A03
Cards (6)
- What are the strengths of the psychodynamic approach?
- Explanatory power
- What are the limitations of the psychodynamic approach?
- Gender-biased
- Untestable concepts
- Case study method
- Strength = explanatory power
- Used to explain a wide range of phenomena such as personality development, abnormal behaviour and is significant in drawing attention to connection between experiences in childhood and later development
- e.g. studies on attachment in childhood have been shown to influence relationships in adulthood
- Gerard McCarthy (1999) found type of attachment of adult woman had when they were children had impacted their relationships as an adult
- Limitation = gender bias
- Freud's views of women and female sexuality are less well developed than views on male sexuality and so he remained ignorant of female sexuality and how it may differ from male
- Karen Horney criticised Freud's views on women and their development
- She targeted the concept of penis envy and the fact that Freud had framed the personality development of girls in terms of men
- Put forward theory of 'womb envy' - men secretly harboured feelings of inferiority at their inability to nurture and produce human life
- Limitation = untestable concepts
- Karl Popper - psychodynamic approach does not meet scientific criterion of falsification (it is not open to empirical testing)
- Many of Freud's concepts are said to occur at unconscious level, making them difficult if not impossible to test as they are not directly observable
- This means there is little objective evidence to support the approach
- Limitation = case study method
- Freud's theory based on the intensive study of single individuals who were often in therapy
- It is not possible to make such universal claims about human nature based on the studies of such a small number of individuals who were psychologically abnormal
- Freud's interpretation is highly subjective
- e.g. Little Hans - highly unlikely that another researcher would have drawn the same conclusions