Psychodynamic Approach

• Proposed by?

  Sigmund Freud
• Defence mechanisms


  strategies to help prevent unconscious thoughts from becoming conscious
• 3 defence mechanisms

  denial, repression, displacement
• 2 parts of the mind

  Conscious and unconscious
• Features of the tripartite personality

  Id, ego, superego
• Id


  Pleasure principle, concerned with immediate gratification
• Ego


  Reality principle, makes decisions and compromises
• Superego

  Morality principle, concerned with how others see and judge us
• Libido


  Basic sexual drive, lust for life
• Oedipus complex

  Around age 6, boys start to feel attracted to their mother, feel jealous of their father and fears that his father will punish him for his thoughts by castrating him
• Psychosexual stages

  Oral, anal, phallic, latent, genital
• Oral stage

  Age 0-2, the child only has Id and explores the world through their mouth
• Anal stage

  Age 2-5, the child develops the ego and pleasure comes from either holding on or letting go
• Phallic stage

  Age 5-7, the child develops the superego and goes through the Oedipus or electra complex
• Latent stage

  Age 7-11, development is intellectual and social rather than personality
• Genital stage


  From puberty, individual has a complete personality and develops adult sexuality
• Little Hans - aims


  - to give a boy therapy for his fear of horses

  - to provide evidence for Freud's theory of psychosexual stages
• Little Hans - participant


  Case study of a 5 year old boy called Little Hans who had a phobia of horses
• Findings from the Little Hans case study

  - He liked getting into bed with his mother and going to the toilet with her

  - had a fantasy where his mother was his wife and had children with him

  - had a dream about a big giraffe (his father) and a crumpled giraffe (his mother), the big giraffe called out when Hans took the crumpled giraffe away

  - he fears pale horses with black rings around their eyes - his father is white and wears glasses

  - he fears castration - mother told him his widdler would be cut off if he didn't stop playing with it
• Conclusions from the Little Hans case study

  - his fear of horses represents a fear of his father

  - his fear of being bitten by a horse represents a fear of castration
• Dream analysis

  Interpreting the meanings of dreams
• Insight


  Bringing unconscious thoughts and feelings into the conscious mind
• Catharsis


  Talking about or dealing with negative emotions and memories
• Dreams as wish fulfilment

  The Id is most important when analysing dreams as they are the source of or wishes and fantasies - in dreams the Id has more freedom so dreams can be a source of wish fulfilment
• The symbolic nature of dreams

  The content of dreams are often expressed symbolically - if we dream what we actually desire it can cause anxiety
• Manifest content


  The content as experienced by the dreamer
• Latent content

  The real meaning of the dream
• Dora's dream

  At age 16, her father's friend made sexual advances towards her and her father refused to believe her. He began to have a recurring dream where her father woke her in the night to tell her the house was on fire, and her mother wanted to stop for a jewel case but her father refused to stop
• Wolf-man''s dream

  At age 4 he had a dream where he awoke terrified to see white wolves with fluffy tails in a tree staring at him - as a toddler, her woke and looked through the bars of his cot to see his parents having sex
• Freud's interpretation of wolf man's dream

  The wolves represented his parents and the window represented the bars of his cot, linguistic association between wolves and 'doggy style'. —> wolf man was gay and the dream expressed his wish to perform a sex act in that position
• 2 weaknesses of the psychodynamic approach

  - no scientific backing —> theories such as the Oedipus complex can't be observed directly so have to be inferred

  - false memory syndrome —> can't determine if memories are real or were accidentally implanted by the therapist
• 2 strengths of the psychodynamic approach

  - case study of Dora - went through a traumatic event and then had a dream that represented what happened

  - psychoanalysis has shown to be effective for treating anxiety disorders