S&D Psychodynamic Approach Flashcards
What is the conscious mind?
The part we are aware of and in control of.
What is the pre-conscious mind?
The part we can access if we need to.
What is the unconscious mind?
The part we are not aware of and cannot access in waking life.
What is the ID?
The unconscious mind and is known as the pleasure principle.
What is the ego?
The conscious mind and it tries to mediate between the ID and superego.
What is the superego?
The partly conscious and partly unconscious mind which provides us with a moral sense of right and wrong.
What did Freud think sleep was for?
He believed it was the mind’s desire to withdraw from the stressful external world.
What happens during sleep?
The ID becomes dominant.
What is wish fulfilment?
When we dream about what we want.
What do dreams contain?
Wish fulfilment, a fixation from an earlier stage of life and a series of symbols with the true meaning hidden from the conscious mind.
How does the ego protect us?
By changing undesirable thoughts into acceptable symbols.
What is manifest and latent content?
Manifest content is the story of the dream and latent content is the underlying meaning of the dream.
What are defence mechanisms to keep unconscious thoughts repressed?
Condensation, displacement and secondary elaboration.
What is condensation?
Many ideas within a dream appear as one making it difficult to pick out the important aspect.
What is displacement?
Unimportant ideas appear to be more important shifting attention from what’s important.
What is secondary elaboration?
A dreamer adds additional information when telling someone else about the dream to try and make their dream more meaningful or hide embarrassing moment.
What are 2 strengths of the view?
1 - It has a major effect in society which is a strength because it has a big impact on popular understanding of dreams – in particular, the ideas that dreams have hidden meanings.
2 - Freud used unique methods, including free association, slips of the tongue and dream analysis to uncover unconscious wishes and desires so this is difficult to access.
What are 2 weaknesses?
1 - The wish fulfilment theory can be challenged which is a weakness because some dreams are unpleasant.
2 - The view relies heavily on case studies which is a weakness because it cannot be generalised.
