Psychodynamic

• Sigmund Freud

  • Mind made of id (pleasure principle), ego (reality principle/mediator), and superego (morality/societal rules ect)
  • Defence mechanisms of repression, denial, and displacement
  • Personality developed through psychosexual stages: Oral (0- 2 yrs), Anal (2-3 yrs), Phallic (3-6 yrs), Latent (6-12 yrs), Genital (12+yrs)
• • A pioneering approach to behaviour, focusing more on observation than introspection
• • Though lacks falsifiability, has scientific proof like Fisher and Greenberg (1996), analysed 2500 psydy studies and said they compare well to other areas of psychology (mainly defence mechanism studies)
• • Gender biased approach, mainly only focused on men's sexuality, not women's
• • Culture biased approach, Sue and Sue (2008) argue lack of relevance for non-western nations (psydy psychologists emphasis importance dealing with trauma while in East it is common to repress)
• • Psychoanalysis is a comprehensive theory (eg, can be applied to Hamlet Oedipally)