Psychodynamic approach Flashcards
Who came up with the psychodynamic approach?
Sigmund Freud
What is the main key assumption of the psychodynamic approach?
Behaviour is determined by unconscious forces that we cannot control
What did he suggest?
That most of our mind is made up of the unconscious
What is meant by ‘the unconscious’?
And what does it also contain?
A vast storehouse of biological drives and instincts that has a significant influence on our behaviour and personality
- threatening & disturbing memories that have been repressed (can be accessed during dreams or ‘slips of the tongue’)
What ‘bubbles’ just under the surface of our conscious mind?
The preconscious
What does the preconscious contain?
Thoughts & memories which are not currently in conscious awareness but can be accessed if desired
7 key assumptions of the psychodynamic approach:
1. Who came up with the idea of the unconscious mind?
2. How many parts are there to the unconscious mind?
3. What influences adult behaviour?
4. What enables adaptive behaviours?
5. What stages can influence later behaviours
6. How many parts are there to our personality?
7. What should the treating of mental disorders be done through?
- Freud
- There are 2 parts of the unconscious that influence human behaviour
- Early childhood experiences influence adult behaviour
- Defence mechanisms
- The psychosexual stages
- There are 3 parts to our personality
- Psychoanalysis
Why do we repress threatening and disturbing memories?
- Are to painful to remember
- May cause anxiety
What are defence mechanisms and what do they do & involve?
Unconscious strategies that the ego uses to manage the conflict between the Id and Superego
- prevents us from being overwhelmed by threats and traumas
- involve some form of distortion of reality
What are the 3 defence mechanisms to help repress threatening and disturbing memories?
- Repression - Forcing a distressing memeory out of the conscious mind
- Denial - Refusing to acknowledge some aspect of reality
- Displacement - Transferring feelings from true source of distressing emotion onto a substitute target
What did freud describe the personality as and what does it mean?
‘Tripartite’ - means that it is composed of 3 parts
What 3 parts is the personality composed of?
- The Id
- The Ego
- The Superego
Outline the Id
1. What principle is it?
2. When does it develop?
3. Main purpose?
- pleasure principle
- only one present at birth
- completely unconscious
- a mass of unconscious drives and instincts
- selfish
- has aggressive instincts that demand immediate gratification
Outline the Ego
1. What principle is it?
2. When does it develop?
3. Main purpose?
- reality principle
- develops around age 2
- balances the Id & superego (reduces the conflicts) by employing defence mechanisms
Outline the Superego
1. What principle is it?
2. When does it develop?
3. Main purpose?
- morality principle
- develops at age 5 (end of phallic stage)
- represents the ideal self
- Internalised sense of right & wrong
What did Freud claim about child development?
- Occurs in 5 stages
- each stage (apart from latency) is marked by a different conflict the child must resolve to progress to next stage
- if unsuccessful, fixation occurs (consequences of unresolved conflict)
- child becomes ‘stuck’ and carries certain behaviours and conflicts through adult life
What are these 5 stages called?
The psychosexual stages
Psychosexual stages:
- Name of first stage
- What Age does it occur
- Description of the pleasure centre
- Consequence of unresolved conflict
Oral
0-1 years
Focus of pleasure is the mouth: mothers breast can be object of desire
Oral fixation- smoking, biting nails, sarcastic, critical
Psychosexual stages:
- Name of second stage
- What Age does it occur
- Description of the pleasure centre
- Consequence of unresolved conflict
Anal
1-3 years
Focus of pleasure is the anus: Child gains pleasure from withholding & expelling faeces
Anal retentive- perfectionist, obsessive
Anal expulsive- thoughtless, messy
Psychosexual stages:
- Name of third stage
- What Age does it occur
- Description of the pleasure centre
- Consequence of unresolved conflict
Phallic
3-6 years
Focus of pleasure is the genital area
Phallic personality- narcissistic, reckless
Psychosexual stages:
- Name of fourth stage
- What Age does it occur
- What happens?
Latency
6-12 years
Earlier conflicts are repressed
Psychosexual stages:
- Name of fifth stage
- What Age does it occur
- What happens?
- Consequence of unresolved conflict
Genital
12+
Sexual desires become conscious alongside the onset of puberty
Difficulty forming sexual relationships
STRENGTH: How does the psychodynamic approach show real-world application? (PEEL)
POINT: Real-world application
EVIDENCE: Introduced the idea of psychotherapy
EXPLAIN:
- Freud brought around psychoanalysis (new form of therapy)
- first attempt to treat mental disorders psychologically rather than physically
- new range of techniques used to access the unconscious during this therapy (e.g. dream analysis)
- helps clients by bringing repressed emotions into their conscious mind so they can deal with it
LINK:
- Psychoanalysis was the forerunner to many modern-day ‘talking therapies’ (e.g. counselling)
- Shows value of psychodynamic approach - created a new approach to treatment
- Increases its validity
LIMITATION: What is a counterpoint for the psychodynamic approach having real-world application (PEEL)
POINT: Psychoanalysis is regarded as inappropriate, even harmful
EVIDENCE:
- may be harmful for people experiencing more serious mental disorder (e.g. schizophrenia)
EXPLAIN:
- symptoms of these disorders (e.g. delusional thinking)= cause them to lose their grip on reality & can’t articulate their thoughts in the way required by psychoanalysis
LINK:
- suggests that Freudian therapy (and theory) may not apply to all mental disorders
- lacks generalisability
STRENGTH: How does the psychodynamic approach have explanatory power? (PEEL)
POINT: Helps explain human behaviour
EVIDENCE:
- can provide explanations for a wide range of phenomena including: personality development & moral development
- also draws attention to the connection between childhood experience (e.g. relationships with parents) & later development
EXPLAIN
- so can provide explanations for range of different human behaviours
- had a great influence on psychology in the 20th century
LINK
- shows that it’s a powerful approach as it has a positive impact on psychology
LIMITATION: Why is the psychodynamic approach being untestable a problem?
POINT: Has untestable concepts
EVIDENCE:
- argued that it does not meet the scientific criterion of falsification (Karl Popper-philosopher of science)
EXPLAIN:
- Is not open to empirical testing
- many of Freud’s concepts are said to occur at an unconscious level (e.g. The Id & Oedipus complex)
- ideas based on subjective study of single individuals (e.g. Little Hans)
- so lacks generalisability - difficult to make universal claims about human behaviour
LINK
- suggests that Freud’s theory was pseudoscientific (not a real science) rather than established fact
What is the Oedipus complex?
End of phallic stage:
Boys= develop incestuous feelings towards their mother & murderous hatred for their fathers (rival in love)
- fear of being castrated by their father
- repress feelings for their mother
- identify with father by taking on their gender role & moral values
What is the Electra complex?
End of phallic stage:
Girls= experience penis envy, as they desire their father (the penis is the primary love object) and hate their mother
How does Little Hans support the Oedipus complex?
- Hans was a 5 yr old boy
- developed a phobia of horses after seeing one collapse in the street
Freud suggests Hans’s phobia was form of displacement
- His repressed fear of his father was displaced onto horses
- Horses were a symbolic representation of Hans’s real unconscious fear (fear of castration)
