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The Psychodynamic Approach (Personality Structure (The id - the primitive…
The Psychodynamic Approach
Psychodynamic Approach
A perspective that describes the different forces, most of which are unconscious, that operate on the mind and direct human behaviour and experience
Role of the Unconscious
Most of our 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. It also contains the threatening and disturbing memory that have been repressed, or locked away and forgotten.
These can be accessed during dreams or a 'slip of the tongue'
Personality Structure
The id
- the primitive part of our personality. It operates on the pleasure principle - it gets what it wants. It is a seething mass of unconscious drives and instincts. Only the id is present at birth and throughout life is selfish
The ego
- works of the reality principle and is the mediator between the other two parts. The ego develops around the age of two and its role is to reduce conflicts by employing defence mechanisms
The superego
- formed at the end of the phallic stage, around the age of 5. it acts as our sense of right and wrong and is based on the morality principle because it represents the moral standards of the child's same-sex parent and punishes the ego for wrongdoing (through guilt)
Defence Mechanisms
Repression
- forcing a distressing memory out of the conscious mind
Denial
- refusing to acknowledge some aspect of reality
Displacement
- transferring feelings from true source of distressing emotion onto a substitute target
Psychosexual Stages
Freud suggested that child development occurred in 5 stages. Each part is marked by a conflict that the child must resolve. Any unsolved conflict leads to fixation where the child becomes stuck and carries certain behaviours through life
Oral 0-1
Description - focus of pleasure is the mouth, mother's breast is the object of desire
Unresolved Conflict = oral fixation
Anal 1-3
Description - focus of pleasure is the anus. Child gains pleasure from withholding and expelling faeces
Unresolved Conflict = anal retentive - perfectionist / anal expulsive - messy
Phallic 3-5
Description - focus of pleasure is the genital area. Child experiences the Oedipus or Electra complex
Unresolved Conflict = phallic personality - reckless and possibly homosexual
Latency - earlier conflicts are repressed
Genital - sexual desires become conscious alongside the onset of puberty
Unresolved Conflict = difficulty forming heterosexual relationships
EVALUATION
Explanatory Power - it has had a huge influence on psychology and Western thought. Alongside behaviourism, this approach was the dominant force and was used to explain personality development, abnormal behaviour, moral development and gender. It was also significant in drawing attention to the connection between childhood and later development
Case Study - Freud's method was based on the intense study of an individual called Little Hans. Although the observations were detailed and carefully recorded, critics have suggested that it is not possible to make such universal claims based on information from one case study. In addition, his interpretations were very subjective and is unlikely that any other researcher could have drawn the same conclusions. This method lacks scientific rigor
Untestable Concepts - some have argued that the psychodynamic approach does not meet the scientific criterion of falsification, in the sense that it is not open to empirical testing . This is because many of the concepts are unconscious making them impossible to test. According to critics, this makes the psychodynamic approach a fake science