Psychodynamic Perspective (Themes in Psychology Explained) #Alevel — Transcript

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1. 0:01[Music]
2. 0:09what is a psychodynamic perspective
3. 0:11the psychodynamic perspective was
4. 0:13originally developed by sigmund freud
5. 0:16but includes ideas from many others who
6. 0:18have developed freud's argument
7. 0:19the main assumption of the psychodynamic
8. 0:21perspective is that many
9. 0:23important influences on behavior come
10. 0:25from a part of the mind that individuals
11. 0:27have no direct awareness of
12. 0:29the unconscious the psychodynamic
13. 0:32perspective
14. 0:32emphasizes the role of the unconscious
15. 0:34mind the structure of personality
16. 0:37and the influence that childhood
17. 0:38experiences can have in later life
18. 0:40freud believed that the unconscious mind
19. 0:42determines much of our behavior
20. 0:44and that we are motivated by unconscious
21. 0:46emotional drives
22. 0:47freud believed that the unconscious
23. 0:49contains unresolved conflicts and has a
24. 0:51powerful effect on our behavior and
25. 0:53experience
26. 0:54he argued that many of these conflicts
27. 0:56will show up in our fantasies and dreams
28. 0:58but the conflicts are so threatening
29. 1:00that they appear in disguised forms
30. 1:02in the shape of symbols freud proposed
31. 1:05that the adult personality has three
32. 1:06parts
33. 1:07the id the ego and the superego
34. 1:10the id is a combination of
35. 1:12pleasure-seeking desires
36. 1:13we are born with it this is also known
37. 1:16as inner desires
38. 1:17the ego develops later and it controls
39. 1:19the desires of the id
40. 1:21the superego is a moralistic part of the
41. 1:23personality which develops as a child
42. 1:25interacts with significant others such
43. 1:27as its parents
44. 1:28the superego can be seen as a conscience
45. 1:31it is the role of the ego to maintain a
46. 1:33balance between the it
47. 1:34and the superego freud believed that
48. 1:36children passed through five stages of
49. 1:38development
50. 1:39known as the psychosexual stages because
51. 1:41of freud's emphasis on sexuality as the
52. 1:43basic drive in development
53. 1:45these stages are the oral stage the anal
54. 1:48stage
55. 1:49the phallic stage the latency period and
56. 1:52finally the genital stage
57. 1:54the phallic stage from three to five
58. 1:56years old was the stage where the
59. 1:57child's sexual identification was
60. 1:59established
61. 2:00during this stage freud hypothesized
62. 2:03that a young boy would experience what
63. 2:04he calls the oedipus complex
64. 2:06this would provide the child with highly
65. 2:08disturbing conflicts which had to be
66. 2:10resolved by the child
67. 2:11identifying with the same sex to parent
68. 2:14a main strength of the psychodynamic
69. 2:15perspective
70. 2:16is the way it can be used to explain a
71. 2:18wide variety of phenomena
72. 2:19in fact some followers of the
73. 2:21psychodynamic perspective believe that
74. 2:23all
75. 2:23human life can be explained from a
76. 2:25psychodynamic approach
77. 2:26however you will find even more
78. 2:28psychologists who argue that the
79. 2:30psychodynamic theory cannot explain
80. 2:32anything
81. 2:33perhaps freud's greatest legacy is the
82. 2:35invention of therapies for treating
83. 2:36mental disorders
84. 2:38freud believed that once unconscious
85. 2:40conflicts and emotions were made
86. 2:41conscious that they could be discussed
87. 2:43and resolved freud himself briefly used
88. 2:46hypnosis to gain access to patients and
89. 2:48conscious thoughts but then developed a
90. 2:50technique of free association
91. 2:52however there is considerable
92. 2:54controversy relating to the
93. 2:56psychoanalytic treatments regarding both
94. 2:58their usefulness and abuse by
95. 2:59unscrupulous therapists
96. 3:02one of the many criticisms of the
97. 3:03psychodynamic perspective is that it's
98. 3:05highly subjective and its ideas are hard
99. 3:07to test scientifically
100. 3:09for example most of the ideas are based
101. 3:11on case studies of
102. 3:12individuals that are not easily tested
103. 3:14experimentally
104. 3:16furthermore the psychodynamic approach
105. 3:18does not make any generalizations based
106. 3:20on these case studies of individuals
107. 3:22as case studies are often used in a
108. 3:24psychodynamic perspective the samples
109. 3:26are extremely small
110. 3:27and so the results or information
111. 3:28obtained cannot be generalized to other
112. 3:30samples
113. 3:31because it is not representative case
114. 3:34studies are also
115. 3:35very individual and cannot be replicated
116. 3:37on other people
117. 3:38because of individual differences and
118. 3:40hence are not very reliable
119. 3:42the perspective is very subjective and
120. 3:44cannot be tested objectively
121. 3:46as the psychologists make their own
122. 3:48interpretations this makes them very
123. 3:50biased as well
124. 3:51there are no scientific findings or
125. 3:53methods used to back up the data
126. 3:55so it is not very reliable at all