The Psychodynamic Approach

• Freud
• emphasis on the role of the unconscious
• behaviour as adults is influenced by our childhood experiences
• abnormal behaviour is because of mental conflicts
• a perspective that describes the different forces that operate in the mind and direct human behaviour
• unconscious mind has biggest influence on personality
• defense mechanisms (repression, denial, displacement) to deal with negative experiences
• sexual energy is present right from birth (libido)
• children are not necessarily aware of their needs/desires
• psychological stages - numerous stages during childhood, in which children seek pleasure form different objects
• to be healthy, we must be successful at each stage (fixation can occur if stage is not completed)

Conscious

• part of the mind that we are aware of
• covers part of the ego and the super ego

Unconscious

• largest part of the mind
• biological drives
• store of repressed memories
• covers all 3 personality structures

Preconscious

• just below the conscious
• part of the mind that holds ideas that we are aware of during dreams and parapraxes
• part of the ego and the superego

Id

• primitave part of our personalities
• operates on the pleasure principle
• needs gratification of its selfish and aggressive demands   

Ego

• works on the reality principle
• mediator between the Id and Superego by using defense mechanisms
• develops around 2 years of age
• logical, rational

Superego

• formed at the end of the phallic stage (5 - 6 years)
• internalised Conscience (sense of right and wrong) vs. Ego Ideal (aim of the ego)
• works on morality principle (child takes on the moral standards of their same-sex parent)
• punishes the ego for wrongdoing (via guilt)

• Ego can suffer anxiety as a result of conflicts between the Id and Superego
• Tactics for reducing anxiety 

Denial

refusal to acknowledge and accept the truth

Displacement

transfer distressing emotions from the actual source of stress to a substitute target

Repression

pushing a distressing idea out of your consciousness into your unconsciousness

Oral

• birth - 1 year
• focus of pleasure is on the mouth to mother's breast
• success = ability to wean off of milk onto solid food
• fixation can lead to unresolved conflicts such as nail biting or smoking

Anal

• 1 - 3 years
• focus of pleasure is on the withholding and expelling of faeces
• success = potty training
• fixation causes personality traits: obsessive (anal-retentive) or messy (anal-expulsive)

Phallic

• 3 - 5 years
• focus of pleasure is on the genitals and stress of castration/penis envy
• success = realising and overcoming the Oedipus/Electra complex
• fixation can lead to phallic personality (reckless, homosexual, narcissistic)

Latency

• 6 years - puberty
• no further psychosexual develoment
• libido is dormant
• sexual energy is displaced (channeled) into schoolwork, friendship, etc
• sexual impulses are repressed

Genital

• puberty - adult
• adolescent sexual experimentation
• sucess = one-to-one relationship with another person
• sexual instinct is directed to our partner's pleasure (unlike the phallic stage)
• Freud believed that fixation at any of the previous stages could lead to 'abnormality' in this stage (e.g altnerative preference over sexual intercourse, homosexuality, etc), although this is not supported in current times!

For

• case studies such as Little Hans and Anna O
• application to effective treatment (psychoanalysis) for depression
• psychoanalysis allows patient to go into their past (unlike CBT)
• comprehensive theory (stages)
• empirical evidence of defense mechanisms and unconscious motivations in behaviour

Against

• gender bias towards males - attempt to apply male concepts to females (with some offense)
• theory has non-testable concepts such as the early psychosexual stages
• culture bias to western cultures - anxious people in China tend to repress/avoid their distressing emotions instead of outward-discussion therapy

• dream analysis (Freudian Symbolism)
• free association (first word that comes to mind)
• projective tests (ink blot tests)

Little Hans

• 5-year old boy with a fear of horses 'falling down and making noises with their hooves' after seeing one collapse and dir in the street
• Freud diagnosed the Oedipus complex
• Hans has a fear of castrastion from his mother telling him the doctor would take it off if he 'played with it'
• Hans was particuarly afraid of white horses with black markings around their mouths (like a white man with a beard/moustache - like his father)
• interpreted that Hans' fear was symbolic for fear of his father castrating him over his feelings towards his mother