psychodynamic theory

• psychodynamic explanation

  • focuses on the phallic stage of development, between ages 3 - 6
  • prior to this stage children have no concept of gender identity, in the phallic stage the focus of pleasure is the genitals and it is within this stage that children experience the oedipus or the electra complex - these are crucial for gender identity
  • identify with same-sex parent as means of resolving conflict this involves taking on attitudes and values of same-sex parent a process known as internalisation
• oedipus complex

  • in the phallic stage boys develop incestuous feeling towards their mother
  • have a hatred for their father for this reason
  • recognises his father is more powerful than he is and fears he may be castrated by his father for his feelings towards his mother leading to castration anxiety
  • to resolve this conflict the boy gives up his love for his mother and identifies with his father, this identification is strong as the fear of castration is strong
• electra complex

  • in phallic stage girls experience penis envy, seeing themselves and their mother as being in competition for their father's love
  • girls resent their mothers for two reasons: mother is a love rival, mother is blamed by daughter for having no penis
  • over time girls realise they will never have a penis and substitute penis envy with the desire to have children identifying with their mothers as a result
• strength (oedipus 8)

  • support for oedipus complex in gender development
  • freud explained for boys normal gender development depends on being raised by at least one male parent. rekers and morey rated the gender identity of 49 boys aged between 3-11 years based on interviews with their family and the children themselves, of those who were judged to be gender disturbed 75% had neither their biological father or substitute father living with them
  • suggests being raised with no father may have negative impact on gender identity - in line with freuds theory
• limitation (electra 8)

  • does not give adequate account of women's development
  • much of the theorising on girls development was done by carl jung, freud admitted women were a mystery to him and his notion for penis envy has been criticised as reflecting the androcentric era during which he lived where men had more power, a feminist psychoanalyst argues that a more powerful emotion is mens womb envy - a reaction to a women's ability to nurture and sustain life, argues penis envy was a result of cultural rather than biological factors
  • alpha bias, challenges idea that womens gender development is formed on a desire to want to be like a man
• limitation (both?)

  • lacks scientific credibility
  • using subjective case study of little hans as evidence for oedipus complex, many concepts such as penis envy are untestable because they are largely unconscious, contrasts with other explanations of gender that are based on objective evidence from controlled lab studies, freuds theory is pseudoscientific and key ideas are not falsifiable
  • questions validity of theory
• limitation (both?)

  • cannot explain how gender identity develops in all types of family
  • theory relies on having two parents of different genders so they are able to manage the oedipus and electra complexes effectively, being raised in a non-nuclear family will have an adverse effect on a child's gender development, evidence does not support this assumption, research shows that children from single parent families go on to develop normal gender identities, study of 37 children who were raised by gay or transgender parents and discovered that only one had gender identity that was described as non-typical
  • limited in what it can tell us about gender identity