The Psychodynamic Approach
- Created by: Ellieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
- Created on: 06-06-19 21:54
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- The Psychodynamic Approach
- Main Assumptions
- All behaviours can be explained in terms of inner conflicts of the mind
- Freud highlights the importance of the unconscious mind, the structure of personality and the influence that childhood experiences have on later life
- Freud believed that the unconscious mind determines most of our behaviour and that we are motivated by unconscious emotional drives
- Structure of the personality
- Id (pleasure principle) - selfish part of the personality and gets what it wants
- Ego (reality principle) - mediates between between the other two parts - manages demands of the id and superego through defence mechanisms
- Superego (morality principle) - our sense of what's right and wrong respresents moral standards of the child's same-sex parent and punishes the ego for any wrong doing
- Defence Mechanisms
- To reduce the anxiety of conflicts between the id and the superego we use defence mechanisms
- Repression - forcing the memory out of the mind
- Denial - refusing to acknowledge some aspect of reality
- Displacement - transferring feelings from true source to a substitute target
- Denial - refusing to acknowledge some aspect of reality
- Psychosexual Stages
- Oral Stage - pleasure from oral stimulation - dependancy or aggression - problems with drinking, smoking, eating
- Anal Stage - primary focus on controlling bladder and bowels - eliminating and retaining faeces - anal expulsive vs anal retentive
- Phallic Stage - Primary focus on genitalia differences between male and female - child becomes rival for affection of opposite sex parents (Oedipus complex) - sexual deviences or confused sexual identity
- Latency Stage - Sexual desires pushed to background, Focus on intellectual and social pursuits - Important stage for development of communications skills and self-confidence
- Genital Stage - Sexual desires renewed - seek relationships with others - Problems that emerge are carried over from earlier stages
- Main Assumptions
- Evaluation
- Reductionist - pins behaviour down to the unconscious mind and therefore excludes the idea of free will - too simplistic to explain human behaviour
- Relies on untestable concepts as the theory is not falsifiable and therefore is seen as a pseudoscience rather than an actual science as seen by Karl Popper
- Case Study - Example - Little Hans - idiographic approach - small sample size, lacking population validity
- Real life application - psychoanalysis which is a psychological therapy used based on the psychodynamic approach - increases external validity
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