Psychodynamic approach Flashcards
1
Q
ASSUMPTION 1: influence of childhood experiences
A
- experiences during childhood shape our personality, these stages are called psychosexual stages and each stage represents the fixation of libido (roughly translated as sexual drives or instincts) on a different area of the body. (see grid))))))
2
Q
ASSUMPTION 2: the unconscious mind
A
- Freud proposed the mind is like an iceberg, much of what goes on inside the mind lies under the surface.
- Our mind is divided into the preconscious and unconscious as well as conscious mind. the conscious mind is logical, the unconscious mind is ruled by pleasure seeking and is represented by dreams, Freud believed it determined our behaviour and emotional drive.
- The unconscious is also related to ego defence mechanisms. conflicts between the id, ego and superego create anxiety.
- Displacement: transfer of impulses from one person or object to another
- Regression: when somebody goes back to an earlier developmental stage
- Projection: undesirable thoughts are attributed to someone else
- repression: pushing painful memories deep down into our unconscious mind, so they are effectively forgotten
3
Q
ASSUMPTION 3: tripartite personality
A
- Freud believed that the adult personality is structured into three parts that develop at different stages of our lives. this is present from birth
- Id; this is the impulsive and unconscious part of our personality, demands immediate satisfaction.
- Ego; this is the conscious and rational part of our mind that develops around the age of 2. it works out ways balancing the demands of the id in socially acceptable ways.
- superego; this is the last part of our personality to develop. forming at around the age of four. it embodies the sense of right and wrong as well as the sense of the ideal self.
4
Q
STRENGTH: Nature vs. Nurture
A
- one strength of the psychodynamic approach is that it takes into account both sides of the nature - nurtre debate. Freud claimed that adult personality is the product of innate drives (nature) and childhood experiences (nurture).
- For Freud, the id is instinctual, and is the biological aspect of our personality. the id is driven by eros (the life drive, the drive to persevere and create life) and thanatos (the death drive which motivates antisocial acts such as aggression).
- The influence of nurture (experience) comes in the form of the psychosexual stages that every child passes through. In each of these stages, frustration or overindulgence may lead to fixation on that stage and predictable adult personality characteristics.
- Freud’s theory therefore considers the influence of nature (things we are born with) and nurture (things that develop through experience). the interactionist nature of this approach is a key strength.
5
Q
STRENGTH: Usefulness?
A
useful in several ways:
- it highlights the fact that childhood is a critical period in development; who we are and become is greatly influenced by our childhood experiences.
- ideas put forward by Freud have greatly influenced the therapies used to treat mental disorders. Freud was the first to recognise that psychological factors could be used to explain physical symptoms such as paralysis. Psychoanalysis (the general term for therapy developed from this approach) has been widely used to help people overcome psychological problems. There is research evidence to support this.
- Generally, this is a useful approach for helping to understand mental health problems, i.e: that mental health can be caused by childhood trauma and/or unconscious conflicts
6
Q
STRENGTH: Reflects the complexity of human behaviour
A
- One of the most common criticisms of the other approaches is that the explanations and experiences. In contrast, Freud’s explanations reflect the complexity of human behaviour and experience. therefore the psychodynamic approach can be seen as an approach that is holistic - it recognises that human behaviour is influenced by a number of factors which cannot be seperated.
- The psychodynamic approach improves on those other approaches that reduce explanations for human behaviour to one factor. for example, the behaviourist approach proposes that recovery from mental disorder can be achieved through re-learning, and does not require any consideration of what may have caused the disorder in the first place. The problem with this approach is that the original symptoms may simply reappear again because the actual cause has been ignored (called symptom substitution). |Freud’s method of psychoanalysis seeks to uncover deep meanings and acknowledges that understanding behaviour is a lengthy.
7
Q
WEAKNESSES: Reductionist and oversimplified
A
- can be seen as ‘mechanistic reductionism’ because it simplifies complex human behaviour to the mechanics of the mind (ie the battle between the id,ego and superego) and early childhood experience (psychosexual stages).
- This approach thus ignores other important influences on behaviour, such as biochemistry and genetics. for example, during the 1950s and 960s, one of the main explanations for autism was that some mothers were very distant from their children (refrigerator mother) and autism was a withdrawal from the lack of involvement. This is an oversimplification of the underlying processes of autism. therefore, in some ways, this approach does have the weakness of being an oversimplification and ignoring other important factors.
8
Q
WEAKNESS: determinist
A
- Freud saw infant behaviour as determined by innate force (libido), and adult behaviour as determined by childhood experiences, it therefore follows that we have no free will (choice) in who we become or how we behave. we call this a determinist viewpoint, as it sees our personality as shaped (pre determined) by forces that we cannot change or do not have a choice about - as humans we have no free will when it comes to our personality.
- This is a weakness, as we ARE able to change the way we behave if we want to. This determinist viewpoint may give some people a plausible excuse for behaving unreasonably (‘i cant help the way i am’) or an excuse for criminal behaviour. it also implies that people cannot be held responsible for their behaviour.
9
Q
WEAKNESS: Cannot be proven wrong.
A
- the main objection to Freud’s theory is that it is difficult to falsify. A good theory is one that can be tested to see if it is wrong. Karl Popper (1934) argued that falsification is the only way to be certain ‘no amount of observations of white swans can allow the interference that all swans are white. but the observation of a single black swan is sufficient to refute that conclusion. in other words, you can’t prove that a theory is right - you can only falsify a theory.
- Many of Freud’s predictions are notoriously ‘slippery’, e.g. his view that all men have repressed homosexual tendencies cannot be disapproved. if you do find men who have no repressed homosexual tendencies then it could be disproved. if you do find men who have no repressed homosexual tendencies then it could be argued that they have them 0 it’s just that they are so repressed they are not apparent. in other words, the prediction cannot be falsified.
- However, while it is difficult to generate testable hypotheses from Freud’s theory of personality, it is not impossible. e.g., research has looked at the relationship between guilt and wrongdoing - Freud predicted and inverse relationship, and Mackinnon (1938) did find that individuals who cheated at a task tended to express less guilt when questioned about life in general that who did not cheat.
10
Q
What are the three strengths of the Psychodynamic Approach?
A
- nature vs nurture
- usefulness
- reflects complexity of human behaviour
11
Q
WHat are the three weaknesses of the Psychodynamic Approach?
A
- reductionist and oversimplified
- determinist
- cannot be proven wrong
12
Q
What are the assumptions of the psychodynamic approach?
A
- tripartite personality
- influence of childhood
- the unconscious mind
13
Q
What are the main components of Dream Analysis?
A
- The most important aspects of a dream do not appear literally but in symbolic form and are often a representation of unconscious desires and wishes which the conscious mind cannot tolerate.
- Dreams have Manifest content and Latent content; Manifest is the reported event in the dream, and Latent is the underlying meaning behind the dream
- A key aim of psychoanalysis is to unlock unconscious memories and bring them into conscious awareness so that the patient gains insight into the reasons for their behaviour. Repression uses a lot of mental energy, a sense of catharsis is released when one doesn’t have to use this mental energy.
- There are four dreamwork processes, they are Condensation, Displacement, Symbolisation, and secondary revision
14
Q
What are the Four Dreamwork processes
A
- Condensation: A number of elements are combined into one in the dream so the dream becomes more compact. One image may have several associations or be made up of a combination of images
- Displacement: The emotion centred on something or someone is detached from that object or person and moved onto another, perhaps less significant, object or person.
- Symbolisation: Abstract concepts are represented in a symbolic form
- Secondary revision: The creation of a narrative to give the dream coherence and structure.
15
Q
Evaluate the effectiveness of Dream Analysis?
A
- Dream analysis is just one technique used in psychoanalysis which is designed to find the underlying cause of abnormal behaviour.
- Dream analysis seeks to treat the cause of behaviour unlike other therapies that deal with the symptoms, e.g. drug therapy
- Finding the cause of the behaviour can take a very long time. Treatment can be 2-3 times a week for two to five years. This can be very tie consuming and expensive
- Eyseck (1952) found that dream therapy from psychoanalysis was no better at treating patients than behavioural therapies.
