with memory and motivation are very active.
Matt and Navarro (1997)
In a review of 63 meta-analyses on the effect of psychotherapy found that on average, 75% of clients receiving dream analysis showed improvements.
Schredl et al (2000)
Found in a survey of psychotherapists in private practice that approximately 70% of patients reported benefits of working through dreams.
Toon et al (1996)
Suggest that therapists may induce false memories so that the therapy will take longer, and they will make more financial gain.
Hobson and McCarley (1997)
Argue that dreams are nothing but commands sent from the brain and are simply a form of “thinking that happens while we sleep.”
Harry Harlow (1959)
Placed infant monkeys with two wire “mothers”.
One had a feeding bottle, and the other was covered with a soft cloth.
The monkeys spent most of their time on the cloth-covered “mother”.
Clinging to this “mother” when frightened.
This demonstrates that food doesn’t create an emotional bond.
Contact comfort does.
Bowlby (1969)
Influenced by evolutionary theory and proposed that attachment to one caregiver has special importance for survival.
He called this one special emotional bond monotropy.
(Leaning towards one person)
Schaffer and Emerson (1964)
Found that primary attachments weren’t formed with the person who fed or spent more time with the infant.
Strongly attached infants had carers who responded quickly and sensitively to their “signals” and who offered their child the most interaction.
Freud (1930)
“I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need of a father’s protection.”
Freud recognised the special importance of a father in a boy’s development.
Freud (1938)
Wrote that an infant’s relationship with the mother was:
“unique, without parallel, laid down unilaterally for a whole lifetime as the first and strongest love object.”
Freud is claiming that a mother’s love acts as a prototype for every relationship the infant will go on to have in their lifetime.
Bowlby (1956)
Presented research that some children show no ill effects from early separation.
The children in this study will ill with tuberculosis and spent years in hospital with little contact with their families.
Most of them showed few problems later in life.
Popper (1934)
A good theory is one that can be tested to if it is wrong.
If you can’t evidence beyond all probability that it is right then you can only falsify a theory.
If there is no way to prove that it’s wrong, how can you prove that it is right?
