Psychology - The psychodynamic approach

Vienna Psychoanalytic Society.

At the beginning of 1908 the Psychological Wednesday Society has 22 members and decided to rename themselves what?

The process whereby the underlying wish is translated into the manifest content

Define: Dream-work

A modern offshoot of the psychodynamic perspective, this theory contends that personality can be understood as reflecting mental images of significant figures (especially the parents) that we form early in life in response to interactions taking place within the family; these mental images serve as templates (or "scripts") for later interpersonal relationships.

Define: Object relations theory

The hypothesis—supported by contemporary empirical research—that the vast majority of mental activity takes place outside conscious awareness.

Define: Primacy of the Unconscious

The assumption that nothing in mental life happens by chance—that there is no such thing as a "random" thought or feeling

Define: Psychic causality

Probably the most controversial aspect of psychodynamic theory, the psychosexual stage model contends that early in life we progress through a sequence of developmental stages (oral, anal, Oedipal, latency, and genital), each with its own unique mode of sexual gratification.

Define: Psychosexual stage model

Developed to complement and extend the topographic model, the structural model of the mind posits the existence of three interacting mental structures called the id, ego, and superego.

Define: Structural model

Freud's first model of the mind, which contended that the mind could be divided into three regions: conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. (The "topographic" comes from the fact that topography is the study of maps.)

Define: Topographic model

Both the form of therapy derived from psychoanalyric theory and the theory itself

Define: psychoanalysis

Freud (1900) considered dreams to be the royal road to the unconscious as it is in dreams that the ego's defenses are lowered so that some of the repressed material comes through to awareness, albeit in distorted form. Dreams perform important functions for the unconscious mind and serve as valuable clues to how the unconscious mind operates.

Describe the basics of Freuds theory of Dream Analysis.

Anna O. suffered from hysteria, a condition in which the patient exhibits physical symptoms (e.g. paralysis, convulsions, hallucinations, loss of speech) without an apparent physical cause. Her doctor Josef Breuer succeeded in treating Anna by helping her to recall forgotten memories of traumatic events. During discussions with her it became apparent that she had developed a fear of drinking, when a dog she hated drank from her glass. Her other symptoms originated when caring for her sick father. She would not express her anxiety for her his illness but did express it later, during psychoanalysis. As soon as she had the opportunity to make these unconscious thoughts conscious her paralysis disappeared. Breuer discussed the case with his friend Freud. Out of these discussions came the germ of an idea that Freud was to pursue for the rest of his life.

Describe the story of Anna O

Freud used the case study method when treating his clients (seeing them individually and invesigating them in detail), often using the clinical interview method to probe their past and question their behaviour. He deeply analysed and interpreted the symbolism of all they said and did. The methods remain the norm for most psychodynamic theorists.

Explain Freuds methods of investigation

- Free association - the unhibited expression of thought associations, no matter how bizarre or embarrassing, from the client to the analyst - Dream analysis - the 'royal road' to the unconscious, the analyst attempts to decode the symbols and unravel the hidden meaning of a dream from the dreamer's report

Explain Freuds two particular techniques which he used

During the oral stage, the infant's primary source of interaction occurs through the mouth, so the rooting and sucking reflex is especially important. The mouth is vital for eating and the infant derives pleasure from oral stimulation through gratifying activities such as tasting and sucking. Because the infant is entirely dependent upon caretakers (who are responsible for feeding the child), the infant also develops a sense of trust and comfort through this oral stimulation. The primary conflict at this stage is the weaning process--the child must become less dependent upon caretakers. If fixation occurs at this stage, Freud believed the individual would have issues with dependency or aggression. Oral fixation can result in problems with drinking, eating, smoking, or nail biting.

Explain the Oral stage

During the anal stage, Freud believed that the primary focus of the libido was on controlling bladder and bowel movements. The major conflict at this stage is toilet training--the child has to learn to control his or her bodily needs. Developing this control leads to a sense of accomplishment and independence. According to Freud, success at this stage is dependent upon the way in which parents approach toilet training. Parents who utilize praise and rewards for using the toilet at the appropriate time encourage positive outcomes and help children feel capable and productive. Freud believed that positive experiences during this stage served as the basis for people to become competent, productive, and creative adults. However, not all parents provide the support and encouragement that children need during this stage. Some parents instead punish, ridicule or shame a child for accidents. According to Freud, inappropriate parental responses can result in negative outcomes. If parents take an approach that is too lenient, Freud suggested that an anal-expulsive personality could develop in which the individual has a messy, wasteful, or destructive personality. If parents are too strict or begin toilet training too early, Freud believed that an anal-retentive personality develops in which the individual is stringent, orderly, rigid, and obsessive.

Explain the anal stage

During the final stage of psychosexual development, the individual develops a strong sexual interest in the opposite sex. This stage begins during puberty but last throughout the rest of a person's life. Where in earlier stages the focus was solely on individual needs, interest in the welfare of others grows during this stage. If the other stages have been completed successfully, the individual should now be well-balanced, warm, and caring. The goal of this stage is to establish a balance between the various life areas.

Explain the genital stage

During the latent period, the libido interests are suppressed. The development of the ego and superego contribute to this period of calm. The stage begins around the time that children enter into school and become more concerned with peer relationships, hobbies, and other interests. The latent period is a time of exploration in which the sexual energy is still present, but it is directed into other areas such as intellectual pursuits and social interactions. This stage is important in the development of social and communication skills and self-confidence.

Explain the latent period

During the phallic stage, the primary focus of the libido is on the genitals. At this age, children also begin to discover the differences between males and females. Freud also believed that boys begin to view their fathers as a rival for the mother's affections. The Oedipus complex describes these feelings of wanting to possess the mother and the desire to replace the father. However, the child also fears that he will be punished by the father for these feelings, a fear Freud termed castration anxiety. The term Electra complex has been used to described a similar set of feelings experienced by young girls. Freud, however, believed that girls instead experience penis envy. Eventually, the child begins to identify with the same-sex parent as a means of vicariously possessing the other parent. For girls, however, Freud believed that penis envy was never fully resolved and that all women remain somewhat fixated on this stage. Psychologists such as Karen Horney disputed this theory, calling it both inaccurate and demeaning to women. Instead, Horney proposed that men experience feelings of inferiority because they cannot give birth to children, a concept she referred to as womb envy.

Explain the phillic stage

The id is the combination of pleasure seeking desires and we are born with it. The ego develops later and it controls the desires of the id. The superego is the moralistic part of personality which develops as a child interacts with significant others such as its parents. The superego can be seen as the conscience. It is the role of the ego to maintain a balance between the id and the superego.

Explain the three parts of the adult personality

We use defense mechanisms to protect ourselves from feelings of anxiety or guilt, which arise because we feel threatened, or because our id or superego becomes too demanding. They are not under our conscious control, and are non-voluntaristic. With the ego, our unconscious will use one or more to protect us when we come up against a stressful situation in life. Ego-defense mechanisms are natural and normal. When they get out of proportion, neuroses develop, such as anxiety states, phobias, obsessions, or hysteria

Explain why psychodynamic psychologists may think that we need Ego defences

The oral stage, the anal stage, the phallic stage, the latency period and finally the genital stage.

Freud believed that children pass through five stages of development, known as the psychosexual stages because of Freud's emphasis on sexuality as the basic drive in development. What were these five stages?

-Conscious - thoughts and perception -Preconscious - available to consciousness e.g., memories and stored knowlege -Unconscious - wishes and desires formed in childhood determines most behaviour

Freud suggested that the mind was subdivided into different levels of conscious awareness. What were these?

-Personality development -Moral/gender development -Aggression -Abnormality -Memory

Freud used his theories to explain a vast number of topics, such as what?

The case study method often involves simply observing what happens to, or reconstructing 'the case history' of a single participant or group of individuals (such as a school class or a specific social group), i.e. the idiographic approach

Freud used the case study method in his investigations and analysis of clients. Explain this method

The iceburg theory

Freuds theory of levels of consciousness is commonly thought of as what theory

-Repression. This is an unconsious defence mechanism employed by he ego to keep disturbing or threatening thoughts from becoming consious. -Denial. This involves blocking external events from awareness. If some situation is just too much to handle, the person just refuses o experience it -Projection. This inolves individuals attributing their own unaccetable feelings, thoughts and motives to another person -Displacement. Satisfying an impulse with a substitute object -Regression. This is a movement in psychological time when one is faced with stress. -Sublimation. Satisfying an impulse with a substitute object. In a socially acceptable way.

Give examples and a description of the different ego defences.

On 24 July 1895, Freud had his own dream that was to form the basis of his theory. He had been worried about a patient, Irma, who was not doing as well in treatment as he had hoped. Freud in fact blamed himself for this, and was feeling guilty. Freud dreamed that he met Irma at a party and examined her. He then saw a chemical formula for a drug that another doctor had given Irma flash before his eyes and realized that her condition was caused by a dirty syringe used by the other doctor. Freud's guilt was thus relieved. Freud interpreted this dream as wish-fulfillment. He had wished that Irma's poor condition was not his fault and the dream had fulfilled this wish by informing him that another doctor was at fault. Based on this dream, Freud (1900) went on to propose that a major function of dreams was the fulfillment of wishes. Freud distinguished between the manifest content of a dream (what the dreamer remembers) and the latent content, the symbolic meaning of the dream (i.e. the underlying wish). The manifest content is often based on the events of the day.

How did Freud come about the theory of Dream Analysis.

Psychodynamic psychologists see behaviour as the re sult of a compromise between three parts of the psyche (personality). Each person has biological drives(eating, drinking, sex, aggression) from their id. These need to be satisfied but this is prevented by the superego , the moral part of the psyche, which uses anxiety and guilt to prevent us from acting on the id's impulses. Between the two is the ego, which tries to find ways of satisfying the id in a way that the superego will accept and that is in line with reality. This often involves the use of defence mechanisms which convert unconscious impulses into more acceptable forms. For example, with displacement an impulse may be redirected away from its original target onto a more acceptable one (e.g. being angry with your mother but taking it out on your friend) and with sublimation an unacceptable urge (e.g. to masturbate publicly) might be converted into a more acceptable behaviour (e.g. playing guitar in a rock band) The exact way in which the ego deals with the id and superego is determined during childhood as the child goes through the psychosexual stages of development first described by Sigmund Freud. During the first three stages, the child's personality develops as the source of its libido moves around its body and different impulses come to bear from the parents. Problems at any stage of development can result in the child getting fixated (stuck) at a stage. If this happens, traces of that stage will remain in their behaviour as an adult.

How do psychodynamic psychologists explain human behaviour?

Birth-1year

How old is a person when they are in the oral stage

The process of condensation is the joining of two or more ideas/images into one. For example, a dream about a man may be a dream about both one's father and one's lover. A dream about a house might be the condensation of worries about security as well as worries about one's appearance to the rest of the world. Displacement takes place when we transform the person or object we are really concerned about to someone else. For example, one of Freud's patients was extremely resentful of his sister-in-law and used to refer to her as a dog, dreamed of strangling a small white dog. Freud interpreted this as representing his wish to kill his sister-in-law. If the patient would have really dreamed of killing his sister-in-law, he would have felt guilty. The unconscious mind transformed her into a dog to protect him. Secondary elaboration occurs when the unconscious mind strings together wish-fulfilling images in a logical order of events, further obscuring the latent content. According to Freud this is why the manifest content of dreams can be in the form of believable events.

In detail, describe the proccess of dreamwork.

-Freud's ideas made a large imact on psychology and psychiatry and are still discussed and used tday, around 100 years after he started developing them -Freud thought case studies like 'Little Hans' and 'Anna O', is beieved in determinism and his detailed collection of data provided scientific support of his theory -Psychodynamic therapies drew attention to th epsychological causes of mental disorder -Psychoanalysis has enormous explanatory power and has something to say on a huge variety of important topics -Laer psychodynamic theory tried to deal with thr weakness of sychoanalysis and devlop the strengths

Psychodynamic psychollogy also had a lot of strengths. Discuss some of these strengths

-Having vague concepts that can be used to explain anything but which can predict very little -Having concepts that are difficult to test and verif scientifically. Experimental research that has been conducted often fails to support psychodynamic ideas, and that which does seem to support them an often be attributed to alternative causes. -Using unrepresentative samples and techniques that were not fully objective and therefor open to bias -Being linked qith unsuccessful psychodynamic therapies -Having many concepts that can be explained by more scientific approaches such as cognitive psychology

Psychodynamic psychology has many weaknesses as it has been accused of what?

A Viennese doctor who specialised in neurology. Freud became interested in hysteria - the manifestation of physical symptoms without physical causes - and became convinced that unconscious mental causes were responsible not just for this disorder but for many disorders and even 'normal' personality. Freud developed psychoanalysis - a set of techniques for treating the underlying explanatory psychoanalytic theory of how human personality and abnormality develop from childhood. Freud's theory and approach were influenced by the ideas and society of his time, particularly by his early work with Charcot, the Parisian hypnotist, and Breuer the pioneer of the cathartic method. Freud's psychoanalytic approach had a great impact on psychology and psychiatry, and was developed in different ways by other psychodynamic theorists (those influenced by psychodynamic assumptions) such as Jung, Adler, Klein, Anna Freud (his daughter) and Erikson.

The Origins and History of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

When in the Oral stage, if there is forceful feeding, deprivation, and early weaning this can then lead to fixation. This means that as an adult the subject could partake in oral activities such as nail biting or smoking, or even aggresion and dependancy. When a child is in the Anal stage if there is too harsh or too lax toilet training this can also cause fixation. This means that the child can later in life be more likley to have OCD. In the Phallic stage if a child has an abnormal family set-up leading to an unusual relationship with mother/father the child is the more likely to have self-obsession, sexual anxiety and envy.

To be psychologically healthy, we must successfully complete each psychosexual stage. Mental abnormality can occur if a stage is not completed successfully and the person becomes 'fixated' in a particular stage. This particular theory shows how adult personality is determined by childhood experiences. Describe the concequenxes of becoming fixated in a particular stage.

The mouth

Wha is the Eroenous zone of the oral stage

* Our behavior and feelings are powerfully affected by unconscious motives. * Our behavior and feelings as adults (including psychological problems) are rooted in our childhood experiences. * All behavior has a cause (usually unconscious), even slips of the tongue. Therefore all behavior is determined. * Personality is made up of three parts (i.e. tripartite): the id, ego and super-ego. * Behavior is motivated by two instinctual drives: Eros (the sex drive & life instinct) and Thanatos (the aggressive drive & death instinct). Both these drives come from the "id". * Parts of the unconscious mind (the id and superego) are in constant conflict with the conscious part of the mind (the ego). This conflict creates anxiety, which could be dealt with by the ego's use of defence mechanisms. * Personality is shaped as the drives are modified by different conflicts at different times in childhood (during psychosexual development).

What are the psychodynamic approach assumptions

In Studies in Hysteria (1895) Freud proposed that physical symptoms are often the surface manifestations of deeply repressed conflicts. However, Freud was not just advancing an explanation of a particular illness. Implicitly he was proposing a revolutionary new theory of the human psyche itself. This theory emerged "bit by bit" as a result of Freud's clinical investigations and it led him to propose that there were at least three levels of the mind.

What conclusion did Freud come up with due to the Anna O case

The purpose of psychoanalysis was as a therapy to treat mental disorder. Once the unconscious cause of disorder was identified through dream interpretation, etc., then a cure could be effected by getting it 'out in the open' to be discussed, resolved and controlled. Psychoanalysis can be applied to art and literature

What contribution did the psychosynamic approach have on society?

Freud believed that the unconscious mind determines much of our behaviour and that we are motivated by unconscious emotional drives. Freud believed that the unconscious contains unresolved conflicts and has a powerful effect on our behaviour and experience. He argued that many of these conflicts will show up in our fantasies and dreams, but the conflicts are so threatening that they appear in disguised forms, in the shape of symbols.

What did Freud believe about the unconscious mind

condensation, displacement, nd secondary elaboration.

What does the process of dream work involve

3-6years

What is the age range of the Phillic stage

1-3 years

What is the age range of the anal stage

Puberty to death

What is the age range of the genital stage

6-puberty

What is the age range of the latent period

Freud's theories were psychoanalytic, whereas the term 'psychodynamic' refers to both his theories and those of his followers. Freud's psychoanalysis is both a theory and a therapy.

What is the difference between the words psychoanalytic andn psychodynamic

Bowel and bladder control

What is the erogenous zone of the anal stage

Maturing sexual interests

What is the erogenous zone of the genital stage

Sexual feelings are inactive

What is the erogenous zone of the latent period

The gentials

What is the erogenous zone on the phillic stage

The purpose of dream work is to transform the forbidden wish into a non-threatening form, thus reducing anxiety and allowing us to continuing sleeping.

What is the purpose of dream-work

Psychological Wednesday Society

What was the name of the famous group formed by Freuds followers

Freud proposed that the adult personality has three parts the id, ego and superego.

What were the three part Freud believed that every adult personality had

1902

When was the Psychological Wednesday Society formed

Sigmund Freud

Who was the psychodynamic approach mainly initated by?