Psychodynamic Approach

Question 1

Psychodynamic approach

Answer 1

Emphasis the importance of unconscious desires and early childhood experiences in shaping personality

Question 2

Freud (1923) structure of personality

Answer 2

• ID (pleasure principle – innate drive to seek immediate satisfaction)
• EGO (reality principle – mediates between id, superego and reality)
• SUPEREGO (morality principle - internalisation of societal rules, developing around age 5)

Question 3

Freud (1923) defence mechanisms

Answer 3

Conflict between id and superego, leading to detachment from reality (repression, denial, displacement)

Question 4

Freud (1923) psychosexual stages

Answer 4

Oral, anal, phallic (Oedipus and Electra complex developed), latency, genital. Consequence of unresolved conflict is fixation

Question 5

Strength of the psychodynamic approach

Answer 5

• Influence on modern psychology and western thought (eg. Explains personality and draws attention to childhood experiences)

Question 6

Limitations of the psychodynamic approach

Answer 6

• Unscientific and untestable (eg. Not falsifiable as mind can’t be dissected to reveal personality)
• Gender bias (eg. Oedipus complex is androcentric and the Electra complex suggests women are inferior)
• Too deterministic (eg. Freud believes all behaviour is driven by the unconscious, ignoring free will)