psychodynamic approach

• Psychosexual Stages

  Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latent, Genital
• oral

  (0-2) - pleasure derived from mouth

  unresolved = oral fixation eg smoking
• anal

  (2-3) - pleasure comes from being in control of own bowels

  unresolved = anal retentive (obsessive behaviours) or anal expulsive (messy and thoughtless)
• phallic

  (3-6) - pleasure comes from genitals

  unresolved = phallic fixation or a need to assert gender identity (toxic masculinity)
• latent

  (6+) - earlier conflicts are repressed
• genital

  (puberty+) - puberty awakens sexual desires

  unresolved = issues forming relationships
• psychodynamic approach

  behaviour is determined by unconcious forces, eg childhood experiences that shape the way you act
• oedipus complex

  little boys develop incestuous love towards their mother and murderous hatred to their rival in love - their father. They internalise these feelings out of fear their dad will castrate them, then identify with their dad and adopt their values
• defence mechanisms

  used by the EGO to cope with the conflicting demands of the ID and SUPEREGO
• repression

  traumatic memories are forced into the unconcious
• denial

  refusal to accept the truth of a situation and pretending nothings happened
• displacement

  feelings towards a target individual cannot be expressed therefore transferred to something else
• structure of personality

  the conscious - small amount of mental activity we know about

  the preconscious - things we could be aware of or access if we wanted to or tried

  the unconscious (or psyche) - areas of our mind we are unaware of and cant access. it is split into the ID, EGO, and SUPEREGO
• tripartite structure of personality

  ID (pleasure principle) - selfish and wants its desires met instantly

  EGO (reality principles) - tries to balance the competing desires of the ID and SUPEREGO

  SUPEREGO (morality principle) - our sense of right and wrong. urges us to do the right thing and punishes us with guilt if we dont
• reaction formation

  our unconcious prevents us from showing our true feelings to something as it may be deemed unsafe or unacceptable
• little hans

  case study of a five year old boy who had a phobia of horses. Freud suggested this phobia was a result of displacement of his repressed fear of his dad and castration.
• latent and manifest motives

  freud believes everything we do is a result of our motives

  latent - real reasons we have for doing something ( in the unconcious)

  manifest - lies we tell ourselves about the reasons we behave the way we do
• electra complex

  little girls experience penis envy. they desire their dad and hate their mum.

  they forget this desire later on and replace it with a desire for a baby, identifying with their mum as a result
• AO3 psychodynamic

  not very empirical and therefore works off of inferences, making it hard to scientifically measure.

  contradicted by biological approach
• AO3 psychodynamic

  denies free will, therefore contradicted by humanistic approach
• AO3 psychodynamic approach

  supporting evidence from little hans

  however case study = issues with generalising
• AO3 psychodynamic

  real life applications = psychoanalysis

  psychoanalysis - a therapy that aims to treat mental conditions by investigating the interaction of conscious and unconscious elements in the mind and bringing repressed fears and conflicts into the conscious mind by techniques such as dream interpretation and free association