The Psychodynamic Approach Flashcards
What does the psychodynamic approach focus on?
Studying how the unconscious psychological processes shape behaviour
Who was the psychodynamic approach founded by?
Sigmund Freud
What are the three aspects of the mind?
- Conscious
- Preconscious
- Unconscious
What’s the conscious?
Our awareness
What’s the preconscious?
Thoughts/memories that can be recalled but not currently in conscious awareness
What does the unconscious contain?
It’s not open to awareness and contains socially unacceptable thoughts, painful emotions, and drives/instincts and memories that are repressed
What’s the ID?
The pleasure principle, present from birth, focused on satisfying its own needs and desires
What’s the ego?
The reality principle, developed from two years, focused on balancing the ID and the superego with rational thought
What’s the superego?
The morality principle, developing between 3-5 years, focused on obeying learnt rules of society and uses guilt
What are defence mechanisms?
Unconscious processes that reduce anxiety felt by the ego, by distorting reality
What are the three defence mechanisms?
- Repression
- Denial
- Displacement
What’s repression?
Making memories inaccessible to consciousness
What’s denial?
Refusing to accept the reality of a situation
What’s displacement?
Moving emotions from the source to an alternative
What are the psychosexual stages?
- Oral (0-18 months)
- Anal (18 months-3 years)
- Phallic (3-6 years)
- Latent (6-puberty)
- Genital (puberty-adult)
