psychodynamic

• Key assumptions of the Psychodynamic Approach

  • Unconscious activity is the key determinate of how we behave.
  • We possess innate ‘drives’ that motivate behaviour as we develop
  • Our three-part personality – the psyche – is comprised of the ID, ego and superego. And is developed through 5 psychosexual stages
  • Childhood experiences have significant importance in determining our personality when we reach adulthood.
• • ID – driving us to satisfy selfish urges (i.e. acts according to the 'pleasure principle') (exists from birth).
• • Ego - acts rationally, balancing the ID and the superego (i.e. acts according to the 'reality principle') (develops years 2-4).
• • Superego – concerned with keeping to moral norms (i.e. acts according to the ‘morality principle’), and attempts to control a powerful ID with feelings of guilt (develops years 4-5).
• The Oedipus Complex - Freud's theory that boys experience sexual desire towards their mother which they must repress due to fear of castration by father. This leads to identification with father and development of masculine identity.
• what are the 5 psychosexual stages?

  Oral , anal , phallic , latency , genital
• • Repression – burying an unpleasant thought or desire in the unconscious
  • Displacement – emotions are directed away from their source or target, towards other things
  • Denial – a threatening thought is ignored or treated as if it were not true
• three defence mechanisms?


  repression

  displacement

  denial
• Example of repression?


  traumatic childhood experiences may be repressed and so forgotten
• example of displacement?


  shouting at a spouse after a bad day at work
• example of denial?


  wife might find evidence that her husband is cheating on her, but explain it away using other reasons
• research methods used in this approach?

  • Free association – expressing immediate [unconscious] thoughts, as they happen
  • Dream interpretation – analysing the latent content (i.e. underlying meaning) of manifest content (i.e. what was remembered from the dream).
• Strengths

  • Freud highlighted a widely accepted link between childhood experience and adult characteristics.
  • Case study methodology embraces our complex behaviour by gathering rich information, and on an individual basis – an idiographic approach – when conducting research.
  • Some evidence supports the existence of ego defence mechanisms such as repression, e.g. adults can forget traumatic child sexual abuse (Williams, 1994).
  • Modern day psychiatry still utilizes Freudian psychoanalytic techniques.
• Weaknesses

  • Freud's approach overemphasises childhood experience as the source of abnormality
  • using case studies to support theories - the approach does not use controlled experiments to collect empirical evidence, so is considered far less scientific than other approaches.
  • Case study evidence is difficult to generalise to wider populations.
  • Many of Freud's ideas are considered non-falsifiable – theories may appear to reflect evidence, but you cannot observe the relevant constructs directly (namely the unconscious mind) to test them scientifically, meaning they could be proved wrong.
• Methods used? psychodynamic

  Subjective case studies
• treatment and application psy

  psychoanalysis to access the unconscious was the first form of psychotherapy and was very influential.

  talking therapies
• nature or nurture? psychodynamic

  both. result of innate drives, but shaped by early experiences
• nomothetic or idiographic? psychodynamic

  both. aims to create general laws like the complexes, but uses case studies
• free will or determinism? psychodynamic

  psychic determinism. behaviour is controlled by unconscious drives and early childhood experience