psychodynamic approach

• what is the psychodynamic approach ?

  focuses on unconscious activities affect on our behaviour
• what are the parts of our personality ?

  id , ego , superego
• what is the id ?

  • driving us to satisfy selfish urges
  • pleasure principle
  • exsists from birth
• what is the ego ?

  • acts rationally
  • reality principle
  • balances id and superego
• what is the superego ?

  • acts as our conscience - feelings of guilt
  • morality principle
• what are the psychosexual stages ?

  1. oral
  2. anal
  3. phallic
  4. latency
  5. genital
• what is the oral stage ?

  focus - mouth ( sucking etc )

  deviate - weaning off breastfeeding

  fixation - smoking and overeating
• what is the anal stage ?

  focus - anus

  deviate - toilet training

  fixation - orderliness / messiness
• what is the genital stage ?

  focus - genitals

  deviate - resolving opedius and electra complex

  fixation - deviancy , sexual dysfunction
• what is the latency stage ?

  focus - none dormant sexual feeling

  deviate - developing defence mechanisms

  fixation - none
• what is the genital stage ?

  focus - maturation of sexual interest

  deviate - reach full sexual maturity
• what are the defence mechanisms ?

  repression , denial and displacement
• what is repression ?

  forcing a distressing memory out of the conscious mind eg traumatic childhood
• what is denial ?

  refusing to acknowledge some aspects of reality eg denying something when shown proof
• what is displacement ?

  transferring feelings from true source onto a substitute target eg punching a wall when upset
• what is the evaluation of the psychodynamic approach ?

  • widely accepted link between childhood experience and adulthood characteristics
  • psychiatry still uses freuds research
  • case study evidence is difficult to generalize
  • freuds ideas are non falsifiable