Psychodynamic Theory

People really do differ in the degree that they rely on different ego defenses—so much so that researchers now study each person's

"defense style" (the unique constellation of defenses that we use)

Frustration or overgratification during a particular stage was hypothesized to result in

"fixation" at that stage, and to the development of an oral, anal, or Oedipal personality style

Consider, for example, what you had for dinner last night. A moment ago that information was preconscious; now it's conscious, because you

"pulled it up" into consciousness. (Not to worry, in a few moments it will be preconscious again, and you can move on to more important things.)

Rationalization (defense mechanism)

- Attempting to make excuses or formulate logical reasons to justifying unacceptable feelings or behaviors. EX: justifying cheating on taxes by convincing yourself everyone does it

Repression (defense mechanism)

- Involuntary blocking of unpleasant feelings and experiences from ones awareness. EX: An accident victim can remember nothing about the accident

reaction formation (defense mechanism)

- Preventing unacceptable thoughts or behaviors from being expressed by exaggerating opposite thoughts or types of behaviors. EX: when a young boy feels affection for young girl, but responds by making fun of her

sublimation (defense mechanism)

- Rechanneling of drives or impulses that are personally or socially unacceptable into activities that are constructive. EX: unleashing pent up aggression by playing field hockey or football

Denial (defense mechanism)

- Refusing to acknowledge the existence of a real situation or the feelings associated with it. EX: dismissing potentially serious physical symptom as being unimportant

displacement (defense mechanism)

- The transfer of feelings from one target to another that is considered less threatening or that is neutral. EX: being yelled at by your partner and going home and taking it out on your partner

oral

0-18 months, moving from infantile dependency toward autonomy

anal

18-36 months, learning to excerise control over one's body, one's impulses, and other people

oedipal

5-6yrs, mastering competitive urges and acquiring gender role related behavior

latency

6yrs-puberty, investing energy in productive, reqarding tasks and activities

The core assumptions of psychodynamic theory are surprisingly simple. The three.

Assumption 1:Primacy of the Unconscious, Assumption 2: Critical Importance of Early Experiences, Assumption 3: Psychic Causality

It turns out that certain defenses are more adaptive than others:

Rationalization and sublimation are healthier (psychologically speaking) than repression and reaction formation

Psychodynamic theory is most closely associated with the work of

Sigmund Freud, and with psychoanalysis, a type of psychotherapy that attempts to explore the patient's unconscious thoughts and emotions so that the person is better able to understand him- or herself.

three psychodynamic hypotheses that have received strong empirical support.

Unconscious processes influence our behavior as the psychodynamic perspective predicts. We all use ego defenses and they help determine our psychological adjustment and physical health. Mental representations of self and others do indeed serve as blueprints for later relationships.

When the ego is dominant,

a more balanced set of personality traits develop

Oedipal fixation leads to an

aggressive, competitive personality orientation.

Another ego defense is denial. In denial (unlike repression), we are aware that a particular event occurred, but we don't

allow ourselves to see the implications of that event.

The unconscious—the most controversial part of the topographic model—contains

anxiety-producing material (for example, sexual impulses, aggressive urges) that are deliberately repressed (held outside of conscious awareness as a form of self-protection because they make you uncomfortable)

In developmental psychology you might read about this in the context of attachment theory (which argues that

attachments—or bonds—to significant people are key to understanding human behavior

The idea that you choose a romantic partner who resembles mom or dad is a myth, but it's true that you expect to

be treated by others as you were treated by your parents early in life

If you internalized a mental image of mom or dad as harsh and judgmental, you might instead

become a self-critical person, and feel that you can never live up to other people's standards . . . or your own

Evidence for the importance of unconscious influences is so compelling that it has become a

central element of contemporary cognitive and social psychology

superego is basically your

conscience—the moral guidelines, rules, and prohibitions that guide your behavior. (You acquire these through your family and through the culture in which you were raised.)

The preconscious contains material that is capable of becoming

conscious but is not conscious at the moment because your attention is not being directed toward it.

For example, repression (the most basic ego defense, according to Freud) involves removing from

consciousness upsetting thoughts and feelings, and moving those thoughts and feelings to the unconscious.

The terms conscious, preconscious, and unconscious continue to be used today in psychology, and research has provided

considerable support for Freud's thinking regarding conscious and preconscious processing

The topographic model, psychosexual stage model, and structural model continue to influence

contemporary psychology, but it is important to keep in mind that psychodynamic theory is never static, ever changing and evolving in response to new ideas and findings.

The existence of the unconscious remains

controversial, with some researchers arguing that evidence for it is compelling and others contending that "unconscious" processing can be accounted for without positing the existence of a Freudian repository of repressed wishes and troubling urges and impulses

Our self-representations are, quite literally, a product of our

cultural milieu

One of Freud's lifelong goals was to use psychoanalytic principles to understand

culture and improve intergroup relations (he actually exchanged several letters with Albert Einstein prior to World War II, in which they discussed this issue)

When you hear a person with a substance abuse problem say "I'm fine—even though people complain about my drinking I never miss a day of work," that person is using

denial.

Note that—consistent with the developmental challenges that the child confronts during each stage—oral fixation is hypothesized to result in a

dependent personality, whereas anal fixation results in a lifelong preoccupation with control.

Freud introduced his topographic model of the mind, which contended that the mind could be

divided into three regions: conscious, preconscious, and unconscious.

The id is the seat of

drives and instincts,

So if you internalized positive introjects early in life (for example, a mental image of mom or dad as warm and accepting), that's what you

expect to occur in later relationships as well.

Dozens of studies have shown that mental images of our parents, and other significant figures, really do shape our

expectations for later friendships and romantic relationships.

Some of the first efforts to integrate psychodynamic principles with

findings from neuroscience involved sleep and dreams, and contemporary models of dream formation now incorporate principles from both domains

You can move material from the preconscious into consciousness simply by

focusing your attention on it

Empirical research assessing psychodynamic concepts has produced mixed results, with some concepts receiving

good empirical support, and others not faring as well.

For example, the notion that we express strong sexual feelings from a very early age, as the psychosexual stage model suggests,

has not held up to empirical scrutiny.

Denial is, quite literally, bad for your

health, because people who use denial tend to ignore symptoms of illness until it's too late

When the id predominates and instincts rule, the result is an

impulsive personality style.

Research confirms this basic premise of psychoanalysis: Many of our mental activities—memories, motives, feelings, and the like—are largely

inaccessible to consciousness

According to the structural model, our personality reflects the interplay of these three psychic structures, which differ across

individuals in relative power and influence.

Because Freud's work in this area evolved over more than 50 years (he began in 1885, and continued until he died in 1939), there were numerous revisions along the way. Thus, it is most accurate to think of psychodynamic theory as a set of

interrelated models that complement and build upon each other.

In psychoanalytic terms, the activities of the mind (or psyche) are presumed to be

largely unconscious

ego represents the

logical, reality-oriented part of the mind

In addition to being the logical, rational, reality-oriented part of the mind, the ego serves another important function: It helps us

manage anxiety through the use of ego defenses.

When the superego is strongest,

moral prohibitions reign supreme, and a restrained, overcontrolled personality ensues

When he suggested in 1905 that we humans have strong sexual feelings from a very early age, and that some of these sexual feelings are directed toward our parents, people were

more than displeased—they were outraged

Despite being surrounded by controversy, the psychodynamic perspective on personality has survived for more than a century, reinventing itself in response to

new empirical findings, theoretical shifts, and changing social forces.

To extend his theory, Freud developed a complementary framework to account for

normal and abnormal personality development—the structural model—which posits the existence of three interacting mental structures called the id, ego, and superego

four current trends in the psychodynamic perspective:

object relations theory, the empirical testing of psychodynamic concepts, psychoanalysis and culture, and the opportunities and challenges of neuroscience.

In recent years a number of new psychodynamic frameworks have emerged to explain personality development and dynamics. The most important of these is

object relations theory. (In psychoanalytic language, the term "object" refers to a person, so object relations theory is really something more like "interpersonal relations theory.")

Neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imagery (fMRI) have begun to play an increasingly central role in this

ongoing psychoanalysis-neuroscience integration as well

Assumption 1:Primacy of the Unconscious: Psychodynamic theorists contend that the majority of psychological processes take place

outside conscious awareness.

Assumption 2: Critical Importance of Early Experiences: This is especially true of experiences that are

outside the normal range (for example, losing a parent or sibling at a very early age).

Psychodynamic theory may be the closest thing we have to an

overarching, all-encompassing theory in psychology. It deals with a broad range of issues—normal and pathological functioning, motivation and emotion, childhood and adulthood, individual and culture—and the psychodynamic perspective continues to have tremendous potential for integrating ideas and findings across the many domains of contemporary psychology.

Ultimately, Freud recognized that the topographic model was helpful in understanding how

people process and store information, but not all that useful in explaining other important psychological phenomena (for example, why certain people develop psychological disorders and others do not)

For example, studies have shown that individuals raised in individualistic, independence-focused cultures (for example, the United States, Great Britain) tend to define themselves primarily in terms of

personal attributes (like attitudes and interests), whereas individuals raised in more sociocentric, interdependent cultures (for example, Japan, India) are more likely to describe themselves in terms of interpersonal relations and connections with others

Psychodynamic theory (sometimes called psychoanalytic theory) explains

personality in terms of unconscious psychological processes (for example, wishes and fears of which we're not fully aware), and contends that childhood experiences are crucial in shaping adult personality.

According to the psychodynamic model, early experiences—including those occurring during the first weeks or months of life—set in motion

personality processes that affect us years, even decades, later

Given Freud's background in neurology, it is not surprising that the first incarnation of psychoanalytic theory was

primarily biological: Freud set out to explain psychological phenomena in terms that could be linked to neurological functioning as it was understood in his day.

Fifteen years ago, Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel (1998) articulated a vision for an empirically oriented psychodynamic perspective firmly embedded within the

principles and findings of neuroscience.

Kandel's vision ultimately led to the development of neuropsychoanalysis, an integration of

psychodynamic and neuropsychological concepts that has enhanced researchers' understanding of numerous aspects of human behavior and mental functioning

Controversy notwithstanding, no competent psychologist, or student of psychology, can ignore

psychodynamic theory

As you might imagine, when Freud suggested in 1900 that much of our behavior is determined by

psychological forces of which we're largely unaware—that we literally don't know what's going on in our own minds—people were (to put it mildly) displeased

On the other hand, the idea that there are dependent, control-oriented, and competitive personality types—an idea also derived from the

psychosexual stage model—does seem useful.

genital

puberty onward, maturation of sexual interests

Freud's work has been not only influential, but

quite controversial as well

Assumption 3: Psychic Causality: The third core assumption of psychodynamic theory is that nothing in mental life happens by chance—that there is no such thing as a

random thought, feeling, motive, or behavior.

All ego defenses involve some distortion of

reality.

psychosexual

refers to the relationship between the psychological and emotional aspects of sex

structural models

representations of a physical structure

Object relations theory has increased many psychologists' interest in studying psychodynamic ideas and concepts, in part because it

represents a natural bridge between the psychodynamic perspective and research in other areas of psychology.

When you read about a person who "blocked out" upsetting memories of child abuse, that's an example of

repression.

We perceive and process much more information than we realize, and much of our behavior is

shaped by feelings and motives of which we are, at best, only partially aware

For example, developmental and social psychologists also believe that mental representations of significant people play an important role in

shaping our behavior

Assumption 2:Critical Importance of Early Experiences: Psychodynamic theory is not alone in positing that early childhood events play a role in

shaping personality, but the theory is unique in the degree to which it emphasizes these events as determinants of personality development and dynamics.

In social psychology, mental representations of significant figures play an important role in

social cognition (thoughts and feelings regarding other people;

Ego defenses are basically mental

strategies that we use automatically and unconsciously when we feel threatened. They help us navigate upsetting events, but there's a cost as well.

These mental images (sometimes called introjects) serve as

templates for later interpersonal relationships—almost like relationship blueprints or "scripts."

Psychodynamic theory as a set of interrelated models. Three are particularly important:

the topographic model, the psychosexual stage model, and the structural model.

During the past several decades, as society has become increasingly multicultural,

this effort has taken on new importance; psychoanalysts have been active in incorporating ideas and findings regarding cultural influences into their research and clinical work.

This has come to be known as the principle of psychic causality, and though few psychologists accept the principle of psychic causality precisely as psychoanalysts conceive it, most theorists and researchers agree that

thoughts, motives, emotional responses, and expressed behaviors do not arise randomly, but always stem from some combination of identifiable biological and psychological processes

Object relations theory contends that personality can be

understood as reflecting the mental images of significant figures (especially the parents) that we form early in life in response to interactions taking place within the family

If you've ever done something that didn't seem to make sense—and who among us hasn't—the psychodynamic perspective on personality might be

useful for you

Freud remained devoted to the topographic model, but by 1905 he had outlined the key elements of his psychosexual stage model, which argued that early in life

we progress through a sequence of developmental stages, each with its own unique challenge and its own mode of sexual gratification.

Freud's psychosexual stages—oral, anal, Oedipal, latency, and genital—are

well-known even to non-analytic psychologists.

It is simply too important for psychological science and practice, and continues to play an important role in a

wide variety of disciplines within and outside psychology (for example, developmental psychology, social psychology, sociology, and neuroscience;

The conscious part of the mind holds information that

you're focusing on at this moment—what you're thinking and feeling right now.