The Humanistic and Psychodynamic approach

Question 1

What is the psychodynamic approach?

Answer 1

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

Question 2

What is the structure of the mind?

Answer 2

Conscious= the part we are aware of.
Preconscious= we can access and pull things into the conscious mind.
Unconscious= bigger and more influential. Unaware of but they drive behaviour.

Question 3

What is the id?

Answer 3

-The pleasure principle.
-All unconscious.
-Demands instant gratification and is selfish.

Question 4

What is the ego?

Answer 4

-The reality principle.
-Mediates the other two parts by delaying the id’s drive and the demands of the superego.
-Forms at the age of two.

Question 5

What is the superego?

Answer 5

-The morality principle.
-Forms at age five.
-The internalised sense of right or wrong.

Question 6

What are defence mechanisms?

Answer 6

Unconscious strategies that the ego uses to manage the conflict between the id and the superego, to stop it getting overwhelmed.

Question 7

What happens when defence mechanisms are adopted too much?

Answer 7

Cause psychological harm.

Question 8

What is denial?

Answer 8

refusing to believe or even perceive painful realities

Question 9

What is repression?

Answer 9

forcing a distressing memory out of the conscious mind

Question 10

What is displacement?

Answer 10

transferring feelings from true source of distressing emotion onto a substitute target

Question 11

What is sublimation?

Answer 11

transferring of unacceptable impulses into socially valued motives

Question 12

What are Frued’s psychosexual stages?

Answer 12

the childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital). At each stage there is a conflict to resolve.

Question 13

What leads to a fixation?

Answer 13

unresolved conflict at a stage.

Question 14

Stage 1: the oral stage?

Answer 14

-0-1 years.
-Focus of pleasure is the mouth (biting, chewing, sucking)
-Fixation due to early weaning= smoking, chewing pens, biting nails.

Question 15

Stage 2: the anal stage?

Answer 15

-1-3 years.
-Focus of pleasure is the anus, withholding and excreting faeces.
-If over keen to use toilet= anally expulsive (fixations are oversharing, messy, thoughtless).
-If strict toilet training= anally retentive (perfectionist, obsessive, neat).

Question 16

Stage 3: the phallic stage?

Answer 16

-3-6 years.
-Focus is genitals.
-Boys experience Oedipus complex and girls the Electra complex.
-Fixations are narsissistic, reckless.

Question 17

What is the Oedipus complex?

Answer 17

-A boy’s sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father
-However the father is more threatening, and the boy has castration anxiety, so befriends the father to reduce the anxiety.

Question 18

What is the Electra complex?

Answer 18

-the unconscious desire of girls to replace their mother and win their father’s romantic love
-Girls realise they don’t have penis and think the mother has taken it, so have penis envy of males. This desire is eventually replace by the desire to have children.

Question 19

Stage 4 : the latent stage?

Answer 19

Freud’s stage of psychosexual development occuring from about age 6 to puberty during which little happens in psychosexual terms.
-Pleasure is spread across the body.
-Sexual feelings are dormant as the child focuses on other things like making friends, sports.

Question 20

Stage 5: the genital stage?

Answer 20

-12 years.
-Sexual desires become conscious.
-Unresolved conflict leads to difficulty forming relationships.

Question 21

What is the Little Hans experiment?

Answer 21

-Freud used little Hans to explore the Oedipus complex.
-He developed a phobia of horses after he saw one collapse in the street.
-Freud suggested that phobia was displacing castration anxiety onto horses.

Question 22

Strengths of the pyschodynamic approach?

Answer 22

Did offer a alternative explanation to behaviourism and was significant in connecting childhood experiences to adulthood.

A dominant force of psychology- influenced many psychologists.

practical applications- Psychoanalysis therapy still used today to help people with mental disorders.

Question 23

Weaknesses of the psychodynamic approach?

Answer 23

-Empirically untestable therefore is not scientifically credible.
-Subjective studies.
-Argued that psychoanalysis can be harmful to people with disorders like schizophrenia, as they cannot articulate thoughts. So it does not work for all disorders.

Question 24

What is the humanistic approach?

Answer 24

-Concerned with subjective experience and a person’s self determination.
-The third force in psychology.

Question 25

What is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?

Answer 25

-You have to achieve each stage to move up.
Physiological, safety, love and belong, esteem and sale actualisation.

Question 26

What is self actualisation?

Answer 26

the process by which people achieve their full potential
-Personal growth is essential and a human wants to become fulfilled, goal-orientated and satisfied.
-Not everyone reaches it because of psychological barriers.

Question 27

Humanistic approach and free will?

Answer 27

-The notion that humans make choices and are not determined by biological or external forces.
- Humanistic approach claims that humans are essentially self-determining and have free will: full conscious control over their own destiny.
- This does not mean that people are not effected by external/internal influences but they are active agent who have the ability to determine our own development.
-Therefore humanistic psychologists reject scientific models and general laws of behaviour.

Question 28

What is congruence?

Answer 28

Carl Rogers said that to grow, your self and ideal self need to be congruent or moving towards congruence.

Question 29

What is client centred therapy?

Answer 29

A non-directive therapy where people are perceived as having the power and the motivation to help themselves and so find their own solutions.
The therapist is just a facilitator creating an environment for growth by being supportive and warm.
It can only treat mild psychological problems.

Question 30

What are conditions of worth?

Answer 30

When a parent places limits or boundaries on their love of their children. “I will love you if”.
-A lack of unconditional positive regard could lead to feelings of worthlessness and low self-esteem.

Question 31

Strengths of the humanistic approach?

Answer 31

-Has been applied to economic development (Hagerty over 34 years linked the hierarchy to economic growth).

-Research with teenagers supports the theories. Those who received a lack of unconditional positive regard were more likely to do things that clashed with their values.

-Believes in holism so has more validity in real life context.

-Provides an optimistic, positive outlook on humans.

Question 32

Weaknesses of humanistic approach?

Answer 32

-No scientific credibility as concepts are not empirically measured and tested.

-Unrealistic; doesn’t take into account pessimism and self destructing behaviours.

-Although applied to counselling it has limited application.

-Cultural differences in the hierarchy of needs. Western culture fits the desire for growth but eastern cultures may have a different order of needs.