Psychodynamic Approach

Question 1

Outline psychodynamic approach for offender behaviour

Answer 1

Focuses on superego formed at the end of phallic stage after oedipus complex
- Blackburn argued if the superego is deficient or inadequate, criminal behaviour will occur as the id isn’t properly controlled

Question 2

Outline three types of inadequate superego

Answer 2

Weak superego
- if same sex parent is absent in phallic stage, child cannot internalise a fully formed superego –> no identification
- makes criminal/immoral behaviour more likely
Deviant superego
- if superego internalised has immoral/deviant values, leads to offending behaviour
- may not feel guilt for wrongdoings
Overharsh superego
- caused by overly harsh parenting, leads to excessively punitive superego
- means individual is crippled with guilt and anxiety —> may unconsciously drive criminality to satisfy the superego need for punishment

Question 3

How is Maternal deprivation involved in offender behaviour

Answer 3

Prolonged separation from the mother can lead to affectionless psychopathy (lack of guilt and empathy) and poor internal working model —> supported by Bowlby’s 44 thieves model (14 ppts showed traits of affectionless psychopathy, 12/14 had experienced prolonged separation from mother

Question 4

Give a strength of psychodynamic explanation of offending

Answer 4

Research support —> Groeta conducted an analysis of ten offenders referred to psychiatric treatment
- found disturbances in superego formation in all participants including feelings of guilt and need for punishment
- supports idea of the overharsh superego as a basis of offending

Question 5

Give weaknesses of psychodynamic explanation of offending

Answer 5

Contradictory evidence
- Freud’s theory implies girls develop a weaker superego than boys as they don’t experience castration anxiety so feel less pressure to identify with mothers, so superego and morality is less fully realised
- this would suggest females should be more prone to criminality than men but 20x men than women in prison
- suggests the theory is incomplete, weakening its validity
- alpha bias, exaggerates differences between men and women
Unfalsifiable
- revolves around the unconscious and so cannot be empirically tested
- lacks scientific evidence and so is regarded as pseudoscientific
Flawed methodology
- Bowlby’s study suffers from researcher bias, he may have selected his sample to support his theory
- aslo uses self report data which may be inaccurate (SDB and retrospective recall)
Contradictory research
-Lewis analysed data from interviews with 500 young people, found maternal deprivation was a poor predictor of future offending and ability to form close relationships in adolescence
- Correlational, may be a third variable such as environmental factors (poverty, trauma) or biological
- incomplete explanation of offending