The psychodynamic approach

Psychodynamic approach

- A perspective that describes the different forces (dynamics), most of which are unconscious that operate on the mind and direct human behaviour and experience.

The role of the unconscious

• Freud suggested that most of our mind is made up of this; it is a vast storehouse of biological drives and instincts that has a significant influence on our behaviour and personality.

• It also contains threatening and disturbing memories that have been repressed or locked away and forgotten. These can be accessed during dreams or through 'slips of the tongue'.

• Under the surface of our conscious mind is the preconscious, which contains thoughts and memories which are not currently in conscious awareness but we can access if desired.

Id

- The primitive part of our personality. It operates on the pleasure principle - it gets what it wants. It is a seething mass of unconscious drives and instincts. Only this is present at birth. Throughout life it is is entirely selfish and demands instant gratification of its needs.

Ego

- Works on the reality principle and is the mediator between the other two parts of the personality. It develops around the age of two years and its role is to reduce the conflict between the demands of the other two parts of the personality. It manages this by employing a number of defence mechanisms.

Superego

- Formed at the end of the phallic stage, around the age of five. It is our internalised sense of right and wrong. Based on the morality principle it represents the moral standards of the child's same-gender parent and punishes the ego for wrongdoing (through guilt).

Psychosexual stages

- Each stage (apart from latency) is marked by a different conflict that the child must resolve in order to progress successfully to the next stage. Any conflict that is unresolved leads to fixation where the child becomes 'stuck' and carries certain behaviours and conflicts associated with that stage through to adult life.

Psychosexual stages- Oral

- 0-1 years, focus of pleasure is the mouth, mother's breast can be the object of desire. Consequence of unresolved conflict involves oral fixation (smoking, biting nails, being sarcastic, being critical).

Psychosexual stages- Anal

- 1-3 years, focus of pleasure is the anus. Child gains pleasure from withholding and expelling faeces. Consequence of unresolved conflict for being anal retentive involves being a perfectionist, obsessive. For being anal expulsive it involves being thoughtless, messy.

Psychosexual stages- Phallic

- 3-6 years, focus of pleasure is the genital area. Consequence of unresolved conflict involves having a phallic personality (narcissistic, reckless).

Psychosexual stages- Latency

- 6-puberty, earlier conflicts are repressed.

Psychosexual stages- Genital

- Puberty-adulthood, sexual desires become conscious alongside the onset of puberty. Consequence of unresolved conflict involve difficulty forming heterosexual relationships.

Defense mechanisms

- The ego has a difficult job balancing the conflicting demands of the id and the superego but it does have help in the form of these. These are unconscious and ensure that the ego is able to prevent us from being overwhelmed by temporary threats or traumas. - However, they often involve some form of distortion of reality and as a long-term solution they are regarded as psychologically unhealthy and undesirable.

• Repression

• Denial

• Displacement

Defence mechanisms- Repression

- Forcing a distressing memory out of the conscious mind.

Defence mechanisms- Denial

- Refusing to acknowledge some aspect of reality.

Defence mechanisms- Displacement

- Transferring feelings from true source of distressing emotion onto a substitute target.

Strengths

• The approach has introduced the idea of psychotherapy. Freud brought to the world a new form of therapy- psychoanalysis. This was the first attempt to treat mental disorders psychologically rather than physically. The new therapy employed a range of techniques designed to assess the unconscious, such as dream analysis. It supposedly helps clients bring their repressed emotions into their conscious mind so they can be dealt with. Many modern day 'talking therapies', such as counselling, use this or at least elements of this. This shows the value of the psychodynamic approach in creating a new approach to treatment; it has real-world application.

• Although Freudian therapists have claimed success to many clients with mild neuroses, psychoanalysis is regarded as inappropriate for people experience more serious mental disorders (e.g. schizophrenia). Many of the symptoms of schizophrenia mean that those with the disorder have lost their grip on reality and cannot articulate their thoughts in the way required for psychoanalysis. This suggests that Freudian therapy may not apply to all mental disorders.

• It has great ability to explain human behaviour. It has had a huge influence on psychology and contemporary thought. Alongside behaviourism, the psychodynamic approach remained a key force in psychology for the first half of the 20th century and has been used to explain a wide range of phenomena including personality development, the origins of psychological disorders, moral development, and gender identity. It also draws attention to the connection between experiences in childhood, such as our relationship with our parents, and our later development. This suggests that, overall, the psychodynamic approach has had a positive impact on psychology and other human endeavours.

Limitations

- Most of the psychodynamic approach is untestable. It is argued that the approach does not meet the scientific criterion of falsification. It is not open to empirical testing (and the possibility of it being disproved). Many of Freud's concepts (such as the id and the Oedipus complex) are said to occur at an unconscious level, making them difficult, if not impossible, to test. Furthermore, his ideas were based on the subjective study of single individuals, such as Little Hans, which makes it difficult to make universal claims about human behaviour. This suggests that Freud's theory is pseudoscientific rather than established fact.

Little Hans

• A five year old boy with a phobia of horses after seeing one collapse in the street.

• This was a form of displacement for his fear of his father.

• Horses were a symbolic representation of the fear of castration experienced during the Oedipus complex.