evaluation

• what is weakness

  -pa can be very psychic deterministic.

  -freud believed that in relation to human behaviour that there was no such things as an accident.

  -even something as random as a slip of tongue is driven by unconscious forces and has deep symbolic meaning
• What would this imply?

  -that humans lack free will and therefore have no control over their own behaviour.

  -this directly contradicts the humanistic approach which states humans have free will
• What is another weakness? (testable?)


  -argued that freud theories are untestable and therefore according to karl pooper do not the meet the criteria to be considered scientific

  -many of freuds concepts such as defence mechanisms cannot be tested.

  -according to popper this makes psychodynamic approach a pseudoscience rather than real science.
• however what could one argue about defence mechanisms


  -have intuitive appeal

  -some evidence to support the existence of DM's e.g case studies of people who are unable to recall upsetting events
• what is a strength (huge influence)

  -although freuds theory is controversial in many ways and occasionally bizarre it has nevertheless had a huge influence on psychology and western contemporary thought

  -alongside behaviourism the pa has been a dominant force in psychology and has been used to explain a wide range of phenomena including personality development abnormal behaviour development and gender
• what is the approach also significant for


  -in drawing attention to connection between experiences in childhood such as parental relationships and later development
• What is a weakness (pop validity)


  -freud's theory was based on intensive study of single individuals who were often in therapy e.g. little hans

  -although freud's observations were incredibly detailed and carefully recorded crticis have suggested it is not possible to make universal claims about human nature based on studies on such a small number of individuals who were deemed psychologically abnormal

  -therefore results are not able to generalised to the wider pop and lacks pop validity
• what is a strength


  -in support it does have useful applications especially in therapy

  -most therapies are based on ideas put forward by freud the idea that we should talk about deep rooted issues to resolve them

  -many therapies such as relate marriage guidance counselling are based on therapies suggested by this approach

  -lindgren (2010) found psychoanalysis to be effective with young adults