Psychodynamic approach

• Key assumptions:

  • Male dominated society, conservative and int he 1960s
  • Sigmund Freud -key pioneer
  • We possess innate 'drives' that 'energize' our minds to motivate behaviour as we develop through our lives
  • Our (3 part) personality -the psyche- made of ID, ego, superego
  • Childhood experiences have significant importance in determining our personality when we reach adulthood
• Behaviorist approach:

  • Didn't believe the mind could be studied
  • Scientific method
  • Causes of behaviour was stimulus-response Psychodynamic:
  • Interested in unconscious mind
  • Didn't follow scientific method
  • Causes of behaviour lay in childhood experiences & unconscious drive/mind
• The iceberg analogy:

  • believed most of our everyday actions and behavior are not controlled conscious but the product of the unconscious mind
  • believed the mind actively prevents traumatic memories from the unconscious from reaching conscious awareness
  • These memories may cause anxiety, therefore the mind uses defence mechanisms to prevent the person becoming aware of them, become suppressed
• Common defence mechanisms:

  • Unconscious help to fell less overwhelmed
  • Repression- forcing a distressed memory out of the conscious
  • Denial- refusing to acknowledge some aspects of reality
  • Displacement- transferring feelings from the source of distressing emotion onto another target
• Structure of the personality:

  Tripartite

  • ID- unconscious elfish needs, develops at birth, selfish principles
  • Ego- balances ID & superego , ties to reduce conflict, develops at age 2, reality principle
  • Superego- moral compass, right or wrong, handles guilt& wrongness, develops at age 5, morality principle
• Psychosexual stages of development:

  • Oral (0-2)- mouth, tongue ,lips- weaning off breastfeeding/ formula, adult fixation= smoking, overeating
  • Anal (2-3)- anus- toilet training, adult fixation= messiness, orderliness
  • Phallic (3-6)- genitals- resolving Oedipus+ Electra complex, adult fixation= deviancy & sexual dysfunction
  • Latency (6-12)- none- developing defence mechanisms, no adult fixation
  • Genital (12+)- genitals- reaching full sexual maturity, adult fixation= sexual and mental health decline.
• Oedipus complex- during phallic stage boys develop incestuous desire to be with their mothers and have a murderous hatred for their father. Boys take the role of their father.

  Also said girls of the same age experience pens envy, they desire their father.

  Little Hans- 5yr boy who developed a phobia of horses after seeing one collapse. Freud suggested his phobia was a form of displacement in which his repressed fear of his father was transferred onto horses.
• AO3:

  • Strength- pioneering approach on treating mental health disorders. Freud was ground-breaking in suggesting the influence of the unconscious mind and this affected how psychology developed. E.G. there were new explanations for disorders such as depression and anxiety and these were treated through the psychoanalysis, which is a therapeutic technique used today. Real application
• AO3:

  • Limitation- has only 1 case study as the basis of it's theory. e.g. Little Hans study to support the Oedipus complex. Suggests that Han's fear of horses was actually a displaced fear towards his father. This can't be applied to others which means it lacks in population validity and generalisability
• AO3:

  • Limitation- criticised for being gender-biased. very androcentric ideas as it was at a time were males dominated. Freud focused many of his theories on male views and sexuality to the neglect of females. Went as far to say that females were morally inferior to males. This could be due to his ideas being based during a period of time where there was much greater gender inequality than there is today. Lacks temporal validity, different views on women in today's world