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Freud - Coggle Diagram
Freud
The Two Drives
Eros - Focused on preservation & enjoyment of life
Thanatos - drive towards death & destruction, initially directed towards self.
Between the 2 drives; Thanatos and Eros and to stop us hurting ourselves energy of Thanatos will be redirected towards others, resulting in aggression.
Conscious Mind
The part of the mind we are aware of. can be compared to the part of an iceberg that is above the water. It contains the thoughts we are currently thinking. might not have aggressive thoughts in conscious mind at all but still be driven by aggressive urges that are unconscious
The ID
The Demon on your shoulder
The id consists of urges and desires. The id isn't rational or reflective: it is made up entirely of feelings. The id exists entirely in the unconscious mind.
Since it only craves pleasure it goes against logic and often contradicts its self
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The Ego
The head inbetween
exists within the conscious mind. It is based on "the reality principle" because it understands the outside world. The ego has no desires of its own. It's job is to find a way to grant the desires that come from the id.
understands punishment and will try to avoid that so can be swayed by the logic of the superego
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The Superego
The Angel on your shoulder
Operates as Morality Principle. Responsible for feeling pride for acting correctly as result of delaying urges of ID. Responsible for guilt. It controls aggressive impulses.
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Pre-Conscious Mind
the part of the mind we are occasionally aware of. can be compared to the part of the iceberg that is below the water-line but still visible. Aggression in dreams can be a clue to unconscious aggressive urges.
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Unconscious Mind
The rest of the psyche that we are unaware of. It can be compared to the bulk of the iceberg that is at the bottom. contains powerful aggressive urges. only really seen in dreams (which aren't accurate)
Catharsis
Release of emotions such as affection. Psychodynamic theory argues pent up aggression can be released through sport or playing violent video games.
Limitations
Ignores mediational processes (e.g., thinking). places too much emphasis on the psychological factors, without considering the biological/genetic factors that influence and contribute to mental health problems.
Simplifying the human mind into the id, ego, and superego and the five psychosexual stages make the approach reductionist.
Evidence
Freud's idea of the instinctive id and the rational ego links to the brain. The limbic system is the brain's "emotion place" and the amygdala specifically handles fear and aggression. The pre-frontal cortex does rational decision-making and gets messages from amygdala.
Catharsis is a matter of ordinary experience - many people do feel calmer and more at ease after venting aggression
Applications
Psychoanalysis - can help treat aggression by exploring the unconscious causes of aggression. in therapy the psychoanalyst helps the people explore their own dreams (which arent scientific) and childhood memories and work out what they mean. Hopefully, the person who being therapied will learn about the defence mechanisms they are using and the unresolved conflicts going on in their unconscious.
Strengths
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Case study methodology embraces our complex behaviour by gathering rich information, and on an individual basis – an idiographic approach – when conducting research.
Some evidence supports the existence of ego defence mechanisms such as repression, e.g. adults can forget traumatic child sexual abuse (Williams, 1994).
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Weaknesses
It could be argued that Freud's approach overemphasises childhood experience as the source of abnormality (although modern psychodynamic theories give more recognition to the adult problems of everyday life, such as the effects of negative interpersonal relationships).
By using case studies to support theories, the approach does not use controlled experiments to collect empirical evidence, so is considered far less scientific than other approaches.
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Many of Freud's ideas are considered non-falsifiable – theories may appear to reflect evidence, but you cannot observe the relevant constructs directly (namely the unconscious mind) to test them scientifically, such that they could be proved wrong. Philosopher of science Karl Popper famously argued that a theory is not scientific if it is not falsifiable.