THE PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACH

~BASIC ASSUMPTIONS~

  • Our behaviour and feelings are influenced by unconscious drive

  • Our behaviour and feelings stem from our childhood experiences (deterministic)

CONSCIOUS - things that we are presently aware of (e.g. our name, current feeling, thoughts, memories)

PRECONSCIOUS - thoughts or ideas that we are aware of in dreams or parapraxes (‘slip of the tongue’)

UNCONSCIOUS - aspects of ourselves that we are unaware of. It contains drives and instincts which influence behaviour and personality, and contain defence mechanisms (such as repressed or threatening memories).

~DEFENCE MECHANISMS~

  • Help the ego resolve conflicts between the Id and Superego.

  • They’re unconscious and protect us from being overwhelmed by trauma.

  • They distort reality, and long-term they are seen as psychologically unhealthy and undesirable.

DENIAL - refusing to acknowledge or accept the truth.

DISPLACEMENT - transferring feeling from the true source to a substitute.

REPRESSION - forcing a distressing memory out of the conscious.

Supporting Evidence

→ Williams interviewed 129 women with documented histories of sexual abuse in childhood. 38% of the women were unable to recall the abuse that had been reported 17 years earlier. Women who were abused by someone they knew were more likely to have no recollection of the abuse.

~THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY~

ID (pleasure principle) → Present from age 0-3. An unconscious drive for instant gratification. It’s impulsive and selfish regardless of the consequences, and is not affected by reality.

EGO (reality principle) → Strongest part of our psyche. It understands that people have needs, and that selfish behaviours can hurt others. It makes decisions with a realistic strategy to reduce tension. Defence mechanisms protect our ego if it fails its role.

SUPEREGO (morality principle) → Develops around 5 years of age. Responsible for guilt. Rewards us with pride when we behave ‘properly’. It holds our ideal-self (e.g. career, personality)

~PSYCHOSEXUAL STAGES~

ORAL (0-2 yrs)

  • ID dominated

  • Focus of pleasure is the mouth

  • Too much oral gratifications can lead to a tendency to smoke, drink alcohol, or nail bite

  • Too little oral gratification can lead to pessimism towards others and eating disorders

ANAL (2-3 yrs)

  • The beginning of EGO development

  • Pleasure comes from the anus

  • First conflict is ‘toilet training’, and how the child responds to authority will determine how they will respond to all future responsibility.

  • Strict toilet training leads to anal retentive adults (stubborn, perfectionists)

  • Liberal toilet training leads to anal expulsive adults (messy, rebellious)

PHALLIC (3-6 yrs)

  • Pleasure comes from the genitals

  • Boys experience the Oedipus Complex while girls experience the Electra Complex

  • Children enter a conflict with their opposite-sex parent where they experience jealously and rivalry, until they begin to identify with them and develop gender norms

  • (daddy’s girl, mommy’s boy)

LATENCY (6-12 yrs)

  • Latent = hidden

  • The child directs any sexual energy towards school, hobbies and friendships

  • Conflicts and issues from previous stages in their lives are repressed, and children cannot remember much of their early life

  • Children play with children of the same gender

GENITAL (puberty+)

  • The conflict is sexual experimentation with the resolution being a long-term relationship

  • Fixations in the first 3 stages develop our sexual pleasure

  • Difficultly forming heterosexual relationships

~OEDIPUS COMPLEX (3-5 yrs)~

  • Boys begin to have unconscious sexual desires for their mother

  • They want to get rid of their father who is seen as a rival

  • They fear their father knows their plan, and develop castration anxiety

  • Eventually they repress these feelings, and identify with their father

  • They will go on to find a woman who can satisfy their needs in life (similar to their mother)

~ELECTRA COMPLEX~

  • Girls recognise that they don’t have a penis and blame their mother

  • She develops penis envy

  • They develop a love interest for their father, but can’t identify with him

  • They begin to identify with their mothers

  • They desire to have a baby boy in order to satisfy their penis envy.

~PSYCHOANALYIS~

→ Rorschach Ink Blots - describe what you see; interpreted reveals defence mechanisms

→ Freudian Slips - unconscious thoughts slipping into the conscious

→ Free Association - uncensored talking which is interpreted

→ Dream Analysis - unconscious seeping into dreams

→ Transference Relationships - role play activities which reveal defence mechanisms

EVALUATION

→ IT ACCOUNTS FOR THE INFLUENCE OF BOTH NATURE & NURTURE ON BEHAVIOUR

  • One strength of this approach is that it can be praised for applying both nature and nurture to explanations of behaviour.

  • Nature is shown through biological drives and instincts in the unconscious. Nurture is shown through the development of the superego which is influenced by childhood experiences.

  • Research today argues that behaviour can best be explained using both nature and nurture together.

  • Therefore, as this approach focuses on the influence of both nature and nurture, it increases the ecological validity of the approach.

→ IT IS REDUCTIONIST

  • Another strength of the psychodynamic approach is that it is reductionist, which is praised for forming the basis of scientific research.

  • This is due to the fact that often the investigations use scientific testing.

  • For example, the psychodynamic approach breaks behaviour down into unconscious forces (biological instincts/drives)

  • These findings increase the scientific credibility of the approach, as results supporting these conclusions were produced as a result of a scientific investigation.

→ IT IS PSYCHICALLY DETERMINISTIC

  • One limitation of the psychodynamic approach, is that it is deterministic.

  • For example, the psychodynamic approach suggests that behaviour is influenced by internal forces that are outside of our control.

  • This approach can be criticised as it ignores the influence of conscious decision-making processes on behaviour.

  • This leads to a lack in ecological validity.

→ IT IS IDIOGRAPHIC

  • Another limitation of the psychodynamic approach is that it is idiographic.

  • For example, this approach uses singular case studies (e.g. Little Hans) to create qualitative data to support the basis of Freud’s theories (e.g. Oedipus Complex)

  • However, this could be criticised as it produces narrow work as it’s based on singular case studies.

  • This makes the concepts subjective and open to bias.

  • This means that the results cannot be generalised to the rest of the population.