psychodynamic

• psychodynamic approach 


  + Freud advocated the use of dream interpretation to help us understand whats in the unconscious mind and why its affects us

  -tends to lose sight of the role of socialisation and the possibility of free will
• psychodynamic 


  causes of behaviour lie within the unconscious mind
• psychoanalysis 


  a term used to describe the personality theory and therapy associated with freud
• the id - the pleasure principle 


  the unconscious set of instincts that we are born with that is selfish
• the superego - the morality principle 


  the moral part of the personality concerned with right and wrong, evokes guilt
• the ego - the reality principle 


  the rational part of the mind that tries to compromise between the demands of the id and superego
• defence mechanisms


  unconscious strategies that protect our conscious mind from anxiety
• repression 


  forcing a distressing memory out of the conscious mind but still have an unconscious impact on behaviour
• denial 


  refusing to acknowledge some aspect of memory as if the traumatic event never happened
• displacement 


  transferring feelings from true source of distressing emotion onto a suitable target
• oral stage 


  0-2 focuses on the mouth
• anal stage 


  2-3 focuses on the anus
• phallic stage 


  3-6 focuses on the genitals
• latent stage 


  6-puberty
• genital stage 


  puberty + focuses on forming heterosexual relationships
• oedipus complex 


  • boy develops sexual desires for his mother, wants to get rid of his father

  • boy develops castration anxiety during the phallic stage

  • boy copies his dads masculine type behaviours to resolve the oedipus complex (identification)

  • boy takes on the male gender role and adopts an ego ideal and values that become superego
• electra complex 


  • the girl briefly desires her father but realises she does not have a penis

  • this leads to the development of penis envy and the wish to be a boy

  • the girl resolves this by repressing her desire for her father and substituting the wish for a penis with the wish for a baby

  • the girl then represses her feelings and identifies with the mother to take on the female gender role
• issues and debates

  • freuds ideas demonstrate a significant gender bias

  • psychoanalytic theory has been criticised for being culturally biased

  • suggest an individual does not have free will over their behaviour and instead is under the influence of psychic determinism
• strength - Freuds frequent use of case studies

  • consists of many case studies to research and gather information about individuals
  • offered Freud the opportunity to unveil rich, detailed information about a situation
• weakness - case studies aren't a reliable method of investigation

  • case studies can contain researchers own subjectivity and bias e.g. personal experiences, opinions or assumptions
  • can result in difficulty to distinguish what is objective and factual
• weakness - lacks empirical evidence

  • caused by the approach not using controlled experiments to collect empirical evidence
  • is considered less scientific than other approaches
• weakness - non-falsifiable

  • although theories appear to reflect evidence you cannot directly observe the individuals
  • mainly the unconscious mind cannot be observed directly to test them scientifically