Psychodynamic Theories

• Freud Psychoanalysis:

  Strengths:

  • The theory points to the importance of early socialisation and family relationships in understanding criminal behaviour
  • Psychoanalytic explanations have had some influence on policies for dealing with crime
• Freud Psychoanalysis:

  Limitations:

  • Critics doubt the existence of an ‘unconscious mind’- how could we know about it, if its unconscious?
  • Psychoanalytic explanations are unscientific and subjective- they rely on accepting the psychoanalysts claims that they can see into the workings of the individuals unconscious mind to discover their inner conflicts and motivation.
• Bowlby Maternal Deprivation:

  Strengths:

  • Bowlby‘s research showed that more of his sample of 44 juvenile delinquents had suffered of maternal deprivation (39%) than a control group of non-delinquents (5%)
  • His work shows the need to consider the parent-child relationships in explaining criminality
• Bowlby Maternal Deprivation:

  Limitations:

  • It was a retrospective study, where delinquents ans their mothers had to accurately recall past events. This can be a problem especially if it involved in recalling emotive experiences
  • Bowlby accounts for the delinquency of 39% of the children in terms of maternal deprivation but doesn’t explain why the other 61% were delinquent. Deprivation cannot be the only cause
  • Bowlbys own later study of 60 children who had been separated from their parents for long periods before they were 5, found no evidence of affection-less psychopathy.
• Bowlby Maternal Deprivation:

  Limitations (2):

  • Bowlby overestimates how far early childhood experiences has a permanent effect on later behaviour. This is also a criticism of Freud
  • Sammons and Putwain note that the idea of a link between maternal deprivation and criminality is no longer widely accepted.