Psychodynamic

• Assumption 1


  The unconscious mind
• Assumption 2


  The tripartite personality
• Assumption 3


  Influence of childhood experiences
• The unconscious mind 


  • Iceberg analogy - 80% of our mind is unconscious
  • the preconscious and unconscious mind
  • conscious mind is logical, this isn't & is ruled by pleasure seeking
  • can't be directly accessed, expresses itself indirectly - through dreams
  • Freud believes it determines much of our behavior
  • contains two conflicting drives within it - Eros and Thanatos
• Eros


  • the libido
  • determines behaviors that seek sexual gratification, love and companionship
• Thanatos


  • the death drive
  • instinct that leads to self destructive, violent, aggressive behaviors
• Ego defence mechanisms


  • related to the unconscious mind
  • lead to abnormal behaviour
  • can cause psychiatric illness when overused
  • conflicts between the id, ego and super ego
  • the ego protects itself through defence mechanisms
  • Displacement
  • Projection
  • Repression
• Displacement


  transfer of impulses from one person/object to another (usually a less threatening one)
• Projection


  undesirable thoughts are attributed to someone else
• Repression


  pushing pushing memories deep into the unconscious mind so the appear forgotten
• The tripartite personality

  • adult personality is structured into 3 parts:
  • id
  • ego
  • super ego
• The id


  • inborn
  • unconscious and impulsive
  • governed by the pleasure principle
  • aims to gain pleasure/gratification at any cost
• The ego


  • develops at age 2
  • conscious and rational
  • governed by the reality principle
  • works out realistic ways to balance the demands of the id in a socially acceptable way
• The super ego


  • develops at age 4
  • unconscious
  • governed by the morality principle (sense of right and wrong, our conscious)
  • formed through identification with our parents and others
• The tripartite personality 


  • id and superego often in conflict
  • ego resolves the conflict
  • if the super ego or id are left unchecked their desires can be reflected in behaviour
• Influence of childhood experiences

  • Freud believed experiences during childhood shaped our adult personality
  • believed development in childhood took place during a series a key developmental stages - the psychosexual stages
  • each stages represents a fixation of libido (translated as sexual drives/desires)
  • problems at any stage can result in a child getting fixated (stuck) at the associated body part to the stage
  • fixation can occur through:
  • overindulgence
  • frustration
• frustration


  the stage hasn't been resolved because the needs of the child haven't been met, the child is undersatisfied
• overindulgence


  the needs of the child have been more than satisfied, the child feels too comfortable and is reluctant to move on to the next stage
• The psychosexual stages


  • oral
  • anal
  • phallic
  • latency
  • genital
  • OAPLG
• oral stage


  • 0-18 months
  • source of libido: mouth (sucking, chewing, biting, swallowing)
  • key events: breastfeeding, weaning onto solid food
  • frustration: pessimism, envy, sarcasm
  • overindulgence: optimism, neediness, gullibility
• anal stage


  • 18 months-3 years
  • source of libido: anus (withholding, expelling, playing with faeces)
  • key events: potty training
  • frustration: stubborn, possessive, overly tidy
  • overindulgence: disorganised, messy, reckless
• phallic stage


  • 3-5 years
  • source of libido: genitals (masturbation)
  • key events: Oedipus complex leads to the super ego and gender identity
  • outcome of fixation: vain, self assured, may have problems with sexuality and difficulty building/maintaining relationships in adulthood.
• latency stage

  • 5 years-puberty
  • source of libido: little/no sexual motivation
  • key events: acquiring knowledge and understanding of the world
  • outcome of fixation: no fixation so no pleasure focus
• genital stage

  • puberty onwards
  • source of libido: genitals (heterosexual intercourse)
  • no key events
  • outcome of fixation: well developed adult personality, well adjusted (if the complexes during the phallic stage are resolved)
• Dream analysis


  "dreams are the royal road to the unconscious mind" - Freud
• Eros - The Life Drive


  • deals with basic survival, pleasure and reproduction
  • includes instincts such as thirst, hunger and pain avoidance
  • energy created by the drive is call the libido
  • focuses on the preservation of life ( of the individual and species)
  • compels people to engage in actions that sustain their own lives (looking after your health, safety)
  • exerts itself through sexual drives motivating people to reproduce
  • Freud said it was opposed by a self destructive death instinct
• Thanatos - The Death Drive


  • freud believed people mainly channeled this outwards, which manifested as agression towards others
  • if directed inwards it could result in self-harm or suicide
  • based this on clinical observations - people who had experineced a traumatic event often revist/recreate it
  • soilders who retuned from WW1 tended to revist their traumatic experiences in their dreams, which took them back to the combat
  • from these observations he conculded people hold an unsconsious desire to die but life instincts largely controlled this wish, so eros and thanatos are in conflict
• psychodynamic reasoning behind dream analysis


  • psychiatric illness is caused by an overuse of ego defence mechanisms (e.g destructive behaviours associated with thanatos)
  • dreams are symbolic of unfulfilled wishes and desires created by the id which may be rooted in childhood experinces of the dreamer
  • it aims to make unconscoius desire conscious again so they can be resolved by undoing the dreamwork process to achieve catharsis
• catharsis


  process of releasing, and providing relief from strong/repressed emotions
• dreams are wish fulfilment


  • freud believed dreams were the unconscious fulfilment of wishes that couldnt be satisfied in the conscoius mind
  • dreams protect the dreamer but allow some expression to these buried urges (wish fulfilment)
• symbolism in dreams


  • freud believed the contents of a dream was expressed symbolically
  • latent and manifest content
  • psychoanalysists are trained to interpret the symbols (a penis may be a snake or gun)
  • to understand the meaning of dream symbols fully it needed to be considered in the context of the patients life (a fish may represent a friend who is a fisherman)
  • recognised not everything in a dream is symbolic
• Latent content 


  • the real meaning of a dream
  • transfered into the manisfest content
• Manisfest content

  • what you actaully experince in a dream
  • latent content is translated into a more innocous (harmless) form (manifest content)
• Dreamwork


  • the process of the latent content of a dream being translated into the manifest content of the dream
  • the processes are applied to repressed wishes to produce the content of the dream experienced
• role of the therapist


  • to reverse the dreamwork process (decode the manifest content back into the latent content)
  • should offer various interpretations so the patient can select those that make sense based on their feedback and knowlege of their life experiences
• Condesnation


  • creates the dream: 2 or more images/associations are combined into one object in the dream
  • undone: seperating objects in the dream into two or more objects to reveal their true meaning
• Displacement


  • creates the dream: censores dream content(traumatising images made into less threatning ones)
  • undone: working out which dream objects are symbolic of those that actually cause anxiety
• Representation


  • creates the dream: thoughts are translated into visual images in the dream
  • undone: visual images translated back into thoughts
• Symbolism


  • creates the dream: symbol replaces an action, person or idea
  • undone: considering what the real meaning is behind each symbol
• Secondary elaboration


  • creates the dream: unconscoius mind takes the symbols and other imahes to creat a logical storyline (Manifest content)
  • undone: re-ordering the wish fulfiling images to uncover the obscured latent content