WJEC Psychology A-level

The Psychodynamic
Approach
Notes

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The Psychodynamic Approach
Part 1: An Introduction to The Psychodynamic Approach

A01 Introduction and Assumptions:

• Freud adopted the use of psychic determinism = This is the idea
that all behaviour is caused by unconscious internal conflicts, over
which we have no control.
• There are 3 levels of consciousness: The conscious, preconscious
and unconscious.
• We are only aware of our conscious. Contents of the preconscious
are revealed through parapraxes, slips of the tongue and dreaming.
Therefore, since we are completely unaware of our unconscious,
inferences of its workings can be made through the psychoanalysis
(analysing symbols in dreams) and psychotherapy.
• The unconscious stores our biological drives and instincts (e.g.
hunger, thirst and sex) as well as upsetting and disturbing thoughts
repressed from the conscious.

Freud’s Tripartite Personality:

• Freud viewed the personality as made up of three components i.e. ‘tripartite’. These are
the Id, ego and superego.
1. Id = This is the innate part of the personality, and operates on the pleasure principle.
Therefore, the Id constantly demands instant gratification (e.g. to fulfill innate,
biological instincts, such as hunger and thirst) and so is in conflict with the superego.

2. Ego = Formed during the first 3 years of life, and operates on the reality principle. The
ego helps to resolve the conflict between the id and the superego through the use of
defence mechanisms (repression, denial and displacement). The strength of the
unconscious depends upon how efficiently the ego resolves this conflict.
3. Superego = Formed at the end of the phallic stage, and operates on the morality
principle. This contains the child’s internalised sense of right and wrong, based upon
their same-sex parent. The superego is in constant conflict with the Id.

The Psychosexual Stages:

• Freud adopted a nomothetic approach by suggesting that there a series of
developmental stages through which all children progress, and in the same order.
• Each stage is characterised by a conflict, which must be resolved to pass to the next
stage, apart from latency.
• Failure to do so results in ‘fixation’ at that stage, where dysfunctional behaviours
associated with that stage are carried forwards to adulthood.

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The Psychodynamic Approach
• The ideas of the Oedipus and Electra Complexes were developed on the basis of case
studies conducted on Little Hans, where Freud suggested that Little Hans’ phobia of
horses stemmed from a fear towards his father, due to having sexual desires for his
mother.
• This is an example of the idiographic approach to research (i.e. the use of case studied),
but with a nomothetic application (i.e. all boys experience the Oedipus Complex, whilst
all girls experience the Electra Complex).

A02 Potential Application Questions:

1. Comparisons between the psychodynamic approach and humanism.
2. Explanation of the case of Little Hans, using the psychosexual stages.
3. Links between the psychodynamic approach and the current scientific status of
Psychology (synoptic with Research Methods).
4. Psychodynamic explanations of mental disorders, making links with the tripartite
personality and the role of the unconscious.

A03 Evaluation:
— Unconscious Concepts = Since we are unaware of the unconscious, then it is not
possible to objectively and systematically measure it. Therefore, this means that,
according to Karl Popper, that the psychodynamic approach does not meet the scientific
criterion of falsification, leaving it unfalsifiable and a pseudoscience. This does little to
improve the scientific credibility of psychology, and indeed has left many with an
inaccurate view of psychology as a scientific discipline.

— The use of an idiographic approach / Case studies = Many of Freud’s theories, most
notably the Oedipus and Electra Complexes, were based on data from individual case
studies and interviews. There are several problems with this. The first, is that participants
selected to be subjects of case studies are often of some kind of special psychological
interest, and so cannot represent the experiences of the general population, so the
findings lack ecological validity. Secondly, mainly qualitative data is collected, which
means that the researcher draws their own subjective conclusions. This is particularly the
case if the researcher knows what they are looking for and/or the aims of the
investigation, so the results will be affected by researcher bias. Therefore, Freud’s data
and theories suffer from limited applications and generalisability.

— Psychic Determinism = Freud suggested that all behaviour is the product of

unconscious, internal conflicts (between the Id and the superego, whilst being mediated
by the ego) over which we have no control. This means that every action, even
‘accidental’ slips of the tongue, has some kind of meaning and can give us insight into
our unconscious. However, this adds to the subjectivity of interpretations of these
meanings, and therefore is not in line with scientific methods of investigating behaviour.
This is all in contrast to the hard determinism approach used by behaviourism, reciprocal
determinism used by social learning theory, soft determinism used by the cognitive
approach and biological determinism used by the biological approach.

+ Practical Applications = Psychotherapy and psychoanalysis are both rooted in the

psychodynamic approach and still have modern uses. For example, Kohlenberg et al

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The Psychodynamic Approach
(2002) found that 1 “FECT / Functional Analytic Cognitive Therapy produced a greater
focus on the client-therapist relationship and is a promising approach for improving
outcomes and interpersonal functioning. It also appears that a focus during sessions on
clients’ problematic cognitions about the therapist adds to the efficacy”. Therefore,
Freud’s psychodynamic approach has made a long-lasting contribution towards
treatment of various mental disorders, such as depression.

Part 2: Classical Research - Bowlby’s 44 Juvenile Thieves

In order to assess the effects of maternal deprivation, Bowbly conducted his 44 juvenile thieves
study. He found that out of 44 thieves, 14 displayed signs of affectionless psychopathy and 12 of
these had suffered from maternal deprivation during the critical period of attachment formation
i.e. the first 30 months of life. This was compared to only 5 affectionless psychopaths in the
remaining 30 thieves. Therefore, on this basis, Bowlby believed that early maternal deprivation
caused affectionless psychopathy and consequently, criminality!

— Lewis et al disagreed with Bowlby’s conclusion that affectionless psychopathy and maternal
deprivation caused criminality. Through collecting qualitative data from interviews conducted with
500 juveniles, the researchers found no link between maternal deprivation and a difficulty in
forming relationships in later life. This suggests that Bowlby may have made incorrect causal
conclusions.

— Bowlby’s 44 juvenile thieves study suffers from several methodological limitations. One of
these includes researcher bias - Bowlby was aware of what he wanted to find and so may have
phrased the interview questions in a way which influenced the respondents to reply in a certain
way i.e. leading questions. Secondly, Bowlby also based his theory of maternal deprivation from
interviews collected from war-orphans. This does not control for the confounding variable of poor
quality care in orphanages or post-traumatic stress disorder, which may have had a larger
influence on the children’s development rather than simply maternal deprivation.

— The effects of the critical period may not be as concrete as Bowlby originally believed. For
example, the case of two twins locked away in cupboards in Czechoslovakia for the first 7 years
of their lives was reported by Koluchova. Despite the obvious trauma and maternal deprivation
which occurred for an extended period of time, even exceeding the critical period, the researchers
found that with appropriate fostering, the twins made a full psychological recovery. Therefore, the
effects of maternal deprivation are not always so clear-cut.

Part 3: Dream Analysis

• Freud believed that the majority of the mind was unconscious and so cannot be consciously
accessed. The contents of our unconscious are revealed through dreams, according to Freud.
• These dreams represent repressed unconscious desires and drives. Dreams also contain
symbols which have special meanings, such as the presence of a snake or the phenomenon of
an individual’s teeth falling out.
• Therefore, Freud used highly qualitative and subjective methods in order to analyse people’s
dreams. He would take notes on the patient as they underwent the process of free association
i.e. when a person talks ‘freely’ and replies to a specific stimulus word or phrase, based on the
assumption that all language (including seemingly accidental slips of the tongue) have some

1
Robert J. Kohlenberg, Jonathan W. Kanter, Madelon Y. Bolling, Chauncey R. Parker, Mavis Tsai,
Enhancing cognitive therapy for depression with functional analytic psychotherapy: Treatment
guidelines and empirical findings, Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, Volume 9, Issue 3, 2002,
Pages 213-229,

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The Psychodynamic Approach
symbolic meaning. The
contents of an
individual’s unconscious
would be revealed
through such dream
analysis.

— The highly subjective

judgements made will
differ significantly
between different
therapists. This may be
confusing for the patient
or even frustrating,
especially if they have
suffered from a
persistent nightmare or
problem. The added
problem of unconscious
concepts being unable to
be studied objectively
only adds to the issue of
validity!

+ Nevertheless, dram
analysis is unique and
was one of the
pioneering methods in
the early 20th century.
Therefore, dream
analysis can be said to
have considerable utility
and practical
applications.

— Freud developed his

ideas of the symbolic
meaning of some dream symbols on the basis of a select, small sample of middle-class and
wealthy Viennese families. This means that his findings are unlikely to be generalised to the wider
population, and so potentially lack ecological validity.

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