Sigmund Freud developed an approach on abnormality that highlighted how human personality and psychosexual development in childhood can cause abnormality. Freud proposed that the human personality is made up of three interacting elements: the id, the ego and the super ego. The id is our unconscious it releases natural pleasure seeking instincts and operates to satisfy these instincts through pleasurable activities. The ego represents our conscious self; it tries to balance the id with moral rules proposed by the superego. The superego is our moral authority this developed through identification of our parent’s moral rules and the social norms of society If the ego fails to balance the id and the superego this can lead to conflict and may result in a psychological disorder.
This suggests concern for the child’s welfare, but the tone of voice and body language could suggest hostility and desire to get the child out of the way. The theory suggests that repeated exposure to these contradictory messages causes the child to resort to self-deception and to develop a false concept of reality and an
The psychodynamic theory maintains that abnormal behavior patterns are symptomatic of some underlying mental disorder or illness. In the psychodynamic hypothesis, the development of mental disorders involves sexual and/or aggressive fears that have been repressed because of intra-psychic conflict. Because these conflicts are too painful or terrifying to endure, they are kept from consciousness through various defense mechanisms. This happens because the ego displaces the true source of this suppressed danger by substituting an external threat that can easily be detected. According to Freud, the originally repressed fears may go back far into childhood.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) theory on the psychodynamic approach to abnormality comprises of three sections; psychic conflict, ego-defence mechanisms and psychosexual stages. The psychodynamic model of abnormality suggests that behaviour is driven by the unconscious processes and problems of the mind. The unconscious mind is thought to be a deeper part of a person's mind that operates without an individual knowing it. This includes feelings, thoughts, desires, instincts and emotions which can drive a person’s personality. In the psychic conflict section of Freud’s psychodynamic theory it claims that the structure of personality also known as ‘psyche’ is divided into three parts; the Id, Superego and Ego.
Psychodynamic Approach Sigmund Freud is the founder of the psychodynamic approach. This approach focuses on the unconscious mind to explain behaviour, and also to treat people suffering from mental illness. This approach also looks into our behaviour and feelings as adults, as our childhood experiences and Interpol relationships can explain this. Freud believes that what drives our behaviour is conflict that arises between three parts of our psych, the id, superego and the ego. The three personalities of the psych are usually out of sync with each other.
What if you lose a dear one? What happens when the ego cannot deal with the demands of our desires, the constraints of reality and our own moral standards? According to Freud, anxiety is an unpleasant inner state that people seek to avoid. Anxiety acts as a signal to the ego that things are not going right. Just like how your body has defenses against physical wounds and injuries, it has its defenses against emotional shocks and wounds; they're called "Ego Defense Mechanisms" or "Unconscious Defense Mechanisms".
Another theme with Freud’s work concerned the unconscious mind, the part of our mind we are not aware of. He believed that the unconscious contain unresolved conflicts and has a powerful effect on our behaviour and experience. He argued that these conflicts will show themselves in our dreams and fantasies, and that threatening conflicts can appear in disguised forms, in the shape of symbols. Freud advanced a theory of personality development that centred on the effects of the sexual pleasure drive on the individual psyche. He argued that there are particular points in the development process, arguing that a single body part is particularly sensitive to sexual, erotic stimulation.
Defense Mechanisms Team C: Kelley Deemer, Lorna Vixie, Laurie Brandy, and Robert Rall Everyone in today’s society deals with anxiety in one form or another. Psychoanalytic theory believes that our ego develops and uses defense mechanisms to deal with and protect us from our everyday anxiety. Sigmund Freud believed that defense mechanisms helped shield the ego from the conflicts created by the id, superego and reality (McLeod, 2008). Defense mechanisms are thought to be our unconscious mind working to protect us against feelings and thoughts that our conscious mind find too difficult to deal with. Defense mechanisms can be thought of as unhealthy, but they can help us adapt and allow us to function normally.
A variety of theories have sought to explain schizophrenia at the psychological level. One being the psychodynamic approach which follows a fixed set of assumptions such as the role of unconscious processes and the psychodynamic conflict in which different parts of the mind are in constant dynamic struggle with each other and the consequences of this struggle are important in understanding behaviour. Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of schizophrenia involves two related processes, regression to a pre-ego stage and attempts to establish ego control. Freud believed that schizophrenia is caused when trauma from unresolved conflict between the id, ego, and superego is repressed into the unconscious and this causes regression to an earlier stage of psychosexual development. Fixation and regression means that the ego is not fully developed and so the individual may be dominated by the id or the superego, and because the ego is weak the individual will lack a sound basis in reality.
This element is innate – it is present from birth. The superego, or the morality principle, is the conscience of the mind- it understands right from wrong. It is in constant conflict with the Id, and develops during the phallic stage of psychosexual development. The third element, the Ego, acts as a mediator between the two and at times uses defence mechanisms to shield the conscious from the Id and its desires. Freud also proposed a theory he understood to be the “structure of the mind”.