Psychodynamic Approach

• All behaviour can be explained in terms of inner conflicts in the mind
• Freud highlights the role of the unconscious mind, the structure of personality and the influence of childhood experiences on later life 
• Freud believed that the unconscious mind determines most of our behaviour and we are motivated by unconsciour emotional drives 

• Id: biological instictive drives, present at birth, motivated by the pleasure principle, demands instant gratification
• Ego: developes age 1-3, motivated by reality principle, mediates conflicts between id and superego, uses defence mechanisms to achieve this 
• Superego: develops 3-5 years, morality principle, punishes the ego with guilt
• Dominant superego may lead to depression
• Dominant ID may lead to psychosis e.g. SZ 

• The conscious: we are aware of it and can access without effort, contains part of the ego
• The preconscious: We cannot access it without effort , contains the ego and some of the superego
• The unconscious: can't be accessed without the help of a psychoanalyst, contains superego and Id

• Repression: used by the ego to keep disturbing memories in the unconscious mind where they can't be accessed 
• Displacement: an impulse is redirected from an original target onto a more acceptable one 
• Denial: the existence of unpleasant realities is denied and kept out of conscious awareness 

Oral: source of pleasure is mouth, failure to complete stage leads to oral fixation e.g. smoking, aggression

Anal: source of pleasure is anus, failure to toilet train can lead to obeseesiveness and tidiness or untidiness and generosity

Phallic: source if pleasure is genitals, fixation on this stage can lead to unusual relationship with parent, vanity, self-obsession, sexual anxiety

Latent: sexual drives are repressed, focus on same sex frienships and sports etc

Genital: The genitals e.g sex, fixation should lead to a mentally healthy adult 

• Provided the basis for many psychological therapies 
• Can be used to explain mental disorders such as depression and SZ although they are rarely used in mainstream psychology 
• Concept of importtamce of childhood on later life has been very influential 

• Practical applications
• Importance of childhood 
• Recognises social and cultural factors as the way out innate drives are expressed is shaped by our environment 

• Abstarct concept which are difficult to test experimentally
• Case studies e.g Little Hans lacks population validity 
• Unstructured interviews are biased due to interpretation
• Unfalisifiable 
• Disempowers individual as they aren;t responsible for the disorders 
• Can't explain biological symptoms e.g. enlarged ventricles in SZ 

• Strongly deterministic
• Nature and nurture
• Reductionist
• Nomothetic e.g. structure of mind, idiographic as thy manifest differently in the individual