Psychodynamic

• Our behaviour and feelings as an adult are largely rooted in our early childhood experiences. Our early experiences of relationships with other people are of particular importance. Our behaviour, personality, motivations and feelings are influenced by unresolved conflicts in the unconscious mind.
• The Structure of the Mind

  Freud believed that the unconscious mind contains unresolved conflicts and has a powerful effect on our behaviour. He argued that many of these conflicts would show up in our fantasies, dreams and anxieties. He believed psychoanalysis would reveal these conflicts and bring then to the conscious mind to be dealt with.
• The Structure of Personality

  Freud proposed there are 3 components of our personality, that have unconscious conflict:

  • The id focuses on our pleasure and what we want, it is present from birth,
  • The superego focuses on morality and socially acceptable behaviour,
  • The ego aims to balance the 2 other forces.
• Defence Mechanisms:

  When the id and superego are in conflict the ego may have to use defence mechanisms to prevent severe anxiety. These are unconscious and we are unaware we are using them e.g. displacement.
• Stages of Psychosexual development

  A child ages they progress through the psychosexual stages such as the oral stage, phallic stage and the anal phase. If they fixate/ get stuck in a specific stage they will face problems later in life. The phallic stage is when a child's libido is focused on the opposite sex parent. They feel attraction towards the opposite sex parent while they envy and fear the same sex parent. For boys this is the Oedipus complex.