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the psychodynamic approach Flashcards

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1
Q

Assumptions of this approach

A
  • The unconscious mind drives behaviour
  • Childhood is a critical period in development
  • Issues in behaviour can arise from unresolved, unconscious conflicts originating in childhood
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2
Q

iceberg model of the mind

A

conscious - part of the mind we are aware of
preconscious - thoughts and memories not accessible at all times
unconscious - part that we are unaware of

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3
Q

conscious

A

the part of the mind we are aware of

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4
Q

unconscious

A

part that we are unaware of (unfalsifiable, cannot be proven wrong)

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5
Q

preconscious

A

thoughts and memories not accessible at all times

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6
Q

structure of personality

A

Freud suggests we each have 3 “characters” in our mind:
ID, ego, and superego

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7
Q

ID

A
  • pleasure principle
  • mass of unconscious drives and instincts
  • selfish and wants instant gratification
  • present at birth (referred to babies as ‘bundles of id’)
  • entirely unconscious
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8
Q

ego

A
  • reality principle
  • reduces conflict between the id and superego by mediating
  • develops around age 2
  • in all 3 areas of the mind: conscious, preconscious, unconscious
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9
Q

superego

A
  • morality principle
  • sense of right and wrong
  • punishes the ego for wrongdoing through guilt
  • develops around age 5
  • in all 3 areas of the mind: conscious, preconscious, unconscious
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10
Q

libido

A

The energy created by the survival and sexual instincts, part of the ID.

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11
Q

psychic energy

A

A form of energy by which the work of the personality is performed.

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12
Q

fixation

A

Conflicts in earlier stages cause small amounts of energy to be ‘left behind’. It refers to the theoretical notion that a portion of the individual’s libido has been permanently ‘invested’ in a particular stage of development resulting in certain personality characteristics.

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13
Q

internalisation

A

Accepting/taking on the attitudes of behaviour or another purpose.

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14
Q

repression

A

‘Act of forgetting’ by excluding distressing memories/thoughts/feelings from the conscious mind.

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15
Q

development of ego and superego and controlling the id

A
  • id must be controlled in order to satisfy social demands
  • this sets up a conflict between frustrated wishes and social norms
  • ego and superego develop in order to exercise this control and direct the need for gratification into socially acceptable channels
  • Gratification centres in different areas of the body at different stages of growth, making the conflict at each stage psychosexual.
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16
Q

what did Freud propose?

A
  • a child develops their personality (id, ego, superego), gender, understanding of healthy relationships, etc through 5 separate stages:
    1. Oral 2. Anal 3. Phallic 4. Latency 5. Genital
  • first 5 years are crucial to the formation of adult personality
  • unresolved psychosexual conflicts lead to fixation where the child becomes ‘stuck’ and carries certain behaviours and conflicts associated with that stage through to adult life
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17
Q

two possible reasons for fixation

A
  1. Frustration - needs not met
  2. Overindulgence - comfortable so reluctant to move on
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18
Q

the oral stage

A
  • 0-18 months
  • focus of libido is the mouth
  • the ID is control
  • possible cause is early or late weaning
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19
Q

oral stage - overindulgence personality traits

A
  • optimism
  • admiring of others
  • gullibility
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20
Q

oral stage - frustration personality traits

A
  • enviousness
  • pessimism
  • sarcasm
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21
Q

the anal stage

A
  • 18months-3years
  • focus of libido is the anus
  • beginning of superego (guilt)
  • potty training
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22
Q

anal stage - overindulgence personality traits

A
  • messiness
  • recklessness
  • disorganisation
    = anally expulsive personality (tend to have a lot of accidents, play with poo)
23
Q

anal stage - frustration personality traits

A
  • stubbornness
  • carefulness
  • preciseness
    = anally retentive personality (tend to hold in a bowel movement, upset over having an accident)
24
Q

five psychosexual stages

A
  1. Oral 2. Anal 3. Phallic 4. Latency 5. Genital
25
Q

phallic stage

A
  • 3-5years old
  • libido focus is the genitals
  • gender identity forms
  • superego fully develops (conscience develops)
  • most important stage
  • in order for a child to successfully move from the phallic stage they need to resolve either the Oedipus complex (male) and Electra complex (female).
26
Q

male phallic stage

A

Oedipus complex:
- a boy becomes sexually attracted to his mother at the age of 3-5
- he wishes to ‘possess’ her and fears his father because he believes that if his father finds out he will castrate him.
- this is known as castration anxiety
- the boy needs to overcome this fear of his father in order to pass successfully through the phallic stage
- he believes that if he can ‘become his father’ he will no longer be fearful of him and his attraction to his mother will no longer be a risk
- in order to ‘become his father’ a boy takes on all his father’s values, beliefs, behaviours and in such ‘internalises’ his father
- once this internalisation occurs a boy discovers he is able to shift his attraction for his mother onto other women with similar characteristics

27
Q

castration anxiety

A

when a boy age 3-5 wishes to ‘possess’ his mother and fears his father will castrate him if he finds out about this desire

28
Q

female phallic stage

A

Electra complex - added by Freud’s student Jung:
- He suggested that girls are initially attracted to their mothers at the age of 3-5
- on discovery that she does not have a penis, girls become angry and resentful of their mothers as they believe it was her fault their penis was ‘cut off’
- this is known as penis envy
- the girl’s attraction is then shifted to her father; she believes he can give her a substitute penis in the form of a baby boy
- the girl needs to overcome the resentment she feels for her mother in order to pass through this stage
- She believes that if she ‘becomes her mother’ and therefore the centre of her father’s attention she will no longer resent her mom
- in order to ‘become her mother’ a girl must take on all of her mother’s values, beliefs, behaviours and in such ‘internalises’ her mother
- once this internalisation occurs a girl discovers she is able to shift her attraction for her father onto other men with similar attributes, behaviours, beliefs.

29
Q

penis envy

A

girls age 3-5 become angry and resentful of their mothers as they believe it is her fault their penis was ‘cut off’

30
Q

result of fixation in phallic stage

A
  • self-assured
  • reckless
  • vain
  • proud
  • difficulties with relationships due to defence mechanisms
31
Q

latency stage

A
  • 5 to puberty
  • the sexual pre-occupation is repressed - hence why we don’t remember these desires
  • no sexual drive - resting phase (energy is put into other things like making friends and school)
  • balance between id, superego, and ego that is greater than at any other time in that child’s life
32
Q

genital stage

A
  • puberty to old age
  • libido is focused on the genitals again
  • formation of opposite sex friendships
  • if little psychic energy is taken up by unresolved conflicts (if a child has passed through all the other stages without becoming fixated) then “normal” relationships (heterosexual) are formed
  • if someone is homosexual (a mental illness) then they identified with and internalised the wrong parent
33
Q

little hans case study

A
  • Freud (1909)
  • analysis of a phobia of a five year old boy
  • used as evidence for the Oedipus complex and the stages of development
  • had a phobia of horses/large penises, desired his mother/was possessive, castration anxiety, interest in feces, etc
34
Q

evidence for castration anxiety in the little hans case study

A
  • mother told him if he didn’t stop touching his penis she would call a doctor to cut it off
  • fear of his father (horses, large penis, black bits around the mouth)
  • father told him his phobia of horses would get better if he stopped touching his penis
  • fantasy that a plumber came and removed his bottom and penis before replacing them with a larger one of each (internalised his father - the big penis)
35
Q

evidence for the complexes in the little hans case study

A
  • asked his mother if she had a penis
  • was jealous of his younger sister (getting attention from his mother)
  • enjoyed getting in bed with his mother
  • big giraffe and crumpled giraffe fantasy
  • fantasy that he was married to his mother
  • interest in the colour of his mother’s underwear
36
Q

evidence for the stages in the little hans case study

A
  • 3 years old (PHALLIC STAGE), active interest in his penis, main theme of his fantasies/dreams was his penis
  • at almost 5, fear of horses (linked to fear of a large penis) aka fear of his father
  • also developed an interest in toilet functions (anal stage - 18months-3yrs): imaginary friend called Lodi after the german word for sausage, son agreed that lodi looked like poo, liked going in the toilet with his mother or the maid
  • could not remember any of the discussions at 19
37
Q

problems with the little hans case study

A
  • subjective
  • generalisation/universality (false claim of it)
  • researcher bias - dad was in regular contact with Freud trying to get an answer
38
Q

defence mechanisms

A
  • Freud proposed that we have unconscious defence mechanisms or ego defence mechanisms to protect the pre-conscious and conscious from distressing, painful, and unpleasant thoughts and feelings (from the unconscious)
  • called ego defence mechanisms because ego uses them to deal with the stress caused by the conflicting demands of id and superego
  • can either push a desire/conflict out of conscious thought or transfer it onto something safer
  • if overused the person can lose touch with reality
39
Q

types of defence mechanisms

A
  • repression
  • denial
  • displacement
  • projection
  • regression
  • reaction Formation
40
Q

repression

A
  • forgetting an unpleasant memory or the strong emotion associated with it
  • eg. people who are victims of childhood abuse often forget large parts of their childhoods
41
Q

denial

A
  • refusal to admit an unpleasant fact
  • eg. when a partner has an affair and the other turns a blind eye to the signs
42
Q

displacement

A
  • Shifting an emotion directed at one person towards another person or object.
  • eg. snapping at a family member when you get home from a stressful day at school
43
Q

projection

A
  • Shifting an undesirable emotion or motive from ourselves onto someone else
  • eg. people who envy someone else often claim that that person envies them
44
Q

regression

A
  • using the comforting behaviours typical of an earlier age
  • eg. rocking when upset
45
Q

reaction formation

A
  • Extreme form of denial. Takes place when we adopt an attitude directly opposed to our real feelings.
  • Eg. being homosexual and in love with someone but bullying them for their homosexuality or appearance of
46
Q

defence mechanisms case study

A

BATEMAN AND HOLMES (1995)

47
Q

Bateman and Holmes case study

A

(1995)
- a man who attended therapy for depression
- when talking about the death of his mother many years earlier, he suddenly remembered that his mother had committed suicide
- this was the first time he had recalled this in his adult life
- once he had retrieved this memory, his symptoms lessened
- Freud called this process CATHARSIS. From a Freudian perspective his depression could be explained by the effort required to keep the memory repressed.

48
Q

Why might the man in Bateman and Holmes’ case study have lessened depression once he remembered about his mother?

A
  • enormous amount of psychic energy to keep a distressing memory repressed
  • once the defence mechanism was no longer needed he went through a process of catharsis.
  • there is no longer a conflict there which allows him to process the event and get better: he can grieve properly and there is a release of psychic energy which allows him to refocus
49
Q

Anna O - Breuer & Freud (1895)

A
  • Anna was nursing her father through a long illness
  • after the first 5 months of caring for him, her own health deteriorated
  • she experienced symptoms such as weakness, a lack of interest in food, becoming bed ridden, headaches, deafness, paralysis of the neck, loss of sensation in the limbs and speech-related symptoms including forgetting words and mutism for 2 weeks.
  • Following the death of her father, Anna’s symptoms worsened. She suffered new symptoms such as prosopagnosia (inability to recognise faces), dissociation, and displayed two personalities.
  • moved to a country sanatorium where she began what she called her ‘talking cure’ (the first recorded reference to the term and marks the birth of psychodynamic therapy)
  • she would talk of the past and would frequently link events to her symptoms
  • eg. she made a connection between her deafness and an embarrassing childhood incident where her brother had caught her listening at her parents’ door one night as they had sex. During this process, the symptom would worsen and then disappear after the focus on it.
50
Q

How did Breuer and Freud explain Anna’s symptoms?

A
  • her frustrated intellectual abilities had led to a build-up of psychic energy
  • the trauma of her father’s illness had triggered a process where this energy was converted into physical symptoms
  • when she talked to Breuer she underwent catharsis and so her symptoms were relieved.
51
Q

strengths of the psychodynamic approach

A
  • has supporting evidence (Anna O and Little Hans)
  • practical applications (talking therapy and understanding importance of childhood)
52
Q

weaknesses of the psychodynamic approach

A
  • ungeneralisable/false claim of universality (case studies - only looked at two people)
  • unfalsifiable (unconscious mind)
  • researcher bias - fits evidence to theories
  • outdated theories - psychosexual stages, homosexuality due to a problem
  • lack of evidence and sample size for the majority of his theories
  • subjective interpretation of evidence
53
Q

explanation of abnormal behaviour in the psychodynamic approach

A
  • fixation on one of the stages
  • identified with the wrong parent
  • unresolved conscious conflict or any major problems in childhood
  • overuse of defence mechanisms
54
Q

treatment of abnormal behaviour in the psychodynamic approach

A

psychotherapy

psychology (15 decks)

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