Psychodynamic Approach Flashcards
What are the key assumptions of the psychodynamic approach?
- Focuses on the role of the unconsious mind
What is the role of the unconscious mind in behaviour?
- Our conscious mind is unaware of what thoughts and emotions occur in the unconscious.
- However, these unconscious thoughts and feelings can have an effect on behaviour.
- The unconscious mind is irrational and ruled by pleasure-seeking impulses.
How many parts did Freud believe the personality had? What are they called?
3- id, ego, superego
Describe the Id
- Present from birth
- Operates on the pleasure principle
- Throughout life, the id is entirely selfish and demands instant gratification of its needs.
- An overly strong ID can cause impulsive and immoral behaviour.
Describe the superego
- 3-5years
- Operates on the morality principle
- The superego incorporates the values and morals we learn from our parents and society.
- It is also contains the conscience. If the ego gives into the id’s demands, the superego may make the person feel guilty.
- Anxiety disorders are due to an over-developed superego. This causes a person to worry far too much.
Describe the ego
- 1-2years
- Works on the reality principle
- The ego is the decision making part of personality.
- The main role of the ego is to try to find a balance between satisfying the demands of the id with the expectations of the superego and the outside world.
- If the ego in unable to find a balance, abnormal behaviour may occur. e.g., phobias.
What is meant by defence mechanism?
- Ego defence mechanisms protect the ego from stressful thoughts and feelings.
- Defence mechanisms either push a desire or conflict out of conscious thought or transfer it onto something safer.
- These defence mechanisms may help in the short term, but if over used, can lead to disturbed behaviour
What is meant by repression?
Pushing bad experiences or negative emotions into the unconscious so you no longer think about them. For example, you were humiliated in the dining room at lunch, but can no longer remember the event.
What is meant by displacement?
Transferring undesirable impulses from one person to an object or another person. For example, someone who is angry with their boss may go home and kick their cat.
What is meant by denial?
This is an outright refusal to admit or recognize that something has occurred. E.g., drug addicts or alcoholics often deny that they have a problem.
What are the 5 psychosexual stages of development? When does each stage happen?
- Oral (0-1yrs)
- Anal (1-3yrs)
- Phallic (3-5 years)
- Latent (6yrs- puberty)
- Genital (puberty onwards)
What happens at the oral stage?
- The focus of pleasure is the mouth.
- The baby gets much satisfaction from sucking the breast/bottle and from putting things in its mouth.
- The source of conflict is weaning
Unresolved conflicts at this stage leads to…
* oral fixation- smoking, biting nails
* sarcastic, critical
What happens at the anal stage?
- The focus of pleasure is the Anus.
- The child gets pleasure from defecating. The ego develops.
- The source of conflict is potty training
Unresolved conflicts at this stage leads to…
* Anal retentive character - neat, stingy, precise, tidy, stubborn
* Anal expulsive character – messy, generous, careless, disorganised
What happens at the phallic stage?
- The focus of pleasure is the genitals.
- The outcome of Oedipus & Electra complexes affect the development of the superego
Unresolved conflicts at this stage leads to…
* Reckless, self-assured and vain
* Freud believed that fixation in this stage can lead to homosexuality.
What happens at the latent stage?
Period of sexual calm. Interest in school and hobbies
What happens at the genital stage?
- Sexual desires become conscious alongside the onset of puberty
Unresolved conflicts at this stage leads to…
* difficulty forming heterosexual relationships
What is meant by the oedipus complex and the electra complex?
- OEDIPUS: Little boys develops desires for his mother. The boy thinks that if his father were to find out, his father would cut off the boy’s penis, so he develops castration anxiety. The little boy resolves this problem by imitating, copying and joining in masculine dad-type behaviours, thus developing a male gender role.
- ELECTRA: The young girl desires the father, but realizes that she does not have a penis. This leads to the penis envy and the wish to be a boy. The girl resolves this by repressing her desire for her father and substituting the wish for a penis with the wish for a baby. She identifies with mother to take a female gender role.
How does the case study of Little Hans support Freud’s ideas?
A 5-year old boy named Little Hans had developed a fear of horses after seeing an accident involving a horse.
- Freud concluded that Hans was battling with an unresolved Oedipus complex. He argued that the boy’s ego had used the defence mechanism displacement to transfer his unconscious fear of his father onto horses.
- For example, Little Hans said that he was especially afraid of white horses with black around the mouth who were wearing blinkers. Hans’ father interpreted this as a reference to his moustache and spectacles.
AO3- strength or weakness?
DREAMS- deterministic?
- Weakness- psychic determinism
- Freud thought even something as apparently random as “a slip of the tongue” is driven by unconscious forces. E.g., calling your new partner by your ex-partner’s name. Freud would suggest this is the name you intended and is determined by unconscious forces with deep symbolic meaning.
- WEAKNESS BECAUSE it implies that all behaviour (even accidents) is determined by unconscious conflicts that are rooted in childhood. Any free will we may think we have is an illusion (free will does not really exist).
AO3- strength or weakness?
DREAMS- reductionist?
- Strength
- Interactionist approach of both nature and nurture; therefore, it isn’t considered reductionist.
- The Psychodynamic approach explains human behaviour as a result of the interaction between nature and nurture. Freud said we must all pass though fixed developmental stages (Nature) and that the environment we experience (Nurture) as we pass through these stages affects the outcomes.
- STRENGTH BECAUSE this helps to explain why personality can be so varied and how individual experience need to be understood in order to explain a person’s behaviour. This recognises the complexity of human behaviour in a way that some other approaches do not
AO3- strength or weakness?
DREAMS- supporting evidence?
- STRENGTH
- supporting research of Freud comes from unscientific research methods such as case studies and clinical interviews such as Little Hans.
- STRENGTH BECAUSE having supporting research increases the validity of Freud’s psychodynamic theory. Additionally, data gained from case studies and clinical interviews provide lots of rich, qualitative data as they interpret the meaning of an experience to the individual concerned.
AO3- strength or weakness?
DREAMS- applications of the research?
- Strength
- Development of psychodynamic therapies to help people with psychological problems. Psychoanalysis was developed by Freud to help patients with neurotic symptoms overcome their problems and move on with their lives.
- Psychoanalysis can use dream analysis or free association to help patients examine the contents of their unconscious to understand their current difficulties and get well.
- STRENGTH as practical therapies give credibility to theory and in Freud’s case his approach showed the importance of childhood experiences in adult mental illness.
AO3- strength or weakness?
DREAMS- what methods does the approach use?
- Weakness
- Based on case study and clinical interview data such as Little Hans
- WEAKNESS BECAUSE although Freud’s observations were detailed and carefully recorded, critics have suggested that it is not possible to make such universal claims about human nature based on studies of such a small number of individuals who were psychologically abnormal.
- Additionally, Freud’s interpretations were highly subjective: it is highly unlikely, in the case of Little Hans, that any other researcher would have drawn the same conclusions.
