psychodynamic approach

What are the key assumptions?

• Behaviour is driven or motivated by unconscious factors

• 3 parts to personality - Id, Ego, Superego

• There are different levels of consciousness

• Humans protect themselves from uncomfortable thoughts or feelings using defence mechanisms

• Early childhood affects adult personality

What are the parts of the personality?

Id - instincts and drives - animal self

• Presented at birth

• Motivated by the pleasure principle - libidos (Eros:love/sex, Thanatos:death/aggression)

Ego - the ‘self’

• Motivated by the reality principle

• Reduces conflict between Id and Superego

Superego - the moral principle

• Motivated by the anxiety/morality principle

• Conscience, guilt and shame

What is a dominant superego?

• Judgemental and critical

• Highly anxious

What is a dominant id?

• Criminal behaviour

• Lacks self control

• Highly impulsive

What are the 5 psychosexual stages?

Freud suggests that we move through a number of age-related stages of development encountering different conflicts

• Oral stage (birth-1 yr) - Id (Eros,Thanatos)

• Anal stage (1-3 yr) - Ego

• Phallic stage (3-6 yr) - Superego

• Latency stage (6-puberty)

• Genital stage (puberty afterwards)

What is psychoanalysis?

A means of accessing the unconscious via

• Dream analysis

• Humour analysis

• Free association - given a topic and then freely talking about it

• Analysis of Freudian slips

What did Freud suggests about dreams?

He saw dreams as the royal road to the unconscious and that they are symbolic

• Manifest content - what we actually remember from the dream

• Latent content - underlying wish, desire or emotion

What is the oral stage?

Erogenous zone: mouth

Gratifying activities: feeding and mouth movements

Interacting with mother’s breast, food, drinks, love and hate

• Id demands immediate gratification - responsive nurturing

• Both insufficient and forceful feeding can cause fixation

What are the symptoms of oral fixation?

• Smoking

• Constant chewing - gums, pencils…

• Nail biting

• Overeating and eating disorders

• Drinking

• Sarcasm

• Verbal hostility

• Narcissism

• Passivity

What is the anal stage?

Anus - bowel movements and withholding of bowel movements

Interactions: toilet training - when, where, how

• Notice pleasure and displeasure associated with bowel movements

• Discover ability to control bowel movements

• Power over parents

What are the symptoms of anal fixation?

Anal-explusive personality - parents too lenient - child derives pleasure and success from the expulsion

• Excessively sloppy, disorganised, careless, defiant

Anal-retentive personality - excessive pressure and punishment - anxiety over bowel movements = pleasure to withhold

• Obsessively clean, orderly - intolerant of those who aren’t

• Very careful, stingy, obstinate, conforming, passive-aggressive

What is the phallic stage?

Genitals - notice physical differences between males and females

• Main force of development - relationship with parents

• Mother is 1st love object for both boys and girls - boys turn this lust at 3 yr

Boys - the Oedipus conflict

Girls - the Electra complex

What is the Oedipus complex?

• Boys develop a passionate desire for their mother

• Want to possess mum to themselves

• Sees father as rivalry - wishes father dead

• Afraid father will discover this desire + remove their penis - castration anxiety

• Recognise father is more powerful - bigger penis

• Father likely to reprimand child for playing with himself

• Believe father castrated mother

Fear=castration

Conflict=between lust for mother and fear of father

What is the electra complex?

• Girls develop a passionate desire for their father

• Resent mother for not having a penis - blames and believes mother for castrating them

• Penis envy

• Substitute desire for penis with desire for a baby (esp. a son)

• Lust after faster - wants father to provide them with a son

Fear=losing mother’s love

Conflict=lust for father and dear of losing mother’s love

What is phallic fixation?

• Anxiety and guilty feeling about sex

• Men - fear of castration

• Narcissistic personality

• Homosexuality

• Exhibitionism

Women never progress past this stage!!! - sense of envy and inferiority

How to resolve the conflict at the phallic stage?

• Identifying with the same sex parent

• Identification develops a superego, their gender identity and role

What is the latency stage?

No erogenous zone - sexual feelings are suppressed = focus their energy on other aspects of life

• Puberty hits - capable of reproduction = sexuality is re-awakened

What is the genital stage?

Genitals - masturbation and heterosexual relationships

Interaction: renewed sexual interest and desire, and pursuit of relationships

• No fixation

What is the methodology of this appraoch?

Case studies - qualitative data

E.g. Wolfman, Little Hans…

What are the 3 things in your unconscious?

• Survival and sexual instincts, aggression

• Biological instincts + drives

• Childhood memories

What are the 2 roles of the unconscious mind?

• Driving and motivating force behind behaviours and personality

• Protects the brain from trauma and conflicts

What is a Freudian slip?

When we make a mistake in our speech that tells us about our unconscious desires and thoughts

What are defence mechanisms?

Unconscious resources used by the ego to manage the conflict between the id and the superego

• Repression - where a distressing memory is forced out of the conscious mind into the unconscious mind

• Denial - refuse to acknowledge some parts of reality

• Displacement - transfer feelings from the true source of the distressing emotions onto a substitute target