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The Psychodynamic approach

A therapeutic approach developed by Sigmund Freud.

- His major assumption was that all behaviour has an unconscious cause

The important features:

- The mind is split into three levels

- Personality develops through the psychosexual stages of development

- Personality is split into three parts

- Ego defence mechanisms

Ego = Conscious mind, things we are aware of, accessed easily.

Super-ego = Pre-conscious mind, information that is semi-aware of. Often emerges in your dreams

Id= Unconscious mind, hard to access, unaware of information.

- Childhood trauma

Fears

- Desires

- Secrets

Things you don’t want to deal with on a daily basis.

The Psychosexual Stages of Development

- Developmental stages a child goes through

Stages driven by basic instincts: Sex and death

Stages relate to areas of the body

“Normal” development means you pass through stages sequentially

Can get stuck or fixated in a stage, due to too much or too little pleasure in that space.

These fixations manifests in adult behaviours.

Oral stage (0-18 months)

- Pleasure focused on the mouth

Breasts derive pleasure as reduce hunger

Fixation can lead to: Pencil chewing, smoking, thumb sucking, nail biting

Anal stage (18-36 months)

Pleasure is focused around the bottom

Explosion and retention of faeces

Please parent by using toilet

Or defy parent by refusing to defecate.

Fixation in this stage: excessive generosity, messy, really tidy.

Phallic stage (4 - 6 years)

Important stage

Sexual instincts start

Oedipus complex — boys!

boys develop sexual urges towards their mother, but worried that their father will find out - castration anxiety.

To deal with this, they identify with their father, under the impression that penis = power.

Electra complex:

Girls desire father

Penis envy

Realises mother doesn't have a penis, worried that father has castrated her.

Identify with mother, desire a baby not a penis.

Latent stage (6-puberty (start)

- The calm before the hormonal storm

- Sexual drive is present but “asleep

Focus on friendships +school.

Genital stage (puberty- onwards)

Sexual desires are met

Promiscuous behaviour

Structure of Personality

Tripartite personality

- Pleasure principle

- I want it, I want it now

- Demands immediate satisfaction

Super Ego

- Morality principle

- Develops in the phallic stage

- Key for criminal behaviour

- Sense of right or wrong

Ego

- Reality principle

- Mediates between the demands of the ID and superego

Defence Mechanisms

Ego has a hard job of meeting everyones demands

Ego protects itself using defence mechanisms

Denial - Refusal to acknowledge/accept reality

e.g. often occurs in grief

Repression - Pushing experiences/memories into the unconscious mind.

e.g abuse

Displacement - Transfer feelings onto safer target

e.g. want to punch boss, so punch a pillow

Explain why Freud’s focus on the unconscious mind is unscientific.

Some psychologists regard Freud’s investigations into the unconscious mind as unscientific as his conclusions are unfalsifiable. There is no way to prove or disprove that there is an unconscious mind. Freud did not carry out any empirical studies to prove that there is an unconscious mind, and so psychologists deem it as unscientific. In addition to this, Freud reached his conclusions of the mind, after studying his case-studies. Case-studies are ridden with individual differences, cannot be generalised to a wider population, and so cannot be used to draw full conclusions about psychological concepts.

Explain why subjectivity is an issue in the psychodynamic approach

Subjectivity is an issue in the psychodynamic approach as it approaches psychology on a very personal level. For each patient, there is a large amount of nuanced information that other approaches, such as behaviourism would not have. In addition to this, certain theories do not apply to all cases, as Freud drew his conclusions from his own patients, meaning the conclusions cannot be generalisable to a wider population.

Explain why Freud’s theory is considered to be deterministic.

(Not sure what theory you want to talk about here) Freud’s psychosexual stages can be considered to be deterministic, due to fixation. A fixation on an early stage caused by a mishap of the parent, leads to a lifetime of psychological problems, such as alcoholism Freud claims.

How would the behaviourist approach criticise the psychodynamic approach?

One way in which the behaviourist approach criticise the psychodynamic approach, is the quality and quantity of research. Behaviourists concepts such as operant conditioning have been meticulously tested by scientists such as Skinner. These tests deliver tangible results and have been replicated hundreds of times, making them very reliable. The research for the psychodynamic approach is more intangible, and focuses more on conceptualising and applying the theories rather than testing them. The research that makes up the basis of Freud’s conclusions were drawn from his patients, such as his discovery of unconscious thoughts that are present in dreams, through his patient ‘The Wolf Man.’ In addition to this, the results from Freud’s research is unfalsifiable, unlike the results from studies from scientists such as Pavlov, which can be proven to be correct.

Explain a valuable contribution of the psychodynamic approach.

The most valuable contribution of the psychodynamic approach is the emergence of talking therapies. Even though the therapies themselves may be flawed, talking to a professional who you feel comfortable with has shown to make improvements in mental health irregardless to the type of therapy. The importance placed on psychoanalysis in the psychodynamic approach has led to the widespread emergence of things such as group therapy and occupational therapy.

Freud based much of his theory on middle-aged women who he was trading for various psychological problems. Explain the implications of this.

-Limited sample size

-Individual differences

-Cannot be generalised to a wider, male and younger female population

Karl Popper argued the psychodynamic approach cannot be falsified. What does this mean and how does it apply to the psychodynamic approach?

It means that there is no way to prove or disprove that psychodynamic approach is correct. Freud did not carry out any empirical studies to prove his psychodynamic concepts, and so psychologists deem it as unscientific. In addition to this, Freud reached his conclusions of the mind, after studying his case-studies. Case-studies are ridden with individual differences, cannot be generalised to a wider population, and so cannot be used to draw full conclusions about psychological concepts. This means that the conclusions from the psychodynamic approach should be taken with a pinch of salt, and looked at objectively.

Outline and evaluate the use of psychoanalysis in the psychodynamic approach.

Psychoanalysis is a talking therapy method that is used to uncover and treat psychological illnesses. Tests such as Rorsach tests, free association and dream analysis are used to help identify potential problem areas where the psychological problems have taken root.

Psychodynamic Explanation of Crime

Psychodynamic theories of offending

- Personality is tripartite — id, ego and superego

Superego develops in the phallic stage with the resolution of Oedipus (boys) and Electra (girls).

Superego represents morality and punishes the ego for wrong doing and rewards it for moral behaviour.

Inadequate superego

Weak superego: Develops in the absence of same-sex parent to identify with, ergo has no opportunity to identify + internalise moral code. So no understanding of right + wrong.

Superego shows no guilt, it is not sufficiently punitive

Deviant superego: Child identifies with same-sex parent, but they have an immoral/deviant code. Child develops an immoral sense of right + wrong. The view is at odds with the views of society.

Over-harsh superego

Superego is excessively punitive

Demanding of guilt

Seeks out opportunities to be punished

Engage incite to be punished

Unconscious desire to be punished

Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis

- being deprived of a continuos and loving relationship with the mother in the first 2 years of life causes lifelong irreversible damage

This damage includes delinquency and affectionless psychopathy - Lack of empathy+ lack of guilt “A total disregard of the feelings of others” Melanie Klein.

What is the evidence? : Bowlby 44 Juvenile Thieves

14/44 were identified as affectionless psychopaths

12 of the 14 had suffered maternal deprivation + showed delinquent behaviour.

Bowlby’s 44 juvenile thieves

Aim: To investigate causes of delinquency

Method: Interviewed 44 juvenile thieves about behaviour & childhood experience. Also spoke to families about whether they had been separated from family in early childhood. A control group was used.

Results: 14 identified as affectionless psychopaths, 12 had been separated from mothers during first 2 years.

Conclusion: Maternal deprivation leafs to delinquent behaviours.

MDH links with psychodynamic due to the emphasis on early childhood influencing later outcomes.

e.g. Absence of parental care at a young age correlates with criminal behaviour.

A03: Is this a good explanation?

- Gender Bias: Freud believed girls had a weaker superego, as girls don’t fear castration to the same extent as boys. - Girls sense of MORALITY is LESS DEVELOPED.

Girls therefore SHOULD commit more crimes. Yet, prison statistics show higher proportion of men.

(Maybe women are better at getting away with it —> reporting + recording crime)

Hoffman — girls are more moral than boys

Contradictory evidence: Freud says “no same sex-parent = weak superego = more crime”

- However, there is little evidence that children raised in same-sex families are less law-abiding

- Could be genetics — inherited a deviant moral code

- Could be learnt - but we cannot isolate the role of learning.

Untestable concepts: Unconscious, superego, mind, are not open to scientific testing. - Unfalsifiable (can’t be proved right or wrong)

Pseudoscientific

Things like 44 juvenile thieves, full of methodological problems

Freud = case studies, lacking validity, generalisation

An outdated view of family

Freud is based on traditional family which is no longer truly representative.

Methodological issues

Bowlby’s 44 juvenile thieves, no difference between privation and deprivation, as privation has more serious consequences than deprivation.

- Bowlby wasn’t able to clearly establish what the thieves suffered as all based on memory — retrospective data, social desirability bias.

Correlation v. causation

- Links between MDH + crime are all relationships, they are not causal. We cannot say deprivation caused delinquency. What we can say is that there is a relationship between the two. Perhaps deprivation increases the likelyhood of criminal behaviours emerging.

Role of early childhood + family (Support)

Considered and respected the importance of early childhood experiences

He acknowledged that they could shape + influence behaviour.

Prep

Define what offending is

Structure:

Supergo A01, (3)

then A03 (5)

Bowlby A01 (3)

Then a03 (5)

+ nature/ nurture debate