Behaviour is due to childhood experiences and the unconscious mind.
Approach
Psychosexual Development
Oral - smoking, nail biting etc - ID
Anal - creativity, OCD - ego
Phallic* - superego
Latency Period - no fixation
Genital - well-adjusted
* Oedipus complex - Males are attracted to mother so identify with the father
Electra complex - Females are attracted to father and identify with mother. Also experience penis envy.
Structure of personality
ID - derives from pleasure, inbuilt: sexual offence, aggression, addiction etc...
Ego - balances id and superego
Superego - derives from morals picked up from parents' behaviour : anxiety, OCD, phobias etc...
If either of these overbalances, defence mechanisms take place. (e.g. repression, projection, regression, sublimation, denial)
Evaluation
+ Influential - Books/ films
- Started psychology
+ Research indicates that people can recollect every trauma.
- Untestable
- Retrospective data - unreliable
- Current experiences aren't taken into consideration
- Ethics - parents are to blame for abnormality
Treatments (psychoanalysis)
Free Association
- Patients talk freely about whatever they want.
- Facing away from therapist so not being judged.
- Therapist analyses what has been said.
- Brings repressed memories into consciousness.
Dream Analysis
- Dreams represent what happens in the unconscious mind
- Mostly sexual.
- Manifest content is interpreted to latent content by the therapist.
Projective Tests
- Given stimulus material and asked what is seen.
- Thought to represent unconscious thoughts.
- Ink blots are deliberately ambiguous.
Evaluation
- Expensive
- Not suitable for schizophrenia
- Ethical issues
- Behaviourists' criticism
- Time consuming
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