Psychodynamic Approach

Question 1

Key Assumptions

Answer 1

• Unconscious activity is the key determinate of how we behave.
• We possess innate ‘drives’ (or ‘instincts’) that ‘energize’ our minds to motivate behaviour as we develop through our lives.
• Our [three-part] personality – the psyche – is comprised of the ID, ego and superego.
• Childhood experiences have significant importance in determining our personality when we reach adulthood.

Question 2

Role of the unconscious (structure of personality)

Answer 2

• ID – driving us to satisfy selfish urges (i.e. acts according to the ‘pleasure principle’) (exists from birth).
• Ego - acts rationally, balancing the ID and the superego (i.e. acts according to the ‘reality principle’) (develops years 2-4).
• Superego – concerned with keeping to moral norms (i.e. acts according to the ‘morality principle’), and attempts to control a powerful ID with feelings of guilt (develops years 4-5).

Question 3

Freud’s three levels of the mind
“Unconscious mind”

Answer 3

• The conscious - the small amount of mental activity we know about
• The preconscious - things we could be aware of if we wanted or tried to (e.g. Freudian slip”)
• The unconscious - things we are unaware of and can not become aware of unless we dream about it. Contains biological instincts, drives and dreams

Question 4

Psychosexual stages

Answer 4

• Oral – sucking behaviour (0-18 months)
• Anal – holding or discarding faeces (18 months – 3.5 years)
• Phallic – fixation on genitals (3.5 – 6 years)
• Latency – repressed sexual urges (6 years - puberty)
• Genital – awakened sexual urges (puberty onwards)

Question 5

Ego defence mechanisms

Answer 5

• Repression – burying an unpleasant thought or desire in the unconscious (e.g. traumatic childhood experiences may be repressed and so forgotten).
• Displacement – emotions are directed away from their source or target, towards other things (e.g. wringing a dishcloth in anger, which would have otherwise been directed at the cat scratching the furniture).
• Denial – a threatening thought is ignored or treated as if it were not true (e.g. a wife might find evidence that her husband is cheating on her, but explain it away using other reasons).

Question 6

Research methods used by the approach

Answer 6

• Free association – expressing immediate [unconscious] thoughts, as they happen
• Dream interpretation – analysing the latent content (i.e. underlying meaning) of manifest content (i.e. what was remembered from the dream).

Question 7

Evaluation: Strengths

Answer 7

• Freud highlighted a widely accepted link between childhood experience and adult characteristics.
• 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).
• Modern day psychiatry still utilizes Freudian psychoanalytic techniques.

Question 8

Evaluation: Weaknesses

Answer 8

• 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.
• Case study evidence is difficult to generalise to wider populations.
• 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.

Question 9

Strength: Psychoanalysis

Answer 9

• Led to the development of a new form of therapy: psychoanalysis.
• Psychoanalysis uses a range of techniques designed to access the unconscious, such as hypnosis and dream analysis.
• De maat et al’s large scale review of psychotherapy studies concluded that psychoanalysis produced significant improvements in symptoms.
• This suggests that the psychodynamic approach has been important in finding successful treatments for a range of disorders.