psychodynamic approach

• mind is made of 3 levels

  conscious- aware of

  preconscious- anything that could be made aware of

  subconscious- outside our awareness
• structure of personality (iceberg)


  ID, ego, superego

  when a balance not achieved = abnormal behaviour occurs from over-developed superego
• ID


  pleasure principle

  • present at birth
  • instincts
  • Basic drives towards sex and aggression
• superego


  morality principle
• ego


  reality principle

  • balances superego and id
• 5 psychosexual stages


  at each stage conflict must be resolved before advancing to the next

  • resolution requires expenditure of sexual energy
• fixation 


  unresolved conflict
• libido


  desire
• oral (0-1)


  • babys libido focused on mouth
  • underfed = oral passive (pessimistic and envious)
  • overfed = oral aggressive (optimistic and full of admiration)
  • fixation = smoking, nail biting and excessive eating
• Anal (1-3)


  • libido focuses on anus
  • pleasure from defecating controlling and restricting bowels
  • parents rules when potty training
  • too harsh = anal retentive (obsessive, tidy)
  • too lax = Anal expulsive (untidy, generosity)
• phallic (3-6)


  • libido focuses on genitals
  • increasingly aware of bodies and genitals of opposite sex
  • anatomical sex differences
  • erotic attraction, rivalry, jealousy
  • oedipus complex = father as competition
  • electra complex = mother as competition
  • fixation = sexual anxiety, male attention approval, women want to dominate men
• latency (6-12)


  • libido is dormant
  • impulses repressed
  • children focus on developing social and intellectual skills
  • fixation = insecure, hard to form healthy relationships, difficulty expressing emotion
• genital (puberty onwards)


  • libido re-emerges
  • directed towards other sex
  • become sexually mature and explore feelings
  • form intimate relationships

  unresolved conflicts = sexual dysfunction, oral instead of intercourse
• repression 


  • unconscious blocking of unacceptable thoughts
  • these thoughts continue to influence behaviour without the individual being aware

  e.g phobia of spiders but can't remember why
• denial 


  • refusal to accept reality to avoid having to deal with any painful feelings associated with event
  • acts as if traumatic things not happened

  e.g alcoholic refuses to admit even though they've been arrested
• displacement 


  • redirecting thoughts and feelings (usually hostile)
  • person feels unable to express them in the presence of the person they should be directed towards

  e.g argument with gf so hit dog
• evaluation: contribution via psychoanalysis

  • has practical application, psychoanalysis was the first attempt to treat mental disorder psychologically and not physically
  • helped clients to deal with everyday problems by providing access to the unconscious, employing techniques such as free association and dream analysis. suggests MH disorder linked to unresolved conflict
  • therefore, psychoanalysis is the frontrunner to modern day talking therapies e.g counselling, beneficial in improving lives of many
• evaluation: idiographic

  • Many of Freud’s theories, most notably the Oedipus and Electra Complexes, were based on data from individual case studies and interviews.
  • The first issue, is that participants selected in case studies often have some kind of special psychological interest, so cannot represent the general population, so the findings lack ecological validity.
  • Secondly, mainly uses qualitative data, means that the researcher draws their own subjective conclusions. susceptible to researcher bias
  • Therefore, Freud’s theories suffer from limited applications and generalisability.
• evaluation: gender bias

  • could be considered androcentric (male-centred) and guilty of imposing alpha bias, assuming there are fundamental differences between males and females
  • e.g. his theories of women and female sexuality were much less developed than his views on men, and that also due to electra being a weaker process that women are less moral than men
  • means that this approach cannot be used to explain the behaviours of females, and therefore the theory should be used with caution when explaining human behaviour