Describe And Discuss At Least Two Fea
Describe and discuss at least two features of the psychodynamic approach. (10 marks)
One main feature is the defence mechanisms. One assumption of the psychodynamic approach is that the personality is split into three parts; the id, the ego and the superego. Defence mechanisms are an unconscious response used when the ego is in conflict with the id and the superego and they prevent the ego from harm. There are four main defence mechanisms; Denial, Displacement, Rationalisation and Sublimation. Displacement is where the mind redirects emotions from a dangerous object to a safe object. An example of this would be if an employee is really angry at their boss, but instead of punching their boss, they punch a pillow. This may both protect the ego physically and mentally as they will not hurt themselves and they will not lose their job for punching the boss. Denial is where you reduce anxiety by refusing to see the unpleasant aspects of reality. An example of this would be when a student receives their grades and they are lower than they expected but then they tell themselves that the grades do not really matter, even if they are very important. An evaluation point of defence mechanisms is that they are subconscious actions, so there is no way of testing whether you are using them or not, they are unfalsifiable. Freud cannot be proved wrong, but he can neither be proved right. However, they are used in psychiatry today to get to underlying problems and they can help, so clearly Freud was not wrong in what he was saying. In Freud’s study of Little Hans, he uses dream analysis as one of his methods for solving his fear of horses. In one of Little Hans’ dreams, he imagines that he climbs on top of a crippled horse and tells the big horse to leave. The horses represented his mum and dad but he may have used displacement as a defence mechanism as he redirected emotions from a dangerous object being his dad to a safer object being his mum, as if his dad found out the
One main feature is the defence mechanisms. One assumption of the psychodynamic approach is that the personality is split into three parts; the id, the ego and the superego. Defence mechanisms are an unconscious response used when the ego is in conflict with the id and the superego and they prevent the ego from harm. There are four main defence mechanisms; Denial, Displacement, Rationalisation and Sublimation. Displacement is where the mind redirects emotions from a dangerous object to a safe object. An example of this would be if an employee is really angry at their boss, but instead of punching their boss, they punch a pillow. This may both protect the ego physically and mentally as they will not hurt themselves and they will not lose their job for punching the boss. Denial is where you reduce anxiety by refusing to see the unpleasant aspects of reality. An example of this would be when a student receives their grades and they are lower than they expected but then they tell themselves that the grades do not really matter, even if they are very important. An evaluation point of defence mechanisms is that they are subconscious actions, so there is no way of testing whether you are using them or not, they are unfalsifiable. Freud cannot be proved wrong, but he can neither be proved right. However, they are used in psychiatry today to get to underlying problems and they can help, so clearly Freud was not wrong in what he was saying. In Freud’s study of Little Hans, he uses dream analysis as one of his methods for solving his fear of horses. In one of Little Hans’ dreams, he imagines that he climbs on top of a crippled horse and tells the big horse to leave. The horses represented his mum and dad but he may have used displacement as a defence mechanism as he redirected emotions from a dangerous object being his dad to a safer object being his mum, as if his dad found out the