Psychology - Psychodynamic approach - Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths and Weaknesses 

Strengths

Nature and nurture

One strength of the psychodynamic approach is that it takes into account bother side of the nature - nurture debate. Freud claimed that adult personality is the product of innate drives and childhood experiences. These innate drives include the structures of personality, as well as the psychosexual stages that every child passes though. In each of these stages, frustration or overindulgence may lead to a fixation on that stage and predictable adult personality characteristics. Freud theory therefore considers the influence of nature and nurture. The interactionist nature of this approach is a key strength.

Usefulness 

The psychodynamic has proved to be useful in several ways. 

• It highlights the fact that childhood is critical period in development; who we are and become is greatly influenced by our childhood experiences.
• Ideas put forward by Freud have greatly influenced the therapies used to treat menatl disorders. Freud was the first person to recognise that psychological factors could be used to explain physical symptoms such as paralysis. Psychoanalysis has been widely used to help people overcome psychological problems…