The Psychodynamic Approach

The psychodynamic approach was founded by Sigmund Freud and rests on two core assumptions that separate it from every other approach in psychology.

First, behaviour is driven largely by the unconscious mind rather than by conscious, rational thought. The reasons we act as we do are mostly hidden from us. Second, early childhood experiences shape adult personality. What happens to us in the first few years of life leaves a permanent mark on the kind of person we become.

Put simply, Freud argued that we are not in full control of our own minds. Forces we are unaware of, laid down in childhood, direct much of what we feel and do.

Assumption	What it claims
The unconscious drives behaviour	Most behaviour is caused by processes we cannot consciously access
Childhood shapes personality	Early experiences determine adult personality and any later problems

The word psychodynamic means the dynamic (active) forces within the mind that drive behaviour. Keep the two assumptions ready: the unconscious and early childhood experience.

Freud described the mind as an iceberg. Only a small part sits above the waterline where we can see it; the vast bulk lies hidden beneath.

• The conscious mind is the tip of the iceberg: the thoughts and perceptions we are aware of right now.
• The preconscious sits just below the surface: thoughts and memories we are not currently aware of but can bring into consciousness, for example dreams and slips of the tongue that hint at what lies beneath.
• The unconscious is the huge part below the waterline. It holds repressed memories, instincts and desires that we cannot access directly, yet which drive much of our behaviour.

Because the unconscious cannot be examined directly, Freud looked for it to leak out in indirect ways. He believed it was revealed through dreams and through "Freudian slips" (parapraxes) — errors of speech or action that betray an unconscious wish, such as calling a partner by an ex's name.

The unconscious is not simply "things we have forgotten". It is an active store of repressed, often threatening material that the mind deliberately keeps out of awareness because facing it would cause anxiety.

Freud proposed a tripartite personality: three parts that develop at different ages and often pull against one another. Each part follows a different guiding principle.

Part	Develops	Guiding principle	What it demands
Id	From birth	Pleasure principle	Immediate gratification of its needs; selfish
Ego	Around age 2	Reality principle	Realistic, socially acceptable ways to meet needs
Superego	Around age 5	Morality principle	Behaviour that fits internalised moral standards

The Id is present from birth and is entirely unconscious. It is selfish and demands immediate satisfaction, working on the pleasure principle.

The Ego develops around age 2 and works on the reality principle. Its job is to mediate between the unrealistic demands of the Id and the moral constraints of the Superego, finding realistic ways to satisfy the Id without breaking social rules. To manage the conflict between the two, the ego employs defence mechanisms.

The Superego forms around age 5, at the end of the phallic stage, and works on the morality principle. It is our internalised sense of right and wrong, made up of the conscience (which punishes the ego with guilt) and the ideal self (the person we aspire to be). It develops when the child identifies with the same-sex parent and takes on their moral values.

A healthy personality has a strong ego balancing the Id and Superego. If the Id dominates, behaviour is impulsive and selfish; if the Superego dominates, the person is anxious and guilt-ridden.

When the ego is overwhelmed by conflict between the Id and Superego, it protects itself using defence mechanisms. These are unconscious and work by distorting reality to reduce the anxiety a person would otherwise feel. They can be helpful in the short term but cause problems if overused, because they stop the person dealing with reality. AQA names three you must know.

Mechanism	What the ego does	Example
Repression	Forces a distressing memory out of conscious awareness	Someone abused as a child has no conscious memory of the abuse
Denial	Refuses to accept an unpleasant reality	An alcoholic insists they do not have a drinking problem
Displacement	Transfers feelings from their true target onto a substitute	After being told off by a boss, a person shouts at their family

The unifying idea is that all three operate below awareness to shield the ego from anxiety, and all three distort reality rather than confront it directly.

Repression pushes the feeling out of memory, denial blocks the fact from being accepted, and displacement redirects the feeling onto a safer target. Memorising one clear example of each is the fastest way to avoid muddling them in the exam.

Freud argued that child development happens in five psychosexual stages. At each stage, psychic energy (the libido) is focused on a different part of the body, and each stage brings a conflict that must be resolved. If the conflict is not resolved, the child becomes fixated at that stage, and this fixation carries forward to shape adult personality.

Stage	Age (approx.)	Focus / conflict
Oral	0–1 year	Pleasure centred on the mouth; the mother's breast is the object
Anal	1–3 years	Pleasure centred on the anus; conflict over toilet training
Phallic	3–6 years	Pleasure centred on the genitals; the Oedipus or Electra complex
Latency	6 to puberty	Earlier conflicts are repressed; energy is directed into friendships
Genital	Puberty on	Sexual desires become conscious and are directed toward others

In the phallic stage, boys experience the Oedipus complex: an unconscious desire for their mother and jealousy of their father, resolved by identifying with the father. Freud proposed that girls experience the Electra complex, involving penis envy and identification with the mother.

Example of fixation: a child whose oral stage is not resolved may develop an oral fixation, shown in adulthood by habits such as smoking or nail-biting. Fixation at the anal stage was said to produce either an anal-retentive personality (tidy, obsessive) or an anal-expulsive one (messy, disorganised).

The link students must be able to state is: unresolved conflict at a stage causes fixation, and that fixation influences adult personality. Naming the fixation and the adult trait it produces is what earns the marks.

You must be able to evaluate the approach (AO3), not just describe it. Aim for a few developed points that weigh its strengths against its weaknesses.

Strength — real-world impact. Freud's ideas introduced psychoanalysis, the first "talking therapy" and forerunner of many modern psychotherapies. The approach also had an enormous influence on psychology, psychiatry and wider culture, drawing attention to the effect of childhood on later life. This gives it real practical and historical value.

Strength — explanatory power. The approach offered explanations for an unusually wide range of phenomena, including personality, moral development, gender identity, abnormality and the meaning of dreams. Few approaches attempt to account for so much of human experience within a single framework.

Limitation — untestable and unfalsifiable. The philosopher Karl Popper argued the approach is a pseudoscience because concepts such as the unconscious cannot be empirically tested or falsified. If a theory cannot in principle be proved wrong, it fails a basic requirement of science, which weakens the approach's scientific credibility.

Limitation — psychic determinism and case studies. The approach is psychically deterministic: it claims all behaviour is determined by unconscious conflict and childhood experience, leaving no room for free will. It also relies heavily on subjective case studies of single individuals, such as Little Hans, from which it is difficult to draw generalised, objective conclusions.

A strong evaluation does more than list points. Where you can, add a "this matters because…" sentence, for example: because Freud's concepts are unfalsifiable, we cannot know whether his explanations are correct, only that they cannot be disproved.

1. Matching the wrong part of personality to its principle

The Id follows the pleasure principle, the Ego the reality principle, and the Superego the morality principle. Swapping these is one of the most common errors. A quick memory hook: Id = pleasure, Ego = reality, Superego = morality.

2. Giving the wrong ages for the Ego and Superego

The Ego develops around age 2 and the Superego around age 5 (end of the phallic stage). Only the Id is present from birth. Writing that all three are present at birth loses marks.

3. Confusing the three defence mechanisms

Repression removes a memory from awareness, denial refuses to accept a reality, and displacement redirects a feeling onto a substitute target. Learn one clear example of each so you do not describe the wrong one.

4. Misordering the psychosexual stages

The order is oral → anal → phallic → latency → genital. A common slip is placing latency before the phallic stage or forgetting it entirely. The Oedipus and Electra complexes belong to the phallic stage, not the genital stage.

5. Describing without evaluating

Psychodynamic exam questions carry AO3 marks. State a point (for example, that the approach is unfalsifiable), then develop it and explain why it matters, rather than only outlining Freud's ideas.