The Psychodynamic Approach + Dream Analysis
- Created by: chlopayne
- Created on: 16-04-19 15:00
View mindmap
- The Psycho-dynamic Approach
- Key assumptions
- The influence of childhood experiences
- Events in our childhood influence our adult lives.
- Importance of relationships. Our childhood relationships are a template or adult relationships.
- Psychosexual development. Five stages are oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital. The id, ego and superego develop during these stages.
- Oral stage: 0-18 months. Libido is focused on the mouth - breastfeeding. The child's ego begins to form.
- Anal stage: 18 months - 3. Focused on the anus - toilet training. Ego develops as they learn to delay their gratification. ID has to wait to be satisfied.
- Phallic stage: 3-5. Focus on the genitals, on the opposite sex parent. Ego has formed, superego isn't present. Oedipus complex for boys / Electra complex for girls. Internalistion of their same sex parent which becomes the superego.
- Latency stage: 5-puberty. Not particularly important. Focus on knowledge and understanding the world.
- Genital stage: onwards. Focused on the genitals, but gratification is received from opposite sex, not parents. Adult personality is set, issues in the first stages will be revisited - repressed into unconscious.
- Psychosexual development. Five stages are oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital. The id, ego and superego develop during these stages.
- Importance of relationships. Our childhood relationships are a template or adult relationships.
- Events in our childhood influence our adult lives.
- The unconscious mind
- Our conscious mind is unaware or what thoughts and emotions occur in the unconscious.
- These thoughts and feelings can have an effect on our conscious mind.
- Conscious = what we are currently thinking and feeling - aware of. Preconscious = not currently thinking about but are aware about them. Unconscious = irrational, ruled by pleasure seeing. Unaware of them and how they're affecting us.
- Ego defence mechanisms - repression, displacement + projection. Ego protects itself from unconscious thoughts and feelings.
- Our conscious mind is unaware or what thoughts and emotions occur in the unconscious.
- Tripartite personality
- Our personality is not one united whole, split into three parts - id, ego and superego.
- Freud argued that conflict between these three parts can lead of problems and mental disorders.
- The influence of childhood experiences
- Dream Analysis
- The aim of psychodynamic therapy is to help bring conflicts into the conscious mind to be dealt with.
- Freud claimed one way the mind expresses it's unconscious thoughts is through dreams.
- Main components
- Dreams as wish fulfilment
- Freud believed that all dreams were the unconscious fulfilment of wishes that could not be satisfied in the conscious mind.
- Dreams therefore protect the sleeper (primary-process thought), but also allow some expression to these buried urges (wish fulfi lment)
- The symbolic nature of dreams
- Dreams allow us to fulfil our unconscious wishes and desires, the actual content of a dream is often expressed symbolically.
- Dreams are filtered through layers of symbolism, allowing to fulfil our wishes, but still protecting our conscious from harmful content of the unconscious.
- Dreams allow us to fulfil our unconscious wishes and desires, the actual content of a dream is often expressed symbolically.
- Dreamwork
- The latent content of a dream is transformed into manifest content through the process of dreamwork.
- These are methods used by the conscious to transform wishes and desires of unconscious into symbols so they can be expressed in dreams without causing problems to the conscious mind.
- The latent content of a dream is transformed into manifest content through the process of dreamwork.
- Role of the therapist
- Interpretation of the dream is a tool used to access the unconscious.
- A patients talks the therapist through the actual content of their dream, and the therapist guides the patient in uncovering the unconscious content.
- Interpretation of the dream is a tool used to access the unconscious.
- Dreams as wish fulfilment
- Evaluation
- Effectiveness
- Based his theories on interactions with his patients.
- Methodological issues: research into dreaming is conducted in laboratories. It can be questioned whether the sleep/dream state is as authentic as when under normal conditions,
- Ecological validity is questioned.
- Subjectivity: Interpreting the manifest content and coming up with its underlying meaning (latent content) relies on the subjective interpretation of the therapist
- Ethical issues
- Time consuming - takes many months to get to the root of the problem.
- The therapy is also very expensive, not available on the NHS.
- Due to the cost, it's not accessibly for everyone.
- The therapist takes the expert role, off ering the patient insight into their unconscious, the patient is reliant on the therapist in making progress through the therapy.
- False memory syndrome - a condition in which a person’s identity and relationships are affected by believed but false memories of traumatic experiences.
- Emotional harm - a therapist may guide a client towards an insight or interpretation that proves to be emotionally distressing.
- Although this insight may be necessary for recovery, the distress caused may be greater than the distress that the client is experiencing as a result of current problems.
- Effectiveness
- The aim of psychodynamic therapy is to help bring conflicts into the conscious mind to be dealt with.
- Sigmund Freud 19th century. Challenge the view that mental disorders were caused by physical illness.
- He proposed that psychological factors could cause mental illnesses.
- Evaluation of the approach
- Useful?
- Wide variety of therapies - dream analysis, psychodrama and free association.
- More effective than other forms of therapy, not concerned with current symptoms, but background of a patient.
- Lindgren (2010) followed 134 young adults who had psychotherapy for depression, anxiety or low self-esteem. 18 months later, patients had a reduced level of symptoms.
- An issue is that they are long term and expensive.
- Scientific?
- Doesn't use scientific methods.
- Evidence that childhood experiences affect behaviour but doesn't take into account other factors.
- Freud theory was his ideas.
- Subjective because each psychologic may carry out different research or interpretation.
- Similar research can be carried out but unlikely to find the same results - not reliable.
- It cannot be proven right but also cannot be proven wrong - non-falsifiable.
- Useful?
- Key assumptions
Comments
No comments have yet been made