The Psychodynamic Approach

Introduction

Was founded by one of the most famous psychologists of all time, Sigmund Freud in Vienna in the late 19th century

Started out as a neuropathologist but found that sometimes just talking to patients can help them- without the need for medication or other biological means, this was the foundation for ‘talking cures’

Assumptions

• Focus on how all of our behaviour can be motivated by unconscious motives and events that occurred in early childhood

• This has turned into the major assumptions of the approach leading to the coining of the term ‘the child is father to man’

• Although the approach can be applied to a range of issues throughout psychology, through explaining and interpreting dreams, one of Freud’s biggest contributions was to develop a therapy called psychoanalysis

  Has been very popular throughout the twentieth century

Role of the unconscious mind

Freud’s theory of the mind is through the metaphor of an iceberg

• Our conscious mind consists of thoughts we are aware of, this includes our perceptions and everyday thoughts

• Our preconscious is just beneath the surface, this includes memories and stored knowledge (can be accessed if needed)

• Our unconscious includes information that’s hard to recieve, includes our fears, instincts, painful or embarrassing material and shameful or traumatic past experiences

  The role of the unconscious mind is to direct and motivate behaviour without conscious awareness, also protects us from material that could damage the psyche

The structure of the personality

Tripartite personality

1. ID

2. Ego

3. Super ego

ID

• Primitive, present from birth

• Entirely unconscious and operates on pleasure principle

  (Immediate satisfaction to reduce tension and discomfort)

• Often conflicts with social norms and mental codes

Ego

• Reality check, operates on reality principle

• Tries to fulfil desires of ID but in a realistic way (acknowledges external world and rules

• Defense mechanisms and control anxiety

Super ego

• Last part of the personality and operates on morality principle and which actions are right or wrong

• Counter balance to the ID, pushing moral and socially acceptable behaviour

Defence mechanisms

The ego’s job is to defend us from dangerous and harmful impulses, feelings or behaviours. Freud suggests that conflicts in our lives can lead to feelings of anxiety or guilt so we employ defense mechanisms to protect the ego and distort reality. These include:

1. Displacement

2. Regression

3. Denial

4. Regression

Displacement

• Unconscious redirection of an impulse (usually aggressive) onto a powerless substitute (can be a person or object)

• Bully’s may behave that way due to stuff going on at home

Repression

• The ID has impulses that the ego does not want to allow into the conscious mind so it keeps them out using repression (keep down)

• The ego uses repression to protect itself from threatening or traumatising experiences and this happens unconsciously

• Memory of event is too painful to bear so the ego pushes it deep into the unconscious mind

Denial

• Unconsciously blocking external events from conscious awareness

• If a situation is just too much to handle, the person unconsciously cannot accept it

Regression

• The individual going back to ways of behaving that are associated with a safer, more carefree time in life

• When situations of high stress and anxiety, an adult may regress into the mental state of a child

• Will show behavioural traits of the age they have regressed to

Psychosexual Stages of Development

Ages:

• 0-1

• 1-3

• 3-6

• 6-

• Puberty onwards

0-1 years (Oral)

• Pleasure source= mouth

• ID develops in this stage

• conflicts to overcome= Weaning

  If left unresolved= Oral fixation (smoking, biting nails, sarcastic, critical)

1-3 years (Anal)

• Pleasure source= Anus

• Ego develops at this age

• Conflicts to overcome= toilet training, learning you can’t always get what you want when you want it

• If left unresolved= Anal retentive (perfectionist and obsessive)

  Anal expulsive (Thoughtless and messy)

3-6 (Phallic)

• Pleasure source= Genital

• Super ego develops at this age

• Conflicts to overcome= Oedipus complex (boys), Electra complex (girls), identification with same sex parent, development of gender identity

• If left unresolved= Phallic personality (Narcissistic and reckless)

6- puberty

Earlier conflicts are repressed

Puberty onwards (Genital)

• Pleasure source= Genital

• conflicts= Difficulty performing heterosexual relationships

Oedipus Complex

• According to Freud, in the phallic stage a boy has an intense love for his mother and sees his father as a rival for her affections

• However, he realises that his father is physically stronger then him and is afraid his father might castrate him

• This castration anxiety is resolved by identifying with the father, and so becoming as much like the father as possible, including gender behaviour

Electra Complex

• This is the female version of the Oedipus complex (much less developed)

• According to Freud, in the phallic stage, a girl has a strong affection for her father and sees her mother as a rival (experiences penis envy and blames her mother for her lack of penis)

• Girls lose mothers love because of their competing affection

Little Hans

• Hans was a 5 year old boy who developed a phobia of horses after seeing one collapse in the street

• Freud suggested that Hans’ phobia waws a form of displacement in which his repressed fear of his father was transferred onto horses

• This was a symbolic representation of Hans’ real unconscious fear of being castrated