The psychodynamic approach

Who proposed the ‘unconscious’?

Sigmund Freud

What is the role of the unconscious?

A vast storehouse of biological drives and instincts that has a significant influence on our behaviour and personality.

Contains threatening and disturbing memories that have been repressed or locked away.

These can be accessed during dreams or parapraxes (slips of the tongue)

What is the preconscious?

Contains thoughts and memories which are not currently in conscious awareness but we can access if desired.

What did Freud describe personality as?

Tripartite (Composed of 3 parts)

What are the 3 parts of personality?

1. The id

2. The ego

3. The superego

What is the id?

• Primitive part of personality

• Operates on the pleasure principle

• Seething mass of unconscious drives and instincts

• Present at birth and throughout life

• Entirely selfish and demands instant gratification of its needs

What is the ego?

• Operates on the reality principle

• Mediator between the other 2 parts of the personality

• Develops at the age of 2 years 

• Reduces the conflict between the demands of the id and superego (it does this by employing defence mechanisms)

What is the superego?

• Operates on the morality principle

• Formed at the end of the phallic stage (at 5 years old)

• It is our internalised sense of right and wrong

• Represents the moral standards of the child’s same-gender parent and punishes the ego for wrongdoing through guilt.

What are the psychosexual stages?

Freud claimed that child development occurred in 5 stages:

1. Oral

2. Anal

3. Phallic

4. Latency

5. Genital

Any psychosexual 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.

When does the oral stage occur?

0-1 years

What is the oral stage?

Focus of pleasure is the mouth.

Mother’s breast is the object of desire

What is the consequence of unresolved conflict during the oral stage?

Oral fixation

E.g. smoking, biting nails, sarcastic, critical

When does the anal stage occur?

1-3 years

What is the anal stage?

Focus of pleasure is the anus.

Child gains pleasure from withholding and expelling faeces.

What is the consequence of unresolved conflict during the anal stage?

Anal retentive - Perfectionist, obsessive

Anal expulsive - Thoughtless, messy

When does the phallic stage occur?

3-6 years

What is the phallic stage?

Focus of pleasure is the genital area

Child experiences Oedipus or Electra complex

What is the consequence of unresolved conflict during the phallic stage?

Phallic personality - Narcissistic, reckless

What is the latency stage?

Earlier conflicts are repressed

What is the genital stage?

Sexual desires become conscious alongside the onset of puberty

What are the consequences of unresolved conflict during the genital stage?

Difficulty forming heterosexual relationships

What are defence mechanisms?

The ego uses defence mechanisms (unconscious strategies) to protect it from id-superego conflicts.

What are the 3 defence mechanisms?

1. Repression

2. Denial

3. Displacement

What is repression?

Forcing a distressing memory from the conscious mind into the unconscious

What is denial?

Refusing to believe something because its too painful to acknowledge the reality

What is displacement?

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

E.g. a person/object

What is a strength of the psychodynamic approach?

It introduced of psychotherapy (REAL WORLD APPLICATION)

Freud introduced a new form of therapy (psychoanalysis).

This was the first attempt to treat mental disorders psychologically rather than physically.

Psychoanalysis involves techniques designed to access the unconscious such as dream analysis

It claims to bring clients repressed emotions into the conscious mind so they can be dealt with.

Psychoanalysis is the forerunner to many modern day ‘talking therapies’ such as counselling.

This shows the value of the psychodynamic approach in creating a new approach to treatment.

What is a limitation of the psychodynamic approach?

Ethical issues

Psychoanalysis is regarded as inappropriate and harmful for people experiencing more serious mental disorders like schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia involves paranoia and delusional thinking → thus they can’t articulate their thoughts in the way required by psychoanalysis

This suggests that Freudian therapy may not apply to all mental disorders.

What is another strength of the psychodynamic approach?

It’s ability to explain human behaviour

The psychodynamic approach has been used to explain a wide range of phenomena such as personality development, origins of psychological disorders and moral development.

It is also significant in drawing attention to the connection between childhood experiences and our later development.

This suggests that the psychodynamic approach has had a positive impact on psychology

What is another limitation of the psychodynamic approach?

It is untestable

Karl Popper argued that the psychodynamic approach does not meet the scientific criterion of falsification. 

It is not open to empirical testing.

Many of Freud’s concepts such as the Oedipus complex occur at unconscious level making them impossible to test.

His ideas were based on the subjective studies of single individuals such as Little Hans which makes it difficult to make universal claims about human behaviour.

This suggests that Freud’s theory was pseudoscientific rather than established fact.