The Psychodynamic theory
<<Sigmund Freud<<
-Possibly the first psychologist to suggest why we dream
-He would psychoanalyse people by listening to them talk and diagnose them that way. During these sessions he noticed patients often talked about dreams. This caused him to look into the meanings of them.
<<The psyche <<
The ID
-unconscious mind
-Its motivations are desire, greed, pleasure
-first develops during childhood
-e.g sex, murder, food
The ego
-The conscious mind
-The part you are aware of
-Controls us
The superego
-The partly conscious mind
-Our awareness of societys rules
-Provides us with a moral sense of right and wrong
-We get a feeling of guilt if we carry out acts that our superego does not approve of.
A healthy psyche= ego is in charge
Neurotic psyche- superego in charge
Psychotic psyche- id in charge
psychopathic psyche- no superego
Manifest Content of Dreams: what is actually happened or occured in the dream
Latent Content of Dreams: The hidden meaning behind the dream [e.g a dream about pregnancy actually signals a new beginning
| }}Strengths}} | [[Weaknesses[[ |
|---|---|
| Studied and listened to his patients over a long period of time, meaning a lot of evidence was gathered. | Dream analysis is ineffective; not everyone can remember their dreams or the dreamer can lie about their dreams so interpretations will be incorrect |
| Freud used unique methods such as free association and dream analysis to uncover unconscious wishes and desires | Freud mainly worked with Viennese families. Not generalisable to the whole population so the theory may not apply to everyone. |
| Solms (1999) showed patients suffering from a stroke lose their capacity to dream if there is damage to areas of the brain which govern desire. | These are not backed up by any other researches. Someone’s dream may mirror the events of that day rather than having a hidden message. |