The psychodynamic Approach Flashcards
Describe the assumption of ‘Influence of Childhood Experiences’ In the psychodynamic approach.
Experiences during childhood shape our adult personality. Psychological development in childhood takes place in a series of key development stages. Psychosexual stages- libidio.
There are 5 psycho sexual stages, each associated with a part of the body. Problems at any stage can result in a child fixated at the body part associated at that stage.Leading to an effect on personality.
Eg, frustration = stage has not been resolved, child is under satisfied.
Over indulger = needs of child are more than recognised, child is reluctant to move onto the next stage.
Describe the assumption of ‘The unconscious mind’ In the psychodynamic approach.
The mind is like an iceberg, much of what goes on inside the mind lies under the surface. There is a precocious and conscious mind. The conscious mind is logical, unconscious is not. It cannot be directly accessed, but expresses itself through dreams. The unconscious mind determines much of our behaviour. Motivated by unconscious emotional drives. Freud believed the unconscious mind contains unresolved conflicts which can have an irrational, powerful effect on our behaviour and experience.
Describe the assumption of ‘Tripartite Personality’ In the psychodynamic approach.
Freud believed the adult personality is structured into 3 parts that develop at different stages in our lives.
* ID: the impulsive and unconcious part of our personality, is present at birth. Demands immidite satisfaction.
* Ego: The concious, rational prt of the mind that dvelops around age 2.Works out realistic ways of blncing the demands of the id in a socially acceptable way.
* Superego: Last part of our personality to develop, 4 years. Embodies the childs sense of right and wrong.
ID and superego are often in conflict.
Using your knowledge of the psychodynamic approach explain how a relationship is formed.
- Defense mechanisms - forming a relationship in adulthood may bring up childhood emotions. People may use ego defense to avoid anxiety. eg, someone in denial about exuality may use relationships which are not in line with their true feelings.
- Explaining the formtion of paerent-child relationships.
- ‘Bowlby’- develop the ‘maternal deprivituon hypothesis’. The ability to form meaningful social relationships in adulthood was dependent on close, warm and continuous reltionship with the mother in early childhood. This reltionship acts as a prototype for all future relationships.
Describe the main components of dream analysis.
- Dreams as wish fullfilliment, all dreams were the unconcious fulfilliment of wishes that could not be satisfied in the concious mind. So drems protect the sleeper, but also allow some expression to these burried urges.
- Symbollic nature of dreams. Freudsays, although dreams represent unfullfilled wishes, their contents are expressed symbolliclly. The real meaning of a dream ( latent content) is transformmed into a more innocous form ( manifest content). A psychotherapist is trained to interpet these symbols. eg, female genitals may be represented by a tunnel.
- Dreamwork, latent content of a drenm is transformmed into manifest content through the process of dream work. Condensation displacement, representation symbolism and secondary elabortion. Applied to represent wishes to produce the content that drem experinced.
- Therapists role is toop reverse dreamwork process, to decode manfest content back to latent content. ‘suggestions’ patient can select those that make sense.
Evaluate the use of dream analysis in terms of effectiveness.
- Research evidence- ‘solms (2000) used PET scans to hghlight the regions of the brain active during dreaming. Rational part of the forebrain is inactive during REM. But the centres conmcrned with memory and motivation are very active.
- Methodological issues- research is conducted in sleep laboritries. ‘Artificial’ can lack ecological value. Humans are deprived of sleep. Will impair impotant biologicl functions such as the secretion of hormones.
- Subjective interpretatrion, interpeting the manifest content and coming up with its underlying meaning relies on the subjective interpetation of the therapist so may not be reliable.
Evaluate the use of dream analysis in terms of ethical issues.
- therapist- client relationship, potential power imbalance between the therapist and patient. Therapist takes expert role, patient is relient on the therapist in making progress, lead to over dependense on the therapist. Time and cost.
- False memory syndrome- a persons identity and relationships are effected by strongly belived but false memories of traum. Can come to light when the therapist clims to have uncovered PTE. Patients may experince anxiety to events that did not happen.
- Emotional harm- therapist may guide a client towards an insight or interpretation that prooves to be emotionally distressing. Distress caused may be greater than the distress the client is experiencing.
Describe the aims of ‘Bowlby (1994)’
Too see if distubed criminal behviour was caused, at least part, by the prolonged seperation of children from their mothers.
Describe the methodology of ‘Bowlby (1994)’
- Case study
- Was a control group but was not a experiment
- finl analysis looked t an assocition between the 2 groups of pps and exeriences of seperation
- Focus of the study:The thieves
- 44 theives = 44 case studies
- comparison group of 44 non- deliquent children to compare
- The 44 thieves= 44 children, stealing was a problem, over half younger thn 11, 31 boys + 13 girls, aged 5 to 177. Binet scale was used to asses childrens intelliegence.
- Seriousness of stealing was also measured.
- Control group- 44 children from same clinic had not stolen.
- The mothers- mothers of both control group and thieves were involved. Gave background info on the children and their case historys.
Describe the procedures of ‘Bowlby (1994)’
- Initial examination- sample obtained by oppurtunitie sampling. On arrival at clinic each child was given mental tests by a psychologist to assess their intelliegence.
- noted childs emotional attitude.
- At the same time the social work interviewed the mothr and recorded preliminary details of the childs psychitric history.
- Psychiatrist interviewed the child and mother
- after the 2 hour exam, the tem considered school and other eports and discussed their conclusions.
- Therapy: Many of the children continued to meet with the psychiatrist weekly over a period of 6 months or more.
- Mother talked over their problems.
- These meetings and discussions enabled a detailed case history to be recorded, and enabled the psychiatrist to diagnose the childs emotional problems.
What were the findings of ‘Bowlby’ (1944)?
- Catogrised into 6 groups ‘personality types’. Only 2 normal. Diganosis- normal =2, depressed = 9, cicrular =2, hyperthymic = 13, affectionless = 14 and schizoid = 4.
- The affectionless character: Were no affectionless characters among the controls, strong association between affectionless characters and stealing. 13 out of 14 of the affectionless theives were grade 4 theives. Other 1 was grade 3..
- Of these 14 affectionless characters, 12 had experienced frequent seperation from their mothers. 30 non affectionless theives, only 3 had experinced seperations.
- Overall 17 theives experinced early seperation, remaining 27 thieves:17 had mothers who were ‘either extremelly anxious,irritible or fussy or else were rigid, omineering and opressive. Unconcious hostility.’
- 5 of the 27 had fathers who hated them, also reported by the non- deliquent group.
- such early experinces might explin emotional problems but not deliquency.
What are the conclusions of ‘bowl by’ (1944)
-A conclusion to be drawn is that the children would not have become offenders if they had not had experiences that were harmful to healthy development.
- Bowlby subscribed to the psychoanalytic view that early childhood experiences are of vital importance late in life.
Particular experience with the relationship with mother can lead to emotional development. It is proposed that the damage to this relationship would effect the development to the superego. Therefore, reduced morality.
- Implications for treatment: If the findings for this study are correct. The implication is that treatment should be offered to deliquents. Preferable approach is prevention rather than treatment.
Critically evaluate ‘Bowlby (1994)’ in terms of methodology and procedures.
- No casual findings- no variable manipulated to draw the conclusion that prolonged seperation caused the emotional problems experienced by the thieves. Only a relationship is demonstrated not a causation.
- Biased data: Bowlby produced a rich record of qualitive data on each pp. Based on extensive interviews,but the data is limited because it is based on the view of one person. Perceptions may have been biased by own beliefs.
- The sample: All the childen in the sample were emotionally disturbed, may not be appropriate to generlise data from this sample to all.
- Alternative evidence has shown there is a sensitve part of development, a lack of emotional care before the age of 6. ‘Case of romanian orphans- rutter and souga,2010.)
Critically evaluate ‘Bowlby (1994)’ in terms of ethical issues.
- confidentility and privacy- pps were not affected confidentially. Report gived their first names and initial letter of their last name. Case study provides considerable detail of their lives. Not clear the extend to which the familiys were aware of this information.
- Valid consent- Where children are involved in research, it is usualy accepted that paerents are asked to provide valid consent. - appears from the article data was collected as a routine part of treating patients at the clinic, decision to use the data was retrospective.
- Report was published 5 years later- difficult to recieve consent after this time.
What are the advantages of the Psychodynamic Approach?
- Nature vs Nuture- takes into account both sides. Freud claimed that adult personality is the product of innate drives (nuture). And childhood experiences ( nuture).
- Usefullness- highlights that childhood is a criritla stge in development, helps understand mental health problems, ideas have greatly influenced the therapies used to treat mental disorders.
- Reflects the complexity of human behaviour- freuds explanations reflect the complexity of human behaviour and experience. ‘hollistic’ recognises that human behaviour is influenced by multiple factors which cannot be seperated.
