the psychodynamic approach

assumptions

• freud suggested our behaviour and feelings are powerfully affected by unconscious motives

• our behaviour and feelings as adults (including psychological problems) are rooted in our childhood experiences

• personality is composed of three parts, the Id, ego and superego which are in constant conflict with one another

• personality develops in stages shaped as innate drives are modified by different conflicts at different times in childhood during psychosexual development

• psychic determinism: all behaviour has a cause/reason

role of the unconscious

freud believed in the existence of a part of the mind that was inaccessible to conscious thought. he referred to this as the unconscious mind. freud believed most of our everyday actions and behaviours are not controlled consciously but are the product of the unconscious mind. freud believed the mind prevents traumatic memories from the unconscious from reaching conscious awareness which might cause anxiety and therefore the mind uses defence mechanisms to prevent this.

repression

this refers to the unconscious blocking of unacceptable thoughts and impulses. these repressed thoughts and feelings still influence behaviour without the individual being aware. for example a child who is abused by a parent may have no recollection of these events but has no trouble forming relationships

denial 

denial is the refusal to accept reality to avoid having to deal with any painful feelings that might be associated with that event. the person acts as if the traumatic event had not happened, something that those around them find to be quite bizarre. 

displacement

this involves the redirection of thoughts or feelings in situations where the person feels unable to express themselves in the presence of the person they should be directed towards. instead they may take this out on another individual or object, this gives their feelings a route for expression even though they are misapplied

the structure of personality (freuds tripartite personality theory)

freud divided the personality into three structures each which demand gratification but is frequently in conflict with other parts

the id

the operates solely in the unconscious. freud describes this as an individual’s animal instincts. it operates according to the pleasure principle and demands immediate gratification 

the ego

the ego us the mediator between the id and superego. the ego forms compromise between the instinctive id and moralistic demands of the superego and operates on the reality principle

the superego

the superego is the morality principle which is formed around the age of 5. it is the individual’s internalised state of right and wrong. it is said to be formed by parental upbringing and punishes the ego for wrongdoing through the feeling of guilt

freud’s psycho sexual stages

freud stressed that the first 5 years of life are crucial to the formation of adult personality. personality developed through a sequence of 5 stages. these are referred to as the psycho-sexual stages to emphasise that the most important driving force is sexual energy (libido). during the stages the id must be controlled in order to satisfy social demands; this sets up a conflict between the frustrated wishes and social norms.

the ego and superego develop in order to exercise this control and direct the need for gratification into socially acceptable channels. gratification centres in different areas of the body at different stages of growth, making the conflict at each stage psychosexual

frustration (due to the individuals needs to being met), overindulgence, or any combination of the two may lead to what psychoanalysts call fixation at a particular stage. freud claimed that, during development, becoming fixated on one of these stages would restrict full development and result in displaying specific personality symptoms. for example, an ‘anally retentive’ personality is one such symptom - he proposed that when conflict occurs over potty training during the anal stage a person could become fixated on cleanliness and orderliness to an extreme 

the stages

the oedipus complex

freud proposed that during the phallic stage of personality development, boys experience the oedipus complex. at around age 3 or 4, the young boy begins to desire his mother as she has been his main source of pleasure and he therefore wants her complete attention. this means he sees his father as a rival, experiences jealousy of his mother’s desire for the father and wishes he was dead. this then creates anxiety and the repressed fear that his father will castrate him. this fear and anxiety alongside jealousy creates conflict and the only way the child copes with and resolves this is through the development of a defence mechanism known as ‘identification with the aggressor’. the boy looks for ways to be similar with his father and identifies his father’s attitudes and behaviour forming his gender identity. it is at this point also the superego is formed as the child learns their morality from their identification with the father and his values and attitudes.

the electra complex 

in the devlopment of freuds theory, carl jung proposes the electra complex. during the phallic stage, a little girl also starts off by desiring her mother and then envies her father who has her mother’s attention. she begins to thus admire and desire her father and realises that she does not have a penis so cannot be like him. this leads to the development of penis envy and the desire to be a boy. freud claimed that little girls blame their mothers for their ‘castrated state’. this is resolved by the girl repressing her desire for her father and substituting the wish for a penis with the wish for a baby, which creates great tension. however, these feelings are repressed in order to remove the tension and instead a little girl identifies with her mother and internalises her mother/s gender identity, so it becomes her own. she will also develop her superego through this identification and internalisation of her mothers values

the case study of little Hans

freud supported his concept of the Oedipus complex with his case study of the Oedipus complex with his case study of Little Hans. Freud did not directly work with Hans but through correspondence with Han’s father. 

At the age of three Hans developed an active interest in his ‘widdler’ (penis). throughout this time this was the main theme of Han’s fantasies and dreams. when Hans was five years old he developed a phobia of horses. he was afraid to go out of the house because of his phobia. Han’s father wrote to Freud “he is afraid a horse will bite him in the street and this fear seems somehow connected with him being frightened by a large pent”. Hans said that he was especially afraid of white horses with black around the mouth who were wearing blinkers. 

Han’s father interpreted this as a reference to his moustache and spectacles. Fried believed that the horse was a symbol for his father, and the black bits were a moustache. the father and child would tale the role of horse, the son that of the rider. the father also recorded an exchange with Hans where the boy said “Daddy don’t trot away from me”

towards the end of Han’s phobia of horses he experiences several fantasises. during one of which Hans imagined that a plumber had come and first removed his bottom and penis and then gave him another one of each, but larger. Freud interpreted this as Han’s desire now to be like his father and the beginning of his ‘identification with the aggressor’

Hans did recover from his phobia after his father (at freud’s suggestion) assured him that he had no intention of cutting off his penis.

conclusion:

Freud interpreted that the horse in the phobia were symbolic of the father, and that Hans feared that the horse (father) would bite (castrate) him as a punishment for the desires towards his mother (castration anxiety). Freud suggested that Hans’ phobia was a form of displacement in which his fear of his father and the fear of castration was displaced onto horses during the Oedipus complex

evaluation of the psychodynamic approach

1. research - pioneering methodology
   - the development of psychoanalysis is an explanation of human behaviour and represents a huge shift in psychological thinking. it suggested new methodological procedures for gathering empirical evidence by using case studies (e.g. little Hans) and the development of the approach was based on observation of behaviour rather than relying on introspection. however, although freud’s observations were detailed and carefully recorded, critics have suggested that it is not possible to make such universal claims about human nature based on studies of such a small number of individuals who were psychologically abnormal. furthermore, freud’s interpretations were highly subjective; it is unlikely, in the case of little Hans for instance, that any other researcher would have drawn the same conclusions. in comparison with the other approaches, Freud’s methods lack scientific rigour

2. untestable concepts
   - critics argue that the psychodynamic approach does not meet the scientific criterion of falsification as it cannot be empirically tested with at least the potential to be disproved, which therefore would challenge the scientific status of psychology. many pf freud’s concepts are said to exist at an unconscious level making them impossible to empirically test. philosophers such as Karl Popper argue that the approach should therefore be considered a pseudoscience rather than a real science. this arguably reduces the validity and usefulness of the theory and research from the approach.

3. issues - gender bias
   - freud’s psychoanalytic approach has been criticised for displaying gender bias. the approach is centred on and dominated by males or the male viewpoint. the approach displays alpha bias as it exaggerates the difference between males and females. this is demonstrated in freud’s original theory because he explains femininity as failed masculinity, freud argued that because girls do not suffer the same oedipal conflicts as boys, they do not identify with their mothers as strongly as boys do with their fathers, so develop weaker superegos. if this were true we would expect women to be more deviant and perhaps more criminal however official crime statistics do not support this. the gender bias is problematic for the approach and reflect the patriarchal time in which freud was working and et many of his theories still have influence today

4. useful applications - psychoanalysis
   - alongside the theoretical basis of the psychodynamic approach, freud also brought to the world a new form of therapy; psychoanalysis. employing a range of techniques designed to access the unconscious such as hypnosis and dream analysis. the success of such therapy is said to be due to treating the root cause of such disorders as opposed to drug treatments which can be criticised for treating just symptoms showing only minimal and short term improvement in symptoms. whilst psychoanalysis has been criticised as inappropriate, even harmful, for people suffering more serious mental disorders (such as schizophrenia), psychoanalysis is considered to be the forerunner to many modern-day psychotherapies that have since been established.