Describe the application of psychodynamic perspectives in health and social care. (P3)
The psychodynamic approach is an approach that brings to question the how much we are aware of ourselves. Sigmund Freud a Austrian psychologist widely associated with the psychodynamic approach queered that the all the thing that were are aware of is a representation of our conscious self and thoughts and all the thing that we are not aware of In our mind is a representation of unconsciousness. When a person has said something but did not realize that they had said it before they have this is an example of an unconsciousness that has come aware. Freud believes that we have no control or access to our unconsciousness but can some times ‘leak out’. Understand this concept he links it to an iceberg. He said that out conscious mind was the tip of an iceberg and the remaining part of the iceberg was out unconscious side. This states that we are only are of a small percentage of our minds.
He also stated that we can divide our minds into three dynamic categories which are
The id being the greater part of the three as the unconscious mind, the super ego being the preconscious mind ands the ego being the conscious part of the mind. The id is based on a pleasure principle and wants what it wants when it wants it. This is why it is linked to babies instincts as this is how a baby will react in the firs several mounts of there life. This can consist of aggressive behaviours and sexual and loving instinct acting in a selfish type of behaviour. The super ego is what is formed within an individual when they have been influenced in society through socialisation. This includes a person’s values beliefs and morals and also instructions which have all came to our knowledge and repeatedly used as we have grew up. The super ego is a form of our consciousness and tries to ‘out do’ our ID by taking over activities of what our ID would do. The ego is seen as the balancing part of mind as this tries to demand the demands of the ID and also prevent the superego from being to harsh.
Freud also looked as ego defence mechanism which is a part of out mind that that protects us form an aspect of life that would become too overwhelming if were to full aware. The use of these defence mechanisms will allow an individual to block out thing that will have a negative effect on them such as painful experience of the mind. There are sever mechanism that an individual can use in different situations and these are:-
Repression
This causes the person to forget an event as the push is to the unconscious and aren’t aware of it at all.
Regression
This mechanism consists of the individual going back to the ways of behaving that are associated with a safer, more carefree or happier time of life.
Denial
This is when a person will act apparently unaware of an event or emotion. The person is not pretending to others but is genuinely unaware of the event or feeling they are denying. This happens when an event is overwhelming and causes pain so they push the knowledge they have encountered to the back of there mind.
Displacement
This is when someone redirects represses desires and impulses onto a relatively safe target.
Sublimation
This involves the process of transforming aggressive and sexual desires into some socially acceptable expression.
A person diagnosed with cancer and is refusing to accept it is using ego defence mechanisms of repression and denial. They are unable to face reality or admit the obvious truth as the knowledge is to overwhelming and causes pain. They will use denial that they have been told they have cancer to protect the ego from things that they cannot cope with (cancer). While this may save them from anxiety or pain, denial can also requires a substantial investment of energy. Because of this, other defenses are also used to keep these unacceptable feelings from consciousness such a repression. The individual that has been diagnosed with cancer will use repression to keep information out of conscious awareness.
Sigmund Freud also developed a theory called psycho sexual theory. This theory explains why certain individuals have a sexual desire for a particular part of their body at that precise stage but if the need of a childe is accounted for at each developing stage a child will move onto the next stage to develop further. On the other hand if the needs of a child in earlier developing stages are not met sufficiently and there is a conflict this can lead them from developing a fixation behaviour which can continue during the adult hood stages. He states form what stage child has been weaned to have an effect on there developing behaviours.
Erickson was also a psychologist that agreed with most of Freud’s theorist approaches as he believes that we develop as individuals through a serious of conflicts. He believe that through our life’s development these conflicts learned in earlier stages will still have an effect on us in later life s that continue through. Although he believed in Freud’s approach in this theory he also though that He put to much emphasis on the individual gratification of needs but put to little emphasis on the fact that an individual will have a need that of trying to be accepted as a part of society in order to lead a meaningful life. His theory was based on psychosocial crisis and hade five stages. These stages were:-
- Trust Vs basic mistrust
- Autonomy Vs shame and doubt
- Initiative Vs guilt
- Industry Vs inferiority
- Identity Vs role confusion
Trust Vs basic mistrust
The infant is entirely dependent and relies completely on others to meet its needs and provide good physical and emotional care.
If the parenting need of the infant is being met the infant will learn a sense of trust. After some time Self-confidence would develop and the infant would see the world to be a dependable and predictable place.
Due to the sufficient parenting being received the infant will learn that they have an influence over other which will then be used in later stages of there lives. On the other hand Erickson believed that if an infant did not receive sufficient parenting and was not part of a caring and loving family the mistrust will be learned. Due to this they will feel that they are not able to influence other leading them to have a fear and a sense of suspicion in later stages of their life.
Autonomy Vs shame and doubt
After a while a child becomes independent as they begin to think for themselves and is aware that they are separate from their parents.
The feeling of being independent is stronger. This is a stage were toilet training acts a crisis. Erickson believe that is toilet training was carried out to early then the child will feel a feeling of shame as they feel they have not control within their bodies bowels. Autonomy will be when the child is experiencing thing without being controlled such as forced to do it or rushed. They would be supported and given the feeling that they are competent. On the other hand shame and doubt will come from a child being controlled witch could lead them to question there self ability. If the child fails frequently and is criticised about their failure this will lead them in having a feeling of shame. The child can feel powerless and this could revert to the sucking of the thumb witch id associated for comfort and a ‘fixated behaviour.
Initiative Vs guilt
At this stage a Childs development is rapid and their physical, intellectual, emotional and social development are coning into play more then often. A Childs development can become abstracted also at this stage and if this happens that there initiative will become affected. Erickson stated that a Childs initiative can be empowered by paying an interest into a Childs curiosity about life and letting them explore certain things when they are playing. Guilt can come about if a parent does not encourage these thoughts and is discouraged when a child is pretend playing witch involve there imagination leading them to have a poor initiative.
Industry Vs inferiority
In this stage a child is influenced by other and not just their parents and are not only interested in the way things are but are trying to understand how and why things work the way they do. When a child is encouraged to take part in a realistic task such as a job were this will give them a sense of achievement and when supported and can give them confidence.
Inferior will come from a child being pushed in to things that they do no want to do or are not ready for due to not having enough guidance and support and then are cruised on their performance. This can lead to them having a low self esteem thinking they are not good enough to do certain tasks and can take form in further aspects of their life.
Identity Vs role confusion
A persons identity if effected by Physical intellectual, emotional and social aspect of there life. During physical changes a person will notice there bodily form and then will have an effect on the sense of self in this case can be appearance, mobility based. Intellectually a person will be able to think for themselves and decipher thing that are possible and exist at present. Emotion development would include the individual become more emotional independent by controlling there own emotions. There social development will include their decision making in what role they will take and also career they will embark on in their life. At this stage a person is trying to establish there ego identity which consists of, a sense of consistency in the way they see themselves, a sense of continuity of self over time and a sense of mutuality. As peer groups is what influence the person at this stage is considered to be the most important factor. At this point an individual will want to establish a social identity and if they are not successful will feeling that they have not got no role in life and their for will show behaviours of unfaithfulness and can develop a negative identity.
Erikson’s theory can explain why a person nay be developing signs of rebelling and delinquent behavior. The person developing these behaviors will have experienced the 5 negative psychosocial crises such as miss trust, shame and doubt, guilt, inferiority and confusion.
During their early stages the individual may not have received sufficient parenting such as being abandoned or neglected. This could have lead them in having no trust in theory later life resulting in delinquent behavior as they don’t trust n e one so there for make there own concept on things witch could be wrong.
This individual also could have experienced shame and doubt in their early stages with things such as there parent making them feel shame about failing certain tasks and instead of them giving the individual the courage to try again, make them feel in adequate and useless. Also there parents could have been controlling on the tasks that they were involved in leading them to have a sense of powerlessness. This could have made this individual develop signs of delinquent behavior as the feeling of shame and doubt can lead to feeling self conscious and there fore in later stages will rebel against this feeling but over evaluate the situation and rebel against society instead of their feelings of shame and doubt.
The individual could have also been giving the feeling of guilt through to not being encouraged through there developing stages. There parents could discouraged them in pretend playing and exploring life such as asking questions as if they did they will be told to ‘shut up’ or stop being silly’ this could also be a factor that in their later life are now showing signs of rebelling behaviors as a person experiencing these behaviors may have lost their indicative and now, don’t have a stable sense of what is appropriate and what isn’t appropriate and there for showing delinquent behaviors.
The individual showing signs and delinquent behavior also could have been giving the feeling of inferiority. For example being pushed into things that they done want to do without support would have made them feel they are not good enough and due to this their behaviors have mad them want to rebel against what they were told to do and do the opposite. In this case showing delinquent behaviors is what they have produced from there rebelling of being told what to do so if they are told to do the right thing they might to the wrong thing as they feel they are taking control.
Finally the role of confusion and developing a negative identity due to not feeling they have a role in life. This may be due to the way they see themselves physically, emotionally, intellectually and socially. As these are also based upon how others see them they could have picked up negative opinions of themselves for example if they were to socialize with a peer group that didn’t wear the same clothes as them they could have been isolated or seen as ‘different’ and translated this as negative. There emotional development could have been hindered as they may not have been able to control their own emotions and constantly need emotional support. Also the intellectual development may not be sufficient as thinking for themselves may become difficult due to always being told what to do and having a low self esteem. This can explain why a person may show signs of delinquent behaviors as they see theme selves outside of society so forming to what society does is something that they will not what to do due to them having a feeling of no role in life. In hand this will produce rebelling against things as they have a negative concept of themselves so will show negative behaviors.
Explain the value of the cognitive perspective in supporting individuals. (P5)
The cognitive psychological approach was formed in the 1960s. This approach consists of the understanding of attention, memory, perception, information processing, problem solving, thought, language and other aspects of cognition.
Piaget who was a Swiss psychologist researched on how to measure intelligence of an individual. He did this by monitoring children during specific activities and noting on the mistakes they made. The test he carried out were on children within the same age rang and without considering intelligence to begin with. He then came to a conclusion that cognition development show development through several serious of stages each building on things learned forms the former stage. He came up with four stages which were:-
The sensori-motor stage
The pre-operational stage
The concrete operational stage
The formal operational stage
The sensori-motor stage
at this stage a child can only experience things through immediate perception so what they see is what they believe in. for example if there parent leaves the room and the child cannot see them then they do not have the ability to think that they still exist. A child will become to an end of this stage when they begin to use memory and language.
The pre-operational stage
This stage a child will begin to use thinking skills and have the ability to use wider language thought and memory. They will also hold a view that the ego is the center, object, and norm of all experience. They will not be able to understand concept such as object being the same but have a different shape.
The concrete operational stage
Children will now have the ability to be able to conserve they will be able to identify that objects can be the same even though they done share the same molded. For example two different shaped glasses put share the same amount of volume.
The formal operational stage
The child now develops the ability to conserve
They are now able to recognize that certain objects are the same regardless of how they are molded
The child can still only deal with concrete objects and cannot represent problems in abstract form
Psychology of Personal Constructs
This was theory invented by George Kelly in 1955. He set out to replace the models of the person adopted by behaviorism. Kelly focused on the individuals thought and how they come to understand their own experience and made sense of them. Kelly made references that people are like scientists and that we are constantly observing the world learning new things and coming to conclusion and theories of how things work. As people become aware of things categories are introduces as this put things in some sort of order to be able to understand thing for example people like thing and people don’t like. Kelly named this categories constructs as these are categories that we build ourselves on our own understandings and personal experiences. The main purpose is to make sense of things that are reality and environmental. Also Kelly believed that constructs are of way of people to predict thing and be able to suspect things. He also looked at how things can be seen as a disaster or on the other hand a challenge or new experience we can learn from according to how a mind may construe the situation, for example if someone became in a later stage of their life they may see this a totally non overcoming and disastrous situation and can lead to them becoming socially isolated and begin to withdraw themselves. But on the other hand if an individual was able to construe this incident as a challenge they will be able to see it as a new experience they can learn from, work with their blindness and be able to see and explore the world with a new concept. So as individual Kelly believed that we are able to explain different meanings for different events and also alternative ones but weather good w look at the with good or bad perspectives depend on the way in which a person was bought up and developed.
Cognitive behavioral therapy can help an individual deal with feelings of depression as the principles on this theory works with the understanding of the mind in ways why people may have feeling of depression because of the way they understand things individual. Due to this cognitive therapy can help a person try to see things in a different point of view and can explain abnormal behavior. It does this by understanding how an individuals thoughts can influence there emotions witch then reflects in there behavior. A person may have may have distorted and irregular thought or understanding of certain thing or situations which can have an effect on there behavior. for example a person may have failed in a exam test which has lead them feeling worthless and then think that they will fail all further tests due to lack of confidence witch can lead them to depression. This indicates that the person may see the world as an obstacle that they cannot not over come and complete so there for does not compete any and withdraw themselves. Cognitive therapy can help can help a person deal with this depression as it key goal is to help them see these negative view in a different light, identify and eliminate dysfunctional thinking. This will evolve helping them to modify there beliefs so in this instant the person beliefs be that they are a failure due to failing at a test. Cognitive therapy will help this individual deal with there mistakes by highlighting there other strengths in other areas and try to make them see that they are over-generalization, and magnificating the negatives and minimizating the positives. In this case positives can be seen as exploring other aspects in experience that the person is good at or time to analyzing the subjects that they have covered again and be able broaden there understanding, so they could understand that failing the tests gives them an insight of what they don’t know and can research on instead of seeing it as a dead end. Cognitive therapy helps a person to continue with the activities they are involved in to rebuild self confidence.
Cognitive perspectives can also explain irrational thoughts that can be experience by people in many situations such as eating disorders. As George Kelly explained an individual is like a scientist in which they made predictions about the future, testing them and were necessary revising them according to new evidence. This can be applied to the understanding of how an individual may have encountered an eating disorder. For example eating to much fatty food is a result in obesity and obesity in this society is seen as ‘ugly’ and unhealthy. So a person may have foreseen that in the future they will not be accepted in society if they eat too much food and become over weight so there for try not to eat too much but due to over analyzing it has become obsessed and developed an eating disorder. In this instant the person has used their constructs to predict things but has distorted it by predicting the worse possible outcome. Another example of this is how a person may deal with certain event that have happened to them in there life with may have lead them in developing an eating disorder. fro example a person may have had an relative that has passed away due to heart disease witch was due to an unhealthy diet with contained to much unhealthy foods. Du to this the individual may construe that this is a disaster and begin to become obsessed with there eating patens witch leads to them having eating disorders. In this case the Peron has made links to there relatives death and reflected it in there eating patterns. Alternatively the individual could have seen this as a challenge to change there diet in a more positive way and see it as a way to improve their own life and learn from their relatives experience and choices they made.
Cognitive therapy can be used in this case to understand there abnormal behavior due to the thought and understanding there person has about food and see were there thought have been distorted due to there experiences they have came across witch has lead them to rational and irregular thought and explanations.
Also other eating disorders can come from lack of confidence and self beliefs were instead of eating too little a person may eat too much ‘binge eating’.
The pattern of behavior can be linked to the cognitive triad produces by Aaron beck. A person maybe over weight and due to the negative feedback on overweight people society has made this may cause the person to feel inadequate, worthless leading them to a low self esteem. Due to these feeling they may believe that the future may be just has badly as the present. Due to them feeling worthless they feel they cannot overcome this problem that they have in this life so there for continue to eat obsessively due to feeling of powerlessness.