Psychodynamic approach

• ID - the basic animal part of the personality that contains our innate, aggressive and sexual instincts. It wants to be satisfied by whatever means possible, and obeys the 'pleasure principle'.

  It accounts for unreasonable behaviour and appears at birth.
• EGO - exists in both the conscious and unconscious parts of the mind and acts as the rational part known as the 'reality principle'. It develops within the first three years after birth and balances the ID and the superego to keep our behaviour in line.
• SUPEREGO - this is both the conscious and unconscious parts. This is both the part of the mind that takes our morals into consideration and is involved in making us guilty. It develops around four to five years of age. It includes ideas about how to behave that we adopt from our parents.
• conscious -this is what we are aware of at any given time.
• Preconscious - this is made up of memories that we can recall when we want to.
• unconscious - this is made up of memories, desires and fears which causes us extreme anxiety and therefore have been 'repressed' and forced out of the conscious awareness. However, the unconscious still influences behaviour, e.g. Freudian slips.
• repression - repression involves the ego stopping unwanted and possibly painful thoughts from becoming conscious.
• denial - denial is where a threatening event or an unwanted reality is simply ignored and blocked from the conscious awareness.
• displacement - displacement happens when a negative impulse is redirected onto something else.
• conflicts can develop between different parts of the personality.
• there can be conflict between the ID and the superego because the ID wants instant satisfaction, whilst the superego tries to impose morals. These conflicts can lead to anxiety and its the ego's job to resolve this by unconscious defence mechanisms.
• ORAL STAGE - 0-18 months, sucking behaviour.
• ANAL STAGE - 18 months -3.5 years, keeping or discarding faeces.
• PHALLIC STAGE - 3.5-6 years, genital fixation.
• LATENT STAGE - 6 years-puberty, repressed sexual urges.
• GENTITAL STAGE - puberty - adult, awakened sexual urges.
• Strengths of the Psychodynamic approach:

  • offers methods of therapy
  • places emphasis on how experiences in early childhood can affect later development
  • one of the first approaches to suggest that mental disorders may be linked to biological consequences and biological needs
  • was the first theory to focus on the psychological causes of disorders.
• Weaknesses of the Psychodynamic approach

  • based on dreams, subjective and open to bias
  • Freuds theories are based on the unconscious mind which can't be accessed, therefore theories are unfalsifiable.
  • Psychoanalysis may take a long time and be very expensive
  • focus is on the patients pass not their current suffering
  • can't be generalised
  • unscientific therefore it is not possible to apply cause and effect
• Method (Little Hans) - Freud carried out a case study on a child called little hands who had a phobia of horses. Hans was observed by his father, who made notes of Han's dreams and stuff he said, and passed them on to Freud for analysis.
• Results (Little Hans) - Hans was afraid of horses because he was scared that they would bite him or fall on him. During the study he developed an interest in his penis, his mum had to tell him not to play with it or she would cut it off. Hans told his dad a dream where he was married to his mother and his dad was now his grandmother.
• Conclusion (Little Hans) - Freuds interpretation was that Hans had reached the phallic stage of development and showed evidence of the 'Oedipus complex' - he wanted to have an exclusive relationship with his mother and was jealous of her father. The horse symbolised Hans's father, partly because of the large penises but also because of the blinkers resembling glasses.
• Hans's fear of horses is an example of displacement, a defence mechanism which protected him from his real fear of his father. He also suffered from castration anxiety. He was afraid that he would be castrated by his father if he found out about his feelings for his mother, this was symbolised by Hans's fear that the horse would bite him.
• Evaluation of Little Hans:

  • case study - lots of detail about one subject, cannot be generalised
  • cause and effect relationship can't be established due to results based entirely on observation and interpretation.
  • And there could be other explanations for his fear.
  • freud analysed info from Hans's father so results could be biased.
• What type of experiment was Moscovici's study?

  Laboratory experiment
• Why does Moscovici's study lack ecological validity?

  The task was artificial
• How might participants have perceived the task in Moscovici's study?

  As a trivial exercise
• What limitation does the gender composition of the study present?

  Results cannot be generalized to men
• What does the use of a control group in the study indicate?

  Participants were influenced by the minority
• What was the alternative method used in a similar experiment?

  Participants wrote down the color
• What was the outcome of the alternative method in the similar experiment?

  More people agreed with the minority
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of Moscovici's study?

  Strengths:

  • Control group used for comparison
  • Demonstrates minority influence

  
  

  Weaknesses:

  • Lacks ecological validity
  • Gender bias in participants
  • Task perceived as trivial