psychodynamic

• Assumptions


  • Unconscious mind (childhood experiences and conflicts)
  • Id-pleasure (birth)
  • Ego reality (age 2)
  • Superego-morality (age 5)
  • Oral (age 0-1)
  • Anal (age 1-3)
  • Phalic (age 3-5)
  • Latent (5-puberty)
  • Genital (puberty-death)
  • Fixation
• Oedipus complex


  Unconscious desire for the opposite-sex parent
• Electra complex


  Unconscious desire for the opposite-sex parent
• Defense mechanisms


  • Denial
  • Repression
  • Displacement
• Case studies

  • Little Hans
  • Anna O (patient with hydrophobia)
• Psychotherapy for hysteria patients

  Past events were forgotten, blocked and suppressed
• Psychodynamic approach

  • Can help mild neurosis
  • Has explanatory powers for personality and gender development
  • Influenced by childhood experiences
• Criticisms of the psychodynamic approach

  • Case studies aren't representative and can't be generalised
  • Psychic determinism (ignores free will)
  • Unscientific approach
  • Unfalsifiable (subjective ideas)
  • Gender bias of Little Hans study