The Psychodynamic perspective of psychology is significant to study human behaviour and personality. This theory gives detailed description on the dynamics of mind and it also includes the core concepts.

1. PSYCHODYNAMIC
PERSPECTIVE OF
PSYCHOLOGY
Dr Angita Sarmah Boruah
Assistant Professor,
Department of Education
Cotton University

2. • The psychodynamic perspective encompasses a number of theories that explain
both normal and pathological personality development in terms of the dynamics
of the mind. Such dynamics include motivational factors, unconscious mental
processes, conflict, and defense mechanisms. Psychodynamic theories also
typically emphasize the importance of childhood experiences and object relations
for understanding personality development. While most commonly associated
with Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, the psychodynamic perspective also
extends to several post-Freudian schools including object relations theory and
neuropsychoanalysis.
Introduction

3. • The psychodynamic theory is a psychological theory of Sigmund Freud
(1856-1939) and his later followers applied to explain the origins of human
behavior.
• The psychodynamic approach includes all the theories in psychology that
see human functioning based upon the interaction of drives and forces
within the person, particularly unconscious, and between the different
structures of the personality.

4. • Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis was the original psychodynamic theory, but the
psychodynamic approach as a whole includes all theories that were based on his ideas,
e.g., Carl Jung (1912), Melanie Klein (1921), Alfred Adler (1927), Anna Freud (1936),
and Erik Erikson (1950).
• Sigmund Freud (writing between the 1890s and the 1930s) developed a collection of
theories which have formed the basis of the psychodynamic approach to psychology.
Thus, this approach is based on the theory of Sigmund Freud.

5. • Psychodynamic approach emphasizes on unconscious
psychological processes like, wishes & fears of which we are
not fully aware. According to Freud (1915), the unconscious mind is the
primary source of human behavior. Like an iceberg, the most important
part of the mind is the part we cannot see.
• Our feelings, motives, and decisions are actually powerfully influenced by
our past experiences, and stored in the unconscious.

6. • Psychodynamic theory states that events in our childhood have a great influence on our
adult lives, shaping our personality. Events that occur in childhood can remain in the
unconscious, and cause problems as adults.

7. CORE ASSUMPTIONS:
1. Primacy of the unconscious:
 Majority of psychological processes take place outside conscious awareness.
 Many of our mental activities-memories, motives, feelings and the like are largely inaccessible to consciousness.
2. Critical importance of Early experiences: Early life experiences affect our life later, but the degree of the
experiences also matters in affecting the personality.
3. Psychic Causality:
 Nothing in mental life happens by chance-that there is no such thing as a random thought, feeling, motive or
behaviour.
 Thoughts, motives, emotional responses and expressed behaviours do not arise randomly, but always stem from
some combination of identifiable biological and psychological processes.

8. • Psychodynamic theory is a set of three interrelated models-
 The Topographic Model
 The psychosexual stage model
 The structural model

9. 1. THE TOPOGRAPHIC MODEL
• In his 1900 book, The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud introduced his topographic model
of the mind, which tells that the mind is divided into three regions: conscious,
preconscious and unconscious.
 The conscious part of the mind holds information that we are focusing on at this moment-
what we are thinking and feeling right now.
 The preconscious contains material that is capable of becoming conscious but is not
conscious at the moment because our attention is not being directed toward it. We can
move material from the preconscious into consciousness simply by focussing our attention
on it.

10.  The unconscious-the most controversial part of the topographic model-contains anxiety
producing material, for example, sexual impulses, aggressive urges that are deliberately
repressed.
 Dreams play an important role in psychodynamic theory, as they are often considered the
central route through which the unconscious expresses itself to the conscious mind.

11. 2. THE PSYCHOSEXUAL STAGE MODEL
 Freud in 1905, had outlined the key elements of his psychosexual stage model.
 This model argued that early in life we progress through a sequence of developmental
stages.
 The stages are: oral, anal, oedipal, latency and genital.
 Frustration or over gratification during a particular stage may lead to oral, anal or oedipal
personality style.
 Oral fixation is hypothesized to result in a dependent personality whereas anal fixation
results in a lifelong preoccupation with control. Oedipal fixation leads to an aggressive,
competitive personality orientation.

13. THE FLOW OF LIBIDO
• The libido, in Freud’s system, represents the life maintaining energy which aims to seek
pleasure through sexual gratification. It can be equated to a river and its flow determines
the type of behaviour or personality make-up of an individual.
 If its flow is outward, causing satisfactory sexual gratification and pleasurable sensations
from outside objects, the behaviour tends to be quite normal.
If its flow is inward, it can develop in the inculcation of a spirit of ‘self-love’ leading to
self-indulgence and narcissism.

14.  If its path is blocked, then it may become stagnant. In such cases the libido may be said
to have been arrested or fixed on an object or stage of development. For example, if a
child does not get enough stimulation and pleasure by sucking etc., at the oral stage, his
libido may get fixed at this stage and consequently in the later years of his life he may be
seen excessively interested in eating, drinking or stimulating the mouth in any manner.
 In case the flow of the libido is so blocked that it gets repressed or flows backward then
the person may develop a regressed personality. Such persons tend to behave in the
manner and ways related to that develop-mental stage at which they suffer frustration over
the satisfaction of their pleasure seeking desires.

15.  When the flow of the libido is blocked, condemned or repressed through the authority
exercised by the ego in deference to the super ego, it may cause severe anxiety and
conflicts in the individual causing neurotic or psychotic behaviour.
In case the flow of the libido is deflected, it may lead an individual to seek sex
gratification through other socially desirable sublimated ways and to develop his
personality accordingly.

16. 3. THE STRUCTURAL MODEL
 Freud developed one model which is called as the structural model which tells that there are
three types of mental structures-id, ego and superego.
 The id is the seat of drives and instincts whereas the ego represents the reality oriented part of
the mind and the superego is basically our moral guidelines, rules and prohibitions that guide
our behaviour.
 According to the structural model, our personality reflects the interplay of these three psychic
structures.
 When the id predominates and instincts rule, the result is an impulsive personality style. When
the superego is strongest, moral prohibitions reign supreme and a restrained, overcontrolled
personality ensues. When the ego is dominant, a more balanced set of personality traits
develop.

17. • The psychodynamic theory is never static, it is ever changing and evolving in response to
new ideas and findings.
• In the following part, four current trends in the psychodynamic perspective are discussed.
 Object Relations Theory
 Empirical Research on Psychodynamic Theories
 Psychoanalysis and culture
 The opportunities and challenges of neuroscience

18. 1. OBJECT RELATIONS THEORYAND THE GROWTH
OF THE PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSPECTIVE
 In recent years a number of new psychodynamic frameworks have emerged to explain personality
development and dynamics. The most important of these is Object Relations theory.
 Personality can be understood as internalizing the mental images of significant figures that we form
early in life in response to interactions taking place within the family.
 These mental images serve as templates for later interpersonal relationships.
 So, if we internalize positive images early in life, that is what we expect to occur in later
relationships as well.
 Object Relations theory holds that the impressions we develop of our parents and how they behave
early in our lives serve a scripts that guide our behaviour in future relationships.

19. 2. EMPIRICAL RESEARCH ON PSYCHODYNAMIC
THEORIES
• Many ideas from the psychodynamic perspective have been studied empirically.
 Unconscious processes influence our behavior as the psychodynamic perspective predicts
 We all use ego defenses and they help determine our psychological adjustment and physical
health.
 Mental representations of self and others do indeed serve as blueprints for later
relationships.

20. 3. PSYCHOANALYSIS AND CULTURE
• One of Freud’s lifelong goals was to use psychoanalytic principles to understand culture and improve intergroup
relations.
• psychoanalysts have been active in incorporating ideas and findings regarding cultural influences into their
research and clinical work. For example, studies have shown that individuals raised in individualistic,
independence-focused cultures (for example, the United States, Great Britain) tend to define themselves
primarily in terms of personal attributes (like attitudes and interests), whereas individuals raised in more
sociocentric, interdependent cultures (for example, Japan, India) are more likely to describe themselves in terms
of interpersonal relations and connections with others. Our self-representations are, quite literally, a product of
our cultural milieu.
• The culture in which a person has been raised has a significant influence on self-conceptions. For example,
someone raised in North America is likely to describe themselves in very different terms compared to someone
raised in India.

21. 4. THE OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES OF
NEUROSCIENCE
• Fifteen years ago, Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel (1998) articulated a vision for an
empirically oriented psychodynamic perspective firmly embedded within the principles
and findings of neuroscience.
• Kandel’s vision ultimately led to the development of neuropsychoanalysis, an integration
of psychodynamic and neuropsychological concepts that has enhanced researchers’
understanding of numerous aspects of human behavior and mental functioning. Some of
the first efforts to integrate psychodynamic principles with findings from neuroscience
involved sleep and dreams.

22. CRITICAL EVALUATION
o The psychodynamic approach has given rise to one of the first “talking cure", psychoanalysis,
on which many psychological therapies are now based. Psychoanalysis is rarely used now in
its original form but it is still used in a shorter version in some cases.
o The greatest criticism of the psychodynamic approach is that it is unscientific in its analysis of
human behavior. Many of the concepts central to Freud's theories are subjective, and as such,
difficult to test scientifically.
o For example, how is it possible to scientifically study concepts like the unconscious mind or
the tripartite personality? In this respect, it could be argued that the psychodynamic
perspective is unfalsifiable as its theories cannot be empirically investigated.

23. CONTINUED…..
o Kline (1989) argues that psychodynamic theory comprises a series of hypotheses, some of
which are more easily tested than others, and some with more supporting evidence than
others.
o Also, while the theories of the psychodynamic approach may not be easily tested, this
does not mean that it does not have strong explanatory power.

24. CONTINUED….
o The main problem here is that the case studies are based on studying one person in detail, and
with reference to Freud, the individuals in question are most often middle-aged women from
Vienna (i.e., his patients). This makes generalizations to the wider population (e.g., the whole
world) difficult.
o Another problem with the case study method is that it is susceptible to researcher bias.
Reexamination of Freud's own clinical work suggests that he sometimes distorted his patients'
case histories to 'fit' with his theory (Sulloway, 1991).
o The humanistic approach makes the criticism that the psychodynamic perspective is too
deterministic. Freud suggests that all thoughts, behaviors and emotions are determined by our
childhood experiences and unconscious mental processes.

25. JUNGIAN PSYCHODYNAMICS
The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung was a great follower of Sigmund Freud and read
avidly the writings of Freud and also wrote himself many issues relating to the
psychodynamics. However in later years his writings did differ from Freud
considerably. In fact Jung in the beginning stages, invariably sent his writings to
Freud and they both interacted a great deal and in the year 1907, Jung wrote a book
entitled, Psychology of Dementia Praecox, in which he upheld the Freudian
psychodynamic view point, although with some reservations. Carl Jung’s
contributions in psychodynamic psychology include the following:

26. • The self is composed of the ego, the personal unconscious, the collective unconscious.
• The collective unconscious contains the archetypes which manifest in ways particular to
each individual.
• Archetypes are composed of dynamic tensions and arise spontaneously in the individual
and collective psyche.
• Archetypes are autonomous energies common to the human species.

27. • Archetypes give the psyche its dynamic properties and help organize it. Their effects can be
seen in many forms and across cultures.
• The role of images which spontaneously arise in the human psyche. These are images which
include the interconnection between affect, images, and instinct.
• These communicate the dynamic processes taking place in the personal and collective
unconscious.
• Images can be used to help the ego move in the direction of psychic wholeness.
• There is a need to recognise the multiplicity of psyche and psychic life,.
• There are also several organising principles within the psyche, and that they are at times in
conflict.

28. ERICKSON’S THEORY OF PSYCHOSOCIAL
DEVELOPMENT
• Erickson’s theory of psychosocial development is one of the best-known theories of personality in
psychology. Much like Sigmund Freud, Erikson believed that personality develops in a series of stages.
Unlike Freud’s theory of psychosexual stages, Erikson’s theory describes the impact of social experience
across the whole lifespan.
• One of the main elements of Erikson’s psychosocial stage theory is the development of ego identity. Ego
identity is the conscious sense of self that we develop through social interaction. According to Erikson,
our ego identity is constantly changing due to new experience and information we acquire in our daily
interactions with others. In addition to ego identity, Erikson also believed that a sense of competence also
motivates behaviours and actions. Each stage in Erikson’s theory is concerned with becoming competent
in an area of life. If the stage is handled well, the person will feel a sense of mastery, which he sometimes
referred to as ego strength or ego quality. If the stage is managed poorly, the person will emerge with a
sense of inadequacy.

29. • In each stage, Erikson believed that people experience a conflict that serves as a turning
point in development. In Erikson’s view, these conflicts are centered on either developing
a psychological quality or failing to develop that quality. During these times, the potential
for personal growth is high, but so is the potential for failure.

30. THANK YOU