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The Psychodynamic Perspective Of Sigmund Freud

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The psychodynamic perspective stems from the work of Sigmund Freud. Freud distinguishes between the conscious and the unconscious; our conscious mind is where we are aware of our motivations for behaviour and which we can verbalise explicitly, however this perspective believes that this is only a small part of our psychological make-up. The unconscious mind is where our motivations for behaviour are often complex and related in some way to sex, and largely hidden from our conscious mind and this is believed to be the driving force. In addition, this perspective believes in the concept of a tripartite personality’ the ID, EGO and SUPEREGO, as proposed by Freud. The ID is the first part of the personality to develop, and being the …show more content…

Secondly, that childhood experiences have an effect on our behaviour in later life, as they are very important in shaping our adult personality. This perspective emphasises the role of the unconscious mind, the structure of personality and the influence of childhood experiences have on later life. As this perspective was originally developed by Freud, he believed that all behaviour can be explained in the terms of inner conflicts of the mind. For example, in the case study of Little Hans, Freud argued that little Hans’ phobia of horses was caused by a displaced fear of his father. Freud believed that children go through five psychosexual stages of development known as the oral stage, the anal stage, the phallic stage, the latency stage and the genital stage. In the case study of Little Hans, Freud focused mainly on the phallic stage which Hans’ was inevitably in by being between the ages of three to five. This stage is where sexual identification was established. Freud hypothesised that within this stage the child would experience the ‘Oedipus complex’ which concentrates on a child’s desire to have sexual relations with the parent of the opposite sex; being Little Han’s mother. Another case study that was influenced by the psychodynamic perspective was that of Thigpen and Cleckley who conducted research into multiple personality disorder. They noted that Eve’s inner conflicts and early childhood experiences has led to the development of her multiple

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