Psychodynamic

• Key elements of the psychodynamic approach:

  Early experiences - innate drives

  Maternal deprivation theory
• Maternal deprivation theory - Bowlby - Prolonged separations between a mother and a child would have long term, emotional consequence If this happens before the age of 2, and there is no mother substitute. There is a continuing risk until the age of 5. A consequence is affectionless psychopathy.
• Affectionless psychopathy - lack of normal affection, shame, sense, responsibility
• 44 thieves study - 14 / 44 thieves showed characteristics of affectionless psychopathy. 12 / 14 of these had prolonged separation from their mothers. Maternal deprivation caused affectionless and delinquent behaviour
• The Superego is likely related to offending behavour, it embodies our conscience and sense of right and wrong. A healthy superego is kind but firm. If it is inadequate then an individual will have a little control over anti social behaviour and be more likely to act in ways gratifying the id.
• An inadequate superego can be:

  Weak

  Deviant

  Over harsh
• Weak superego - same sex parents are absent during the phallic stage, so child does not internalise a fully formed super ego, there is no parent to successfully identify with.
• Defiant superego - a child may be raised by a criminal parent, meaning the superego internalises deviant behaviour
• Over harsh superego - excessively harsh and focused on punishment, leading to a heightened sense of guilt and anxiety and an unconscious drive to commit crime in order to satisfy the superego need to be punished.
• AO3. The psychodynamic approach is the only explanation for offending behaviour that takes emotion into consideration. Usually a key criticism of explanations in psychology is that certain factors are overlooked, for example cognitive explanations missing out how emotion affects behaviour. The psychodynamic approach addresses this and includes how anxiety or feelings of rejection can contribute to offending behaviour.
• AO3. The findings of the 44 juvenile thieves study may not prove anything. All it showed is that an association between separation and emotional problems, but there may be other variables. For example, discord in the home that caused the separation between mother and child and also caused the affectionless nature of the children. It may be that the affectionless children cause the separation, like a “ difficult “ child may be more likely to be placed in care.
• AO3. There is real world application to the maternal deprivation theory. Bowlby concluded that delinquency could be prevented. Treatment of emotional problems in delinquents is slow and difficult, so he suggested that the problem can be prevented by avoiding early separation in the first place. He demonstrated that emotional seperation is important, not just physical seperation. Children can cope well with parental seperation if they have alternative emotional care.
• There is gender bias in Freud‘s theory. It proposed that women should develop a weaker superego because they don’t identify as strongly with their same sex parent as boys do. Freud believed that there was little reason for someone to identify with a woman because of her lower status. This presents alpha bias, amplifying the difference between men and women, and devaluing women. If this theory was correct, we would see more women as criminals than men, but this is not the case
• There are many factors involved in juvenile delinquency. Bowlby acknowledged this, however it wasn’t included in the theory. Farrington ( 2009 ) conducted a longitudinal study and found that the most important risk factors for offending at a young age were family history of criminality, daring or risk taking personality ( Eysenck ), low school attainment, poverty, poor parenting ( psychodynamic ). This shows that that more can be included in the approach.