AO3

• Practical application in the real world: psychoanalysis is designed to access the unconscious mind using a range of techniques such as hypnosis and dream analysis. It is most suitable for individuals suffering from mild neuroses but has been criticised as inappropriate for people with severe mental disorders eg schizophrenia. However psychoanalysis is the forefunner to many modern-day psychotherapies.
• Freud relied upon an idiographic approach to develop his ideas, using a small number of case studies eg Little Hans. Critics have suggested that it is not possible to make universal claims about human nature based on such a limited sample. Although Freud's observations were detailed and carefully recorded, his interpretations were highly subjective and it is unlikely any other researcher would have drawn the same conclusions. Therefore in comparison with approaches eg Behaviourism, his methods lacked scientific rigour.
• The concepts of the personality (id, ego, superego, etc) are very abstract and difficult to test experimentally. They cannot be directly observed and inferences drawn about human behaviour are often open to alternative explanations. This means the methods lack objectivity.
• This theory is not falsifiable as if people behave in the way predicted by the theory it is viewed as support, but if they don't it is argued that they are using defence mechanisms.
• Deterministic as it rejects the idea of free will. A person's behaviour is determined by their unconscious motives which are shaped by their biological drives and their early experiences.
• It recognises the influence of social and cultural factors as it proposes that we are driven by innate, biological instincts (nature) but that the way they are expressed is shaped by out social environment (nurture).
• Free will/Determinism - It is strongly deterministic as it views our behavior as caused entirely by unconscious factors over which we have no control.
• Nature/Nurture - recognises the influence of social factors but also argues that we are driven by innate biological instincts, represented by the Id (nature), but the ways these instincts are expressed is shaped by our social and cultural environment (nurture). So it is interactionist.
• Holism/Reductionism - The psychodynamic approach is holistic as all areas of an indvidual’s behaviour are taken into account.
• Idiographic/Nomothetic - Both. Freud argued that human behavior is governed by universal processes that apply to everyone e.g. the tripartite structure of the mind (nomothetic) however, he also proposed that the ways in which these processes manifest themselves in the individual is unique (idiographic)