Defence Mechanisms & Psychosexual Stages (AQA A Level Psychology)

Defence mechanisms

• The Ego uses defence mechanisms to help balance the conflicting demands of the Id and the Superego e.g.

  • The id screams, 'I want it now!'; the Superego replies, 'You are wrong to want it!'

    • The ego must find a way to manage this internal struggle to prevent the self from becoming overwhelmed by potential short-term trauma/threat

    • This balancing act (and the resulting defence mechanisms) happens at an unconscious level, it is not the product of conscious, rational thought

• Defence mechanisms work as a protective mechanism for the psyche

  • They may protect the individual from having to face harsh truths or unpleasant realities, some of which it may be socially unacceptable to admit to e.g.

    • 'my childhood was awful'

    • 'I hate my husband'

    • 'I wish I had never had children'

• Defence mechanisms may provide temporary relief or solution from having to confront the unsavoury facts of one's existence but they are, in the long-term, psychologically unhealthy and damaging e.g.

  • 'I'm pretending that my childhood was wonderful as otherwise I don't think I can bear having to consider what it was truly like'

  • 'I make a big show of being lovey-dovey with my husband in public so that no one guesses how much I'd like to divorce him'

  • 'I'm so glad I had children, I really, I really don't regret it one tiny bit!'

    • The above are not necessarily conscious thoughts - Freud would say that they bubble away in the unconscious mind and only emerge as defence mechanisms

Type of defence mechanisms

Displacement 

• The focus of a strong emotion is directed towards a neutral/uninvolved person/object, which reduces anxiety as it allows the expression of that strong emotion e.g. 

  • 'I shout at my children because I cannot shout at my boss'

  • 'I slam the door after a row with my husband because I can't physically hurt him'

Repression 

• Unpleasant/distressing memories are pushed down into the unconscious mind and 'smothered' so that they are unable to cause anxiety or hurt e.g. 

  • 'I have no memory of being bullied at school'

  • 'Nothing happened to me when I went on holiday to Greece with my friends'

Denial 

• This manifests as a refusal to accept the reality of an unpleasant situation or event: if it didn't happen then it can't harm anyone e.g. 

  • 'I am sure that my partner isn't stealing from me, I must have mislaid that £50 note somewhere'

  • 'I don't look at my childless friends and wish I had that life - I'm blissfully happy with my 5 wonderful children'

Psychosexual stages

• According to Freud, children pass through several psychosexual stages of development

  • oral (0-1 years)

  • anal (1-3 years)

  • phallic (3-6 years)

  • latent (6 years to puberty)

  • genital (puberty onwards)

• Each stage is linked to specific milestones and timelines in the child's life

  • If a person develops healthily and deals successfully with the conflict present in each stage, they should pass through the stages without difficulty

  • By the time adulthood is reached and all the stages have been passed, the person should be fully adjusted and conflict-free

• Fixation occurs if a child becomes 'stuck' at one of the stages

  • This happens if the child's upbringing is dysfunctional or if they have suffered some sort of trauma or adverse experience

  • They may develop a fixation which is likely to impede and obstruct their happiness and functionality as an adult

• The main indicator of healthy development is if the child successfully navigates the phallic phase, by going through the Oedipus complex or the Electra complex

  • The Oedipus complex is the phase in which boys initially feel an unconscious desire for closeness to their mother and hate/fear their father due to castration anxiety

  • Girls go through a similar process known as the Electra complex in which they experience penis envy and closeness to the father/hatred for the mother

  • Over time both boys and girls come out of the Oedipus/Electra complex and identify with the same-sex parent

  • Freud conducted a case study of Little Hans, a 5-year-old boy with a horse phobia

    • Freud’s detailed notes and observations of Hans allowed him to interpret Hans’ phobia as being evidence of the Oedipus complex (the horse represented his father according to Freud)

    • Hans emerged from the the phobia towards the beginning of the latency stage which Freud interpreted as evidence of him having resolved this conflict

Evaluation of defence mechanisms & psychosexual stages

Strengths

• Psychotherapy can enable people to come to terms with and recognise the underlying conflicts and trauma that may result in defence mechanisms

  • This is highly applicable to counselling for a range of conditions e.g. phobias, sexual fetishism, anger issues

  • This gives the theory behind defence mechanisms good external validity

• Freud's concept of the psychosexual stages has provided important insights into how early experiences can shape personality and behaviour

  • Some research has supported the idea that oral and anal fixations are easily identified and can be traced back to childhood experience

  • This means that Freud's theory has shown staying power beyond its immediate conception in the early 20th century

Limitations

• Freud's research is under-powered in terms of his methodology

  • He conducted single-subject case studies of wealthy Viennese adults and one child (Little Hans)

  • He made claims based on his own, subjective interpretation of their dreams or phobias/fantasies which were not checked/confirmed by another psychologist

  • This means that Freud's work lacks a scientific approach and is unreliable in terms of hypothesis testing

• There are numerous possible alternative explanations for a person's behaviour other than that of them being fixated at a psychosexual stage e.g.

  • someone who is needy/critical/addicted may have learned this behaviour from parental role models - it may have nothing to do with them being breastfed (or not)

  • an extremely neat person may have autistic spectrum disorder, a feature of which can be an adherence to order, routine, patterns and precision

  • This limits the usefulness of Freud's theory