Evaluation of Psychodynamic approach

First strength of Psychodynamic approach

Application to real-life: Psychoanalysis-Talking therapy.

• He developed a theory to try to help people who were suffering from certain disorders

• Patients would lie down on his coach with Freud positioned out out of sight behind them and patients were encouraged to talk without restraint- “Free association”

• so, psychodynamic approach made a significant contribution in understanding human behaviour

What is catharsis

The process of releasing strong or repressed emotions which as a result provides relief

Second strength of psychodynamic approach

+Foundation for future theories

• Some of Freud’s ideas had a lasting impact that have shaped various theories of human behaviour

• He emphasises the importance of childhood experiences, particularly the importance of relationship with parents in shaping future behaviour, e.g. John Bowlby

Third strength of psychodynamic approach

+Case studies (Little Hans, 1909) evidence for Oedipus complex.

• 5 year old boy who had a fear of horses after witnessing a horse collapse outside his home.

• 3 y.o: he was very interesting in his “widdler” with his mother threatening to take him to the doctor and castrate him if he didn’t stop playing with it.

• The pleasure that little Hans was gaining from his widdler now be repressed encaustic of this fear of castration

• About the same time, he saw a horse collapse and die outside his home which caused him the feeling of anxiety

• 4 y.o.: He developed the fear of especially white horses, and his father reported that he compared horse’s widdler with his own

• This conflict developed then with his father

• Little Hans came into bed to cuddle his mother which father opposed

• 5 y.o.: Phobia of horses reduced, but focused on a white horses with blinkers and nose bands

• His phobia appeared to end after some dreams and fantasies(e.g. having children with his mother, with daddy becoming a grandfather)

What is the Freud’s interpretation of Little Hans case study?

• Fear of horses as symbolic of his fear for his father, which he had repressed

• White horses with blinkers and nose bands as symbolic of his father, who had pale skim, glasses and moustache, also the fear of being castrated

• Dreams and fantasies were interpreted to represent how the conflict that little Hans was experienced with his father because he desired his mother was resolved replacing his father into fantasy and identifying with his father

Limitation of Psychodynamic approach

-Case studies

• Ideographic approach, which focuses on In-depth studies of individuals, very difficult to generalise to other people, so it can’t be possible to make universal laws about human behaviour

• Unscientific: conclusions are very subjective, based on his own interpretations and opinion of what’s going on in a person’s unconscious mind, we cannot objectively check it

• Unfalsifiable, there is no way to falsify and disprove his theory, unlike behaviourism and biological approach

Second limitation

-Deterministic

States that all behaviour is caused by unconscious forces, which means that we cannot control our behaviour. Freud argued that free will is an illusion.