Psychodynamic Approach Flashcards
What are the key assumptions of the approach?
The unconscious, of which we are unaware, determines our behaviour
Personality has three parts:the id, ego and superego
Early childhood experiences determine adult personality
What is the unconscious?
Things we are unaware of and can not become aware of (instinct and deeply buried memories)
What is the preconscious
Things we could be aware of if we wanted or tried (memories, stored knowledge)
What is the conscious?
The small amount of mental activity we know about (thoughts, perceptions)
What is the latent content of dreams?
Dream analysis - repressed ideas in the unconscious are more likely to appear in dreams than when we are awake
What is the manifest content of a dream?
Dream symbols that are used to disguise unacceptable ideas
What are the 5 stages of psychosexual development? The age of them and a consequent trait?
Oral - 0-1 chewing and overeating Anal - 1-3 obsessive and tidy Phallic - 3-6 anxiety of sex for men Latency - 6-12 no fixation here Genital - 12+ well adjusted adult
What is the Oedipus complex?
Boy wants his mother as his primary love object and wants his father out the way
What is the Electra complex?
Girls experience penis envy; they desire their father, as the penis is the primary love object and hate their mother
What was the Little Hans Case study?
Little hans has a phobia of horses which represents his fear of his father. He kept playing with his penis and his mother threatened to cut it off. He was experiencing the Oedipus complex
He had to identify with his father to overcome the complex
What is the id, ego and superego?
Id - just wants what it wants (unconscious and selfish)
Ego - finding a compromise (operates according to the reality principle)
Superego - policeman showing right and wrong (conscious and ego ideal)
What are the three defence mechanisms?
Repression
Denial
Displacement
What is repression, denial and displacement?
Repression is “motivated forgetting” forgetting a traumatic memory
Denial - consciously refusing to accept reality
Displacement - transferring feelings onto an object
What are some limitations of the approach?
Freud’s ideas are difficult to test reliably - a theory needs to be open to tested to have strength
Most of Freud’s patients were women - it highlights that there is gender bias and it can’t be generalised t everyone
Theories criticised for taking a negative view of behaviour (child development as dealing with conflict) humanists bring a positive view and praised for bringing the ‘human back into psychology’
What are the strengths of the approach?
There is evidence that Freudian concepts can be measured scientifically
Levinger and Clark demonstrated that emotionally charged words were forgotten more readily than neutral words as they were said to be repressed
Some ideas are used by therapists today - it shows that there is actual real world application of the approach
