psychodynamic

AO1

  • role of the unconscious

    • the part of the mind we know is just the ‘tip of the iceberg’

    • most of the mind is made up of the unconscious - a vast storehouse of biological drives and instincts that has a significant influence on our behaviour and personality

  • tripartite model

    • id - primitive part, operates on the pleasure principle, mass of unconscious drives and instincts, demands instant gratification

    • ego - operates on reality principles, mediator role, develops at around 2 years old, reduce conflict between the demands of the id and superego, employs defense mechanisms

    • superego - formed at the end of the phallic stage, internalised sense of right and wrong, operates on morality principle, represents moral standards of the child’s same sex parent and punishes the ego through guilt

  • psychosexual stages

    • each stage marked by a different conflict the child must resolve in order to progress to the next

    • unresolved conflict leads to fixation - carries certain behaviours and conflicts associated with that stage into adult life

    • oral = 0-1 years - focus of pleasure is mouth, mothers breast is object of desire → oral fixation (smoking, nail biting, sarcasm, critical)

    • anal = 1-3 years - focus of pleasure is the anus, pleasure gained from withholding and expelling faeces → anal retentive (perfectionist, obsessive), anal expulsive (thoughtless, messy)

    • phallic = 3-6 years - focus of pleasure is the genital area → phallic personality (narcissistic. reckless)

    • latency = earlier conflicts repressed

    • genital = sexual desires becomes conscious alongside the onset of puberty → difficulty forming heterosexual relationships

  • defence mechanisms

    • ego has help balancing conflicting demands of id and superego

    • unconscious, ensures that the ego is able to prevent us from feeling overwhelmed

    • they involve some form of distortion of reality and as a long term solution, they are regarded as unhealthy and undesirable


AO3

  • one strength is that there is RWA

  • the psychodynamic approach introduced the idea of psychotherapy and more specifically, psychoanalysis. this new therapy employed a range of techniques designed to access the unconscious, such as dream analysis. psychoanalysis claims to bring represses emotions into their unconscious mind so they can be dealt with. it is the forerunner of many talking therapies today such as counselling

  • this suggests that the psychodynamic approach was significant in developing new treatments for psychological disorder and played an important role in later treatments

    • CA - although freudian therapists have claimed success for many clients, psychoanalysis is considered inappropriate, even harmful, for people experiencing more serious mental disorders, like schizophrenia. many symptoms of schizophrenia mean that those with the disorder lose their grip of reality and cannot articulate themselves as required by psychoanalysis. this suggests that freudian therapy is limited in its ability to help all types of mental disorders


  • another strength of freud’s theory is that it has strong explanatory power

  • the psychodynamic approach is controversial in many ways but it has had a large influence on psychology and contemporary thought. the psychodynamic approach has been used to explain a wide range of phenomena such as personality development, moral development, and gender identity. it has also been significant in drawing a connection between childhood experiences and our later development

  • this suggests that the psychodynamic approach is significant because of its ability to explain human behaviour


  • a limitation of freud’s theory is that it is strongly gender biased and reinforces, what would’ve now been seen as, misogynistic stereotypes

  • his theory about moral development suggests that girls do not identify as strongly with their mothers as boys do with their fathers and therefore, have a weaker superego. this then suggests that women are morally inferior to men, which reinforces stereotypes

  • this is an example of alpha bias since the differences, that may not exist, between men and women’s are exaggerated

  • this can have negative real world implications because it encourages the view that differences are fixed and natural and therefore encourages discrimination and limits opportunities.

  • therefore, the psychodynamic approach is harmful to society and must be used while acknowledging that it is an outdated theory