The Psychodynamic Approach.

Psychology Petter Killander

The Psychodynamic Approach IB-1

The Psychodynamic Approach

The first man who began to study the Psychodynamic Approach was Sigmund Freud. When you talk about the Psychodynamic approach you can consider it as focusing on the role of internal process in shaping personality. As Robinson (1979) stated, concerns about motivation are always linked together with the psychology of personality. According to this, psychoanalysis is both a theory of motivation and a theory of personality.

However, who was this Freud and what did he do to be this famous?

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was born in Moravia in the Czech Public. He lived in a middle class family and was the eldest of eight children. He studied in Vienna and most of his life he spent in this town. Later on he became a doctor and during that time he learned about hysteria disorders and techniques of hypnosis. These two were to play a big role in his career. Soon he became more specialized in neurological disorders and became a leading figure in the area. Freud became famous for his writings on psychoanalysis. In 1919 he granted the title of professor at the University of Vienna. Later on in his life he underwent a series of surgeries for cancer in the jaw. He died in London in 1939 at an age of eighty-three. Freud has become one of the most famous psychologists of all time.

One of Freud’s most fundamental assumptions, Physic determinism, was partially based on Brücke’s ideas. Physic determinism states that all behaviour has a cause, and that the cause is found in the mind. Freud’s work in Psychology was very similar to another influence – Darwin’s work on evolution. Freud was convinced that human motivation was based on biological based innate-drives.

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When it was discovered that repressed memories and behaviour had a connection, Freud proposed that awareness was divided into different levels of consciousness. Those thoughts and feelings which we are aware of is said to be a part of the conscious mind. The second level is the subconscious, which is below the level of conscious awareness.

Freud believed that the basic forces driving human behaviour were about the same as for the animals. Survival needs, where food, water and shelter were basic. Another, more powerful force was the sexuality. Freud thought that motivation could be described in terms of the desire to maximize pleasure and to avoid that which was unpleasant. He called this concept for the pleasure principle. And of all biological forces, Freud thought that sexuality was the most powerful one.

Sigmund Freud was the first who to offer a detailed psychological model of human development based on stages. Through the life of a human being, our behaviour is motivated by the need to satisfy our basic drives. However, Freud stated that the expression of these drives change during our life. He divided the life into stages which are called the psychological stages of development; Oral stage, Anal stage, Phallic stage, Latency stage, genital stage.

Defence Mechanisms

According to Freud a defence mechanism is a technique used by the ego to protect itself from anxiety and threats which give rise to it. For instance if a person attacks you verbally, many defence mechanisms work together and you response his or her attacks with meaner words.

Carl Jung and Alfred Adler were two psychologists who had about the same ideas as Freud, but a bit developed. And there were those who were against Freud and didn’t agree with his ideas. Two of them were Karen Horney and Erik Erikson.

To sum this up you can say that the psychological approach attempts to understand behaviour in terms of the working mind, with an emphasis on motivation and the role of experience. Sigmund Freud was the pioneer of this approach. He also developed the psychoanalytic theory.

My personal opinions about this approach are a bit unclear. Everything that Freud stated I agree with. But on the other hand I agree with almost everything that was said in this text. So I can just say that I’m at least not against his ideas.

Peer Reviews

Here's what a star student thought of this essay

sydneyhopcroft

20th of Aug 2012

Quality of writing

The Quality of Written Communication (QWC) is fair. Sometimes rule of Standard English are neglected such as: "Two of them were Karen Horney and Erik Erikson." being left as a standalone sentence when in fact it should be connected by comma to the previous sentence. Candidate must watch for errors like this; whilst this one does not compromise the clarity of the essay, comma splice or a misuse of any punctuation point may lead to ambiguity in the essay, which can cause the QWC mark to lower and also the main essay mark, because some point will not be made clearly enough.

Level of analysis

The Level of Analysis is fair. Though not many marks are offered for analysis in this question, the candidate shows perfectly adept analytical skills and a critical understanding of Freud's psychodynamic theories. Some more information could be included when speaking about the three sections of the adult psyche, such as the role of the id, the ego and the superego and the potential conflicts that arise between them; more detail when discussing the three levels of consciousness (conscious, subconscious/pre-conscious, and unconscious); and also the pleasure principles at each different psychosexual stages. The answer feels a bit more like an outline than something that goes into exhaustive detail about the perspective. That isn't to say what is written is erroneous - everything written is entirely valid, but just that little bit more detail could lift this answer to the A grade it's aiming for.

Response to question

This is a fairly good essay on the birth and description of psychodynamic psychology. The candidate makes interesting points about Freud's work and shows a good level of understanding of the perspective in terms of it's role in explaining complex human behaviour and how it was accepted in the world of Psychology. A bit more time could be invested in trying to explain the relevance of Carl Jung and Alfred Adler - how did their opinions on psychology differ? Where were they theorised congruents? Just a little more detail with regards to this and this is looking to be a very strong A/B grade for GCSE.

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