Psychodynamic Approach
Assumptions
The basic driving force behind our behaviour is the unconscious mind
Instincts or drives motivate our behaviour e.g., sexual and aggressive instincts from birth
Early childhood experiences determine our personality and adult behaviour
Psychoanalysis should be used to make the unconscious conscious
Conscious mind: The part of our mind we can access
Unconscious mind: The part of our mind that is not accessible to the individual. It holds thoughts that will not easily surface and perhaps may never do so. the drives that motivate our behaviour are stored here and therefore inaccessible.
Personality structure
Id: 0-18m - the childlike, selfish and hedonistic part of the personality - pleasure principle
Ego: 18m-3yrs - Able to delay the id's pleasure. It also jeeps the balance of influence between the id and the superego.
Superego: 3-6yrs: Acts as an individuals conscience. It is the opposite of the id as it feels guilt and holds someone back from behaving a certain way - morality principle
Defence Mechanisms
Repression: A type of forgetting where a painful or disturbing memory is pushed into the unconscious mind where it is not accessible to the conscious mind:
Denial: Refusal to accept the reality of an unpleasant situation
Displacement: When the focus of a strong emotion is expressed onto a neutral person or object - a substitute object for the emotions
(+) Explanatory power: use them to understand their experiences since many people can appreciate the idea of denial, repression and displacement
(-) Lacks testability/falsifiability: Unconscious processes that cannot be studied directly and can only be inferred from behaviour or from reported thoughts or experiences which are open to interpretation and bias. Hypotheses cannot be tested so scientific evidence for them cannot be gained
Evaluations
(+) Supported by evidence: Little Hans
(+) Significant contribution: emphasise the role of early experience and the unconscious in abnormality.
(+) Successful treatment: Treating mental disorders - psychoanalysis
(-) Not easy to empirically test: retrospective case history - confounded by memory bias - id, ego, superego are not empirical; and therefore hypotheses are not fully operationalised.
(-) Unscientific: small sample, friends, interpretation of content of dreams from patient records written on making were open to bias and subjectivity.
(-) Deterministic: Abnormality is rooted in childhood conflict that is stored in an individuals unconscious and it is therefore out of individuals control.