Psychodynamic keywords

Question 1

Psychodynamic approach

Answer 1

A perspective that describes the different forces (dynamics), most of which are unconscious, that operate on the mind and direct human behaviour and experience

Question 2

The Unconcious

Answer 2

The part of the mind that we are unaware of but which continues to direct much of our behavior

Question 3

ID

Answer 3

Entirely unconscious, the ID is made up of selfish instincts that demand immediate gratification (works on the pleasure principle and is present from birth)

Question 4

EGO

Answer 4

works on the reality principle (present at age 2) and balances conflicting demands of the ID and SUPEREGO with the use of defense mechanisms

Question 5

SUPEREGO

Answer 5

formed at the phallic stage and based on the morality principal - it is an internalised sense of right and wrong (punishes the ego for wrongdoing)

Question 6

defence mechanisms

Answer 6

unconscious strategies that the ego uses to manage conflicts between the ID and SUPEREGO

Question 7

psychosexual stages

Answer 7

five developmental stages that all children pass through.

At each stage, there is a different conflict of which the outcome decides their future behavior

Question 8

repression

Answer 8

a defence mechanism

where a distressing memory is forced out of the unconscious mind

Question 9

Denial

Answer 9

a defence mechanism

where a person refuses to acknowledge some aspect of reality

Question 10

Displacement

Answer 10

A defence mechanism

Where feelings are transferred from a true source of distressing emotion onto a substitute target

Question 11

psychoanalysis

Answer 11

created by Freud
it employs a range of techniques to access the unconscious, such as hypnosis and dream analysis (forerunner of many modern-day psychotherapies)

Question 12

psychic determinism

Answer 12

freud believed free will is just an illusion and even things that seem like accidents (slip of the tongue) are actually driven by unconscious forces and have deep symbolic meaning

Question 13

The Oedipus Complex

Answer 13

in the phallic stage, boys have incestuous feeling for their mother and murderous ones for their father - they repress these feelings because they fear their father will castrate them

Question 14

conscious mind

Answer 14

the art of the mid that we’re aware of (merely the tip of the iceberg)

Question 15

preconscious

Answer 15

bubbling under the surface of the conscious, it is prominent during dreams and responsible for slips of the tongue

Question 16

Introspection

Answer 16

• don’t by Wundt in Germany
• to document and describe the nature of the human consciousness
• recorded conscious thoughts
• used structuralism, where they tried to isolate the structure of consciousness