The Psychodynamic Approach Flashcards
What did Freud say most of our mind was made up of?
The unconscious
What is the unconscious?
A driving force behind our behaviour / personality. It is a vast storehouse of biological drives and instincts that has a significant influence on our behaviour and personality.
What does the unconscious contain?
Threatening and disturbing memories that have been repressed or locked away and forgotten. These can be accessed through dreams or “slips of the tongue”.
What does the unconscious protect?
Protects the conscious self from anxiety and trauma via defence mechanisms.
What does the psychodynamic approach say about the conscious mind?
Our conscious mind is unaware of what thoughts and emotions occur in the unconscious - it is the tip of the iceberg!
What is the tripartite theory of the human mind
The structure of the personality : ID, EGO, SUPEREGO
Explain the role of the ID in the personality
It operates according to the pleasure principle. It is the primitive part of our personality. It is a seething mass of unconscious drives and instincts. It is present at birth, and throughout life, the id is entirely selfish and demands instant gratification of its needs.
Explain the role of the EGO in the personality
The ego operates according to the “reality principle” and is in both the conscious and unconscious mind. The ego uses its cognitive abilities to manage and control the ID and balance its desires against the restrictions of reality and the superego - it manages this by employing defence mechanisms.
Explain the role of the SUPEREGO in the personality
The superego operates according to the “morality principle”, it represents the moral standards of the child’s same sex parent and punishes the ego for wrongdoing through guilt. It is formed at the end of the phallic stage, around the age of 5. It is our internalised sense of right and wrong.
Draw and annotate the iceberg depiction of the human mind. Include the role of the unconscious and the tripartite theory of the human mind.
Define the term defence mechanism
Unconscious strategies used by the Ego to manage conflicts between the ID + Superego
Give some examples of defence mechanisms and explain them
repression - forcing a distressing memory out of the conscious mind
denial - refusing to acknowledge some aspect of reality
displacement - transferring true feelings from true of distressing emotion on to a substitute target e.g. a person or object.
What are the psychosexual stages of development?
Oral
Anal
Phallic
Latency
Genital
Identify the age, description and consequence if unresolved of the oral stage
0-1 years
Focus of pleasure is the mouth. Mother’s breast is the object of desire.
Consequence = Oral fixation = smoking, biting nails, sarcastic.
Identify the age, description and consequence if unresolved of the anal stage
1 - 3 years
Focus of pleasure is the anus. Child gains pleasure from withholding and expelling faeces.
Consequence:
- Anal retentive = perfectionist, obsessive
- Anal expulsive = thoughtless, messy
