Psychodynamic Explanations

• Psychodynamic explanations of crime

  •Whilst Freud didn’t address offending behaviour himself, other researchers have attempted to some of his key concepts to offending.•Psychodynamic explanations are a group of theories influenced by the work of Freud which share the belief that unconscious conflicts (innate drives), rooted in early childhood and determined by interactions with parents drive future offending behaviour.
• •Two psychodynamic explanations of crime are:–The inadequate superego–Maternal deprivation theory
• The inadequate superego

  •The superego is formed at the end of the phallic stage of psychosexual development when children resolve the Oedipus/Electra complex. Children internalise the superego of the same-sex parent.•It works on the morality principle and exerts its influence by punishing the ego through guilt for wrongdoing, whilst rewarding it with pride for moral behaviour.•Blackburn (1993) argued that if the superego is somehow deficient or inadequate then offending behaviour is inevitable because the id is given ‘free rein’ and isn’t properly controlled.
• The weak/underdeveloped superego

  •If the same-sex parent is absent during the phallic stage, the child cannot internalise a fully-formed superego as there is no opportunity for identification. I.e. the superego is weak.•This would make offending behaviour more likely because they have little control over anti-social behaviour and is likely to act in ways that gratify their instinctual id impulses.
• The deviant superego

  •If the superego that the child internalises has immoral or deviant values (e.g. a child with a criminal parent), this would lead to offending behaviour because the child may not associate wrongdoing with guilt.•
• The over-harsh/overdeveloped superego

  •A child may internalise the superego of a very strict same-sex parent.•Therefore, they develop an excessively harsh superego.•This means that the individual is crippled by guilt and anxiety most of the time because any time the person acts on their id impulses, they would feel bad.•This may (unconsciously) drive the individual to offend with a wish to be caught in order to satisfy the superego’s overwhelming need for punishment and reduce their feelings of guilt.
• The 44 thieves study

  Procedure: They used a sample of 44 criminal teenagers who were accused of stealing. The participants were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy: characterised as a lack of affection, lack of guilt about their actions and lack of empathy for their victims. Their families were also interviewed to establish if there was prolonged early separation (deprivation) from their mothers. A control group of 44 non-criminal teenagers, with emotional problems were all assessed to see how often maternal deprivation occurred to the children who were not thieves.
• The 44 thieves study

  Results: 14 out of the 44 thieves were affectionless psychopaths and 17 out of the 44 had maternal separation. Of the 14 that were affectionless, 12 also had experienced prolonged separation (deprivation) in the first two years of life. In the control group 2 out of the 44 had maternal separation but 0 out of the 44 were categorised as affectionless psychopaths.