#8727 - Psychodynamic - Edexcel Psychology

Unit 2- psychology

The psychodynamic approach

Define the psychodynamic approach

• The approach focuses on the influence of unconscious desires and repressed emotions in motivating behaviour and personality

• Unconscious is a vast area of the mind which stores all those desires, thoughts, memories and fantasies which may threaten our sense of self-worth and identity

• They are repressed yet their energy requires discharge and thus Freud believed that the ego attempts to do this through the use of defence mechanisms, dreamwork jokes, Freudian slips and hysteric symptoms

• Freud also depicted the id as the unconscious part of the personality made up of biological drives, predominantly for sex and aggression, which are repressed due to their socially unacceptable nature

• Aspects of the superego or morality principles are also unconscious and exert constrains upon our behaviour

• A second assumption of the approach is the importance of early childhood in shaping adult personality

• (now describe the psychosexual stages, and the effects of over and under gratification and fixation on adult personality types)

• Third assumption is that behaviour/personality are determined by an interaction between nature and nurture

• We are born with instinctive drives for sex and aggression (nature, survival value; evolutionary advantages if we have these drives), however the drives are modified by experiences within the family during early childhood (0-5 years), (nurture)

Terms and definitions

Conscious

• Freud believed

• Contains all conscious feelings that we are currently aware

• Section is very small, comparing it to the ‘tip of the iceberg’ believing that a vast majority of the mind is inaccessible

• Only part of personality available to awareness is part of the ego which is the reality principle

• E.g. listening to music and singing along this would be occurring in your conscious mind

Preconscious

• Small section of the mind which lies ‘beneath the surface’ of conscious awareness

• Contains thoughts and feelings which can be accessed but of which we are not currently aware

• E.g. when listening to a song and someone asks you when you first heard that song, think for a while, then remember it was on the radio when you were driving your car

Unconscious

• Vast section of the mind, containing a mass of socially unacceptable thoughts, desires, fantasies and traumatic memories

• Inaccessible to conscious awareness, acts as a storage bin for anything which might threaten one’s self identity and self-esteem.

• Thought where all thoughts originate thus some material may become conscious but other material may never become conscious due to its threatening nature

• Psychoanalytic therapy is supposed to help people by allowing some of this unconscious material to become conscious, thus freeing a person from the constraints of their past experiences.

Id

• Babies are born as a bundle of ‘id’ or constrained biological drives or impulses

• The id works on the pleasure principle and is irrational and demanding

• It motivates behaviour but at an unconscious level

• E.g. if a man spilt a drink on a woman, Freud might explain that this man’s id driving him to spill the drink in order that he can help her to clean it up, thus allowing him to touch her. The man would remain completely unaware that he even liked the woman

Ego

• Freud believed…

• Formed in the second year of life, during anal stage

• Rational part of the personality and works on the reality principle

• Job is to meet the demands of the id while still satisfying the superego, or morality principle

• Happens through defence mechanisms, hysteric symptoms and dreamwork

• E.g. the ego may translate a desire for sex into a dream about horse riding or some other physically demanding activity

Superego

• Freud believed…

• Formed as a result of a resolved Oedipus/ Electra complex, during the phallic stage

• Two components; the ego ideal which rewards us with pride and self-esteem for ‘doing the right thing’, but also the conscience which punishes us with feelings of shame and guilt for doing ‘the wrong thing’

• Like our ‘inner-parent’ and represents societies attitudes about what is right and wrong

• E.g. superego may exert its influence by making a person feel ashamed of their sexual desires and put other priorities ahead of their sexual relationship, such as work or child care

Defence mechanism

• Short term coping strategies employed by the ego in order to meet the conflicting demands of the id and superego

• Many defence mechanisms including repression and denial which involve pushing a desire or memory out of the conscious awareness into the unconscious

• Other defence mechanisms involve expressing the desire but in a different way. E.g. in projection one’s own desires or undesirable characteristics are attributed to others and the person will behave towards the other person in a way keeping with this cognitive shift, i.e. a person may lavish attention on others when they really desire that attention themselves

• In displacement a persona may express their aggression towards their children when their real source of anger is their own parents

Repression

• Defence mechanism which protects the self-esteem from conscious awareness of the id’s socially unacceptable desires and also from experiencing recall of traumatic experiences

• Sometimes called motivated forgetting

• Thoughts, feelings and traumatic memories are stored in the unconscious mind.

• E.g. Williams (1991) noted that 38% of women sexually abused as children were unable to recall their experiences 17 years later as adults

Projection

• People who use projection ‘see’ certain qualities or personality traits in others which are in fact true of themselves, but they do not recognise this at a conscious level

• If the individual was to recognise these traits as part of their own personality they may find this distressing

• So the ego expresses this knowledge by making it relate to someone else; it is ‘easier’ to understand and reason about the faults in others than ourselves

• In a way, this method of distancing one’s self from negative qualities allows the person to objectify and consider the information at ‘arm’s length’

Examples of projection

• E.g. obsessive animal lovers who dote on their pets like babies, may be expressing their own need for love and attention, needs which perhaps were not met in childhood and continue to affect in adult; instead of admitting their own emotional needs they perceive the animals as in need of constant fuss and attention, making their pet the centre of their universe meets their need the be the centre of someone else’s

• Little hand case study (Freud 1909) the boy is scared of horses, implying that he thinks they are dangerous; perhaps his fear of the horse as an aggressor is projection of his own unconscious desire to attack and destroy his father. It is easier to see others as aggressive and harmful than to accept our own violent potential.

Psychosexual stages

• Freud believed…

• All individuals pass through a series of stages in a fixed order, each of which is characterised by specific desires and conflicts.

• The stages are oral (0-1), anal (1-3), phallic (3-5/6), latency (6-puberty) and genital (puberty +)

• The resolution of the conflicts and the extent to which the desires are met will determine aspects of the adult personality

• E.g. a child who is fixated in the oral stage due to over gratification may develop personality traits such as self-centeredness and/or high dependency on others.

Oral stage

• First psychosexual stage last from birth to around 18 months

• Divided into two sub-stages; oral receptive and oral aggressive

• Erogenous zone is the mouth and pleasure is derived from sucking, (oral receptive) and then from biting (oral aggressive)

• A conflict has to be resolved to move from breast or bottle to solid food (weaning)

• Difficulty with feeding or weaning too early or too late can result in over or under gratification of pleasure needs, can lead to maladaptive behaviour in adulthood such as over eating and other addictions and certain so-called ‘oral personality’ traits such as sarcasm, dependency and self-centredness

Anal stage

• Second psychosexual stage, last from about 18 months to age 2/3

• Stage divided into two sub stages; anal expulsive and anal retentive

• Erogenous zone is the anus and pleasure is derived first from expelling and retaining faeces

• Conflict which has to be resolved which is potty training and this related to gaining control over one’s biological needs

• Potty training too early or too late, or overly strict or lenient parenting at this stage can result in under or over gratification of pleasure needs

• Lead to maladaptive behaviour in adult hood and so-called ‘anal personality’ traits

• (over indulgence leads to) Anal expulsive personality is messy, creative may be disorganised

• (frustration leads to) Anally retentive personality is meticulous, orderly, obsessed with cleanliness and stubborn, they may be mean with money and may be possessive about property and rights

Phallic stage

• Third psychosexual stage and lasts from 3 to 5/6

• Erogenous zone is the genitals which become a source of interest and please

• Stage is characterised by the Oedipus complex in boys and the Electra complex in girls

• Complexes successfully resolved through identification with the same sex parent, this should lead to development of gender identity and the superego

• Poor resolution can lead to problems with gender and morality, and ‘phallic personality’ traits such as recklessness, narcissism and exhibition

Latency stage

• Fourth stage of development, last from around the age of 6 up...