psychodynamic

• inadequate superego can lead to immoral behaviour

  - Freud's psychodynamic approach suggests that the superego is guided by the morality principle leading to feelings of guilt for wrongdoing

  - Blackburn (1993) argued that if the superego is inadequate then the Id is given 'free rein' - an uncontrolled Id means that offending behaviour is inevitable
• weak superego (absence of same-sex parent)


  - during the phallic stage the superego is formed through the resolution of the Oedipus complex

  - if the same-sex parent is absent during this stage, a child cannot internalise a fully-formed superego as there is no opportunity for identification which would make offending behaviour more likely
• deviant superego (child internalises deviant values)


  - a child internalises the same-sex parent's moral attitudes to form their superego

  - if these internalised moral attitudes are deviant this would lead to a deviant superego and to offending behaviour
• over-harsh superego (committing crimes satisfies need for punishment)


  - an excessively punitive or overly harsh parent creates a child who has an over-harsh superego and the child is crippled by guilt and anxiety

  - this may drive the individual to perform criminal acts in order to satisfy the superego's overwhelming need for punishment
• the role of emotion

  the psychodynamic approach deals with the emotional life of the individual and its role in offending, unlike other theories of crime

  emotions (e.g. anxiety) guide moral behaviour
• maternal deprivation and affectionless psychopathy

  - Bowlby (1944) argued that a warm, continuous relationship with a mother-figure was crucial to future relationships, well-being and development

  - a loss attachment in infancy could lead to affectionless psychopathy and increased likelihood of delinquency
• 44 juvenile thieves study supports Bowlby's maternal deprivation hypothesis

  - Bowlby (1944) found that 14 of the 44 thieves showed signs of affectionless psychopathy - 12 of these had prolonged separation from their mothers in infancy

  - in a control group, only two thieves had experienced prolonged separation
• strength


  P - research support for the link to the superego

  E - Goreta (1991) conducted a Freudian-style analysis of ten offenders referred for psychiatric treatment. In all those assessed, disturbances in superego formation were diagnosed

  E - each offender experienced the need for punishment manifesting itself as a desire to commit acts of wrongdoing and offend

  L - this evidence seems to support the role of psychic conflicts and an over-harsh superego as a basis for offending

  COUNTERPOINT

  - if this theory were correct we would expect harsh, punitive parents to raise children who often experience guilt. Evidence suggests that the opposite is true, such children rarely express guilt (Kochanska et al. 2001)

  - this calls into question the relationship between a strong, punitive internal parent and excessive feelings of guilt within the child
• limitation of Freudian theory

  P - gender-biased

  E - psychodynamic theory assumes girls develop a weaker superego than boys - they do not experience castration anxiety, so have less need to identify with their mothers

  E - however there are 20 times more men than women in prison and Hoffman (1975) found no gender differences in children's moral behaviour

  L - suggests there is alpha bias at the heart of Freud's theory and means it may not be appropriate as an explanation of offending behaviour
• limitation of Bowlby's theory


  P - based on an association

  E - Lewis (1954) analysed 500 interviews, with young people, maternal deprivation was a poor predictor of future offending and the ability to form close relationships in adolescence

  E - even if there is a link there are countless other reasons for it e.g. maternal deprivation may be due to growing up in poverty

  L - suggests that maternal deprivation may be one of the reasons for later offending behaviour, but not the only reason