psychodynamic approach

• assumptions

  • unconscious activity determines how we behave
  • posses an innate 'drive' that 'energise' our minds to motivate behaviour as we develop through our lives. Fried proposed 5 psychosexual stages
  • unresolved conflict in one of the stages can result in certain behaviours
  • childhood experiences have a sig impact in determining personality in adulthood
• Frued psychosexual stages

  • Oral- 0-1- focus on the pleasure of the mouth, mothers breast desire

  -oral fixation e.g. nail biting, smoking, overeating

  • anal- 1-3- pleasure of the anus, withholding and spelling faeces

  -anal retentive, perfectionist and obsessive

  -anal expulsive, thoughtless and messy

  • phallic - 3-5- pleasure in genital area, child faces Lepidus or electra complex

  -phallic personalty, narcissistic, reckless, possible homo

  • Latency- early conflicts supressed
  • Genital- sexual desire conscious alongside puberty

  -difficulty forming homosexual relationships
• Opedius complex= incestuous feelings toward mother, murderous hatred for father, fear father will catstrate them, suppressed feelings for mother and identify with father
• Electra complex= girls experience penis envy, desire the father, hate mother but eventually give this up and identify with them with desire for baby
• frauds tripartite personality structure

  ID= driving us to satisfy selfish urges e.g. acts according to the pleasure principle, exists from birth

  Ego= acts rationally balancing the id and the superego I .e reality principle

  Superego= concerned with keeping to moral norms i.e morality principle , attempts to control a powerful id with feelings of guilt
• • the ego balances potential conflict between the id and the superego, reduce anxiety. in areas of conflict the ego redirects psychic energy to 'defensive mechanisms'

  Repression= boring an unpleasant thought or desire to the unconscious

  Displacement= directing emotions away from the source/target

  Denial= a threatening though is ignored as if not true

  • abnormal behaviours can also result from these defence mechanisms
• free association= expressing immediate thoughts (unconscious)

  dream interpretation= analysing the latent content of manifest content
• pros of psychodynamic approach

  • considers childhood experiences, accepted the link between childhood experience and adult characteristic, increase plausibility
  • helpful to some people, evidence uproots existence of ego defence mechanisms e.g. repression in case of sexual abuse, allow to be addressed and dealt with in adult life, valuable to society
• con of psychodynamic

  • unscientific, emphasis on the role of the unconscious, links cannot be falsified and scientifically tested, less credible