Psychodynamic

• Assumptions

  • The psychodynamic approach focuses on the dynamics of the mind
  • Freud believed that the unconscious mind has an important influence on behaviour, e.g. innate drives such as Eros (sex/life drive) and Thanatos (death/self destructive drive)
  • The approach says that we are in a constant state of conflict at the unconscious level. There is a battle between different parts of our psyche. This can result in anxiety that needs to be released.
  • It looks at the importance of early childhood on later development, e.g. fixation, during one of the stages can influence adult personality
• Freud likened our minds to an iceberg. Most of our minds are made up of the unconscious and works at the unconscious level.
• Conscious mind: just the thoughts/ feelings that we are aware of

  Preconscious mind: just under the surface of awareness, contains memories that we can access if we want to

  Unconscious mind: makes up most of the mind and is below the surface of awareness, a vast storehouse of biological drives and instincts that has an impact on our behaviour and personality. Eros/ Thanatos are there, etc innate drives. It contains traumatic memories as well as the primitive desires and impulses that have been repressed. These memories may cause distress and so the mind uses the defence mechanisms to lock them away and prevent the person being aware of them.
• Structure of the personality:

  • Id - based on the pleasure principle. Present at birth. The primitive and selfish part of the personality that seeks immediate gratification. Contains our innate drives, such as Eros and Thanatos.
  • Ego- based on the reality principle. Develops around the age of 2. Acts as a mediator between the other two parts of the personality and reduces conflict between the superego and the Id. It adopts defence mechanisms to manage conflict.
  • Superego - based on the morality principle. Develops around the age of 5. It is our internalised sense of right and wrong. It represents the moral standards that the child has developed from the same sex parent. It punishes the ego for wrongdoing.
• The ego has a difficult time meeting the demanding needs of the superefo which causes it to seek help in the form of defence mechanisms. However, these can involve a distortion of reality and if used long term, can be considered unhealthy and undesirable.
• Defence Mechanisms

  • unconscious strategies that help the ego to protect our conscious mind from anxiety

  Repression- forcing a distressing memory out of the conscious mind and locking it away in the unconscious

  Denial- refusal to accept a part of reality

  Displacement - transferring/ redirecting any thoughts/ feelings to someone else because the person may feel unable to express them in the presence of the person that they should be directed towards
• Psychosexual stages

  • Personality development occurs through 5 psychosexual stages
  • Tension builds up due to sexual energy and pleasure comes from releasing it.
  • Each stage besides latency has a conflict that must be overcome in order to resolve conflict and progress to the next stage
  • Fixation is where a child stays too long in one stage and does not develop/carry over into the next
• 1. Oral. Age 0-2. Mouth is the source of pleasure. Over or under breastfeeding can lead to an oral fixation.
  2. Anal. Age 2-3. Ego development begins with an awareness of reality. The anus is the source of pleasure through withholding or releasing faeces. The major issue is toilet training.
  3. Phallic. Age 3-6. Source of pleasure from the genitals. Oedipus in boys and electra in girls.
  4. Latency. Age 6-12. Earlier conflicts are repressed and the mastery of a child's world begins as they develop defence mechanisms.
  5. Genital. Age 12+. Sexual desires become conscious when puberty starts. Sexual energy fixed on genitals leading to adult sexual relationships.
• Consequences of unresolved conflict

  • orally aggressive - verbal aggression, sarcastic and biters
  • orally receptive - dependent on others, pleasure from eating, drinking and smoking
  • anally retentive - very clean, perfectionists, stubborn, stingy
  • anally expulsive- disorganised and overly generous
  • phallic- vanity, narcissism, show off
  • gential fixation - normal. a well adjusted adult
• Oedipus complex

  • boys go through it
  • unconsciously directing their libido (sexual drive) towards their mother around the age of 5
  • father is in the way and boy wants him out of the way
  • boy fears father and suffers from castration anxiety
  • boy resolves this with identifying with his father and by doing so he acquires the moral part of his personality and adopts male behaviour like his father
• Electra complex

  • girls go through this
  • initially girls resent their mothers when they realise that they do not have a penis
  • girls suffer from penis envy and desire their fathers
  • they give up this desire over time for fear of losing their mothers love
  • all this is resolved when they identify with their mothers which results in gender behaviour like the mother
  • Freud proposed that girls do not get it as bad as the boys which means that he believed women were less moral
• Little Hans (1909)

  • used a case study to investigate Little Hans who was afraid of horses and getting bitten by them
  • involved a variety of techniques- letters from father and also meeting Little Hans himself and getting information about his dreams
  • one dream involved a plumber fitting Little Hans with a bigger widdler
  • Freud saw Hans' phobia as an expression of the Oedipus complex. Horses were symbolic to his father. The black harness was the moustache and the horse was a symbol due to its large penis.
  • the dream was suggestive of Little Hans overcoming his castration anxiety and identifying with his father
• A03

  • Support for some aspects of the theory from Little Hans case study. The case study supports the claims due to Hans being at the right age to process through the phallic stage and showed behaviour consistent with the Oedipus complex.
  • HOWEVER this was a single case study and the only child Freud treated which means that it is a unique study and therefore not generalisable to the wider population.
• A03

  • No real scientific evidence which suggests that this approach lacks scientific rigour.
  • The complexes and the psychosexual stages are immeasurable concepts and so cannot be refuted.
• A03

  • Value as Freud's methods of gaining insight has been implemented into psychoanalysis and in other talking therapies, e.g. dream analysis looks at symbolic meaning to understand depth of content.
  • Has had a massive impact on counselling psychology as psychoanalysis was the first talking therapy
• A03

  • Freud has been criticised for being sexist. The theory sees women as morally inferior and experiencing penis envy
  • Karen Horney criticised Freud of lacking crediblity and argued that it would be more reasonable for females to suffer from status envy as they witness males that have much more power in society than females.
  • Females envy the power rather than the penis.
  • She observed that male genitals were regarded by Freud as the only significant organ and argued him to be phallocentric. She argued that his theory, was at best, in complete, as she observed males suffer womb envy