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Visit the Freud Museum at:
http://www.freud.org.uk/index.html

Have fun at Star Trek on Freud, and visit:
http://ryoung001.homestead.com/Freud.html


The psychoanalytic approach believes our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are as a result of unconscious mental processes formed by early childhood experience.

The Psychoanalytic Approach At A Glance
If you need to write about this approach it is a good idea to know a definition, and then be able to elaborate on key features. You may also be called upon to discuss applications and limitations. All this is schematically represented below. Use the glossary, as before, to help you.

The structure and function of the unconsciousThe 'iceberg analogy' of conscious, preconscious, unconscious. Early childhood trauma -> neurosis (mental condition with no medical (physical/biological cause) e.g. phobias, compulsions, anxieties, panic disorders and hysterias.

Psychodynamic structure of personality
Born id, with innate libido. Demands instant gratification.

Id, driven by pleasure principle (e.g. egocentrism in infancy).

Ego driven by reality principle formed by childhood experiences.

Superego (our conscience) driven by morality principle (adolescence).

NB Psychodynamic relationship between id/ego/superego. Ego acts as 'an internal diplomat' between demands of id and superego.
Ego defence mechanisms

We use our ego defence mechanisms to protect ourselves from the harsh world we find ourselves in. Defence mechanisms are not under our conscious control, and are thus non-voluntaristic. Ego-defence mechanisms are natural and normal. When they get out of proportion, neuroses develop, such as anxiety states, phobias, obsessions, or hysteria. Ego defence mechanisms include

1. Repression
2. Displacement
3. Regression
4. Denial
5. Rationalisation
6. Projection and
7. Suppression
Psychosexual theory of personality development.

NB Fixations: Changing focus of libido. Oral, anal, phallic.(NB resolution of the Oedipus complex via identification), latent and genital stages.
Applications.
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Say what a 'psychotherapy' is. Then elaborate on psychoanalytic psychotherapy. NB Purpose: to access, and bring to the patients' conscious awareness, the cause of their problem (neurosis) lying in their unconscious. How? NB Interpretation of dreams, free association, hypnosis/regression transference etc.
Criticisms/limitations.

Methodology: Freud used a small biased sample of upper middle class Viennese women. They were themselves neurotic.

Hypothetical constructs (id, libido etc.), and lack of scientific support (uses the non-scientific case study)

Over-emphasis on sexual world in the formation of personality -> development of broader psychodynamic approach (Jung, Adler, Erikson).

Social experiences, more than psychosexual, influences the development of personality for good or ill across the human lifespan.


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