Psychodynamic approach

Basic assumptions

• Unconscious forces in our minds affect our behaviour

• Behaviour as an adult is shaped in childhood

• Dysfunction is caused by unresolved, unconscious conflict from childhood

Paraprax

Speech errors revealing the unconscious

Tripartite personality

Put forward by Freud as an idea for what shapes all humans personalities

The ID

• The primitive, instinctual part of a person’s personality

• Operates on the pleasure principle

  • Present at birth

The Ego

• The mediator between the ID and superego that roots a person in reality

• Operates on the reality principle

• Helps to resolve conflict between the ID and superego through defense mechanisms

  • Develops at age 2

The Superego

• The internalised sense of morality

• Operates on the morality principle

• Reflects the moral standards of a child’s same sex parent

  • Develops at 5 years old

Oral stage

• Occurs from birth to 1 year

• Libido is focused on the baby’s mouth

• Sucking, biting and breastfeeding satisfies the baby’s libido

  • Fixation at this stage may lead to smoking/nail biting/over eating etc.

Anal

• Occurs from 1-5 years

• Libido is focused on the baby’s anus and defecation

• Potty training becomes the first conflict that a child faces as they learn to deal with authority

  • Fixation at this stage manifests as an anal retentive or anal expulsive personality

Phallic

• Occurs from 3-5 years

• Libido focused on genitals and masturbation

• Awareness of anatomical sex differences develops

• Conflict in this phase manifests as the Oedipus complex where children experience attraction to the opposite sex parent and resent the same sex parent

• Conflict is resolved through identification with the same sex parent, developing the superego

  • Fixation at this stage may cause a phallic personality

Latency

• Occurs from 7 years into early adolescence

• Early conflicts are repressed through infantile amnesia where children forget their early childhood

• Halted sexual development as the child focuses the libido on other external forces e.g. academics

  • Fixation at this stage may cause difficulty in expressing emotion and forming relationships

Genital

• Occurs post-puberty

• Libido becomes focused on sexual acts

• Sexual desires become conscious and known

  • Fixation at this stage results in sexual perversions

Repression

An unconscious mechanism keeps memories from rising to the conscious

Denial

A refusal to accept reality

Projection

Attribution of your own negative traits to another person

Displacement

Satisfying an impulse you can’t act upon with another substitute in a socially unacceptable way e.g. hitting your partner

Sublimation

Satisfying an impulse you can’t act upon with another substitute in a socially acceptable way e.g. martial arts

Explanatory power

Freud’s ideas were bizarre but helped shape psychology by explaining development and the personality

Psychoanalysis

A talking therapy which helped bring unconscious conflicts to the surface in order for them to be resolved. Provided the basis for modern CBT

Little Hans

All evidence for psychoanalysis is case studies like Little Hans which makes the theory lack generalisability

Popper

Psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience due to its lack of verificationism

Hard determinism

Humans lack the ability to influence their actions as we are motivated by the unconscious