The Role of the Unconscious & Structure of Personality (AQA A Level Psychology)

Assumptions of the psychodynamic approach

• The psychodynamic approach assumes that experiences in early childhood play a key role in determining an individual's mental/emotional state and outcomes in later life e.g.

  • if someone was not breastfed or was breastfed for too long (i.e. beyond the age of around one) they may be 'stuck' in the oral phase

    • This would manifest in behaviour such as addiction, neediness, greed, continual nail-biting

  • if someone is conflicted due to dysfunctional parental behaviour in childhood they may exhibit defence mechanism behaviour

    • They may be in denial as to their unhappy childhood and claim that their upbringing was perfect

• A key assumption of the psychodynamic approach is that there are vast swathes of the mind that are inaccessible to conscious awareness

  • Freud used the metaphor of an iceberg to explain the different levels of consciousness

  • The unconscious mind is represented by the hidden portion (i.e. the dangerous part) of the iceberg

    • This is because a core principle of the psychodynamic approach is that unconscious thoughts lie deep, may be disturbing and push upwards into the preconscious and conscious mind

    • Unconscious thoughts which intrude into the upper parts of the iceberg (preconscious and conscious mind) may manifest in behaviour as dreams, defence mechanisms or fixation (all of which are covered in the next revision note)

The role of the unconscious

• Freud suggested that there are distinct divisions to the mind which operate at three different levels of consciousness

  • The conscious mind

    • The part of the mind that the individual is aware of, which is used to form conscious thoughts (the tip of the iceberg)

  • The preconscious mind

    • The part of the mind that sits just below the surface of the conscious mind, where dreams and 'Freudian slips' lurk

    • Freudian slips reveal secret feelings e.g. 'I loathe my husband' (when the intended phrase was 'I love my husband') - what is said appears to be accidental but it expresses the person's true, repressed feelings

    • Dreams reveal secret fears/desires e.g. dreams of flying = the wish to break free from limitations, to be free; dreams of being naked in public = anxiety about others accepting you

  • The unconscious mind

    • The hidden depths and mass of the iceberg; the part of the mind that holds information and feelings that the individual may be unaware of e.g. secret fears or desires, repressed memories or emotions, the effects of trauma 

    • Psychodynamic therapists suggest that psychoanalysis is a necessary way to confront the 'nasty' or frightening parts of the unconscious mind and to confront trauma

The structure of the personality: Id, Ego & Superego

• Freud conceptualised personality as a tripartite structure (consisting of three parts)

  • Id

  • Ego

  • Superego

• The Id, Ego and Superego all develop at different points in a person's life and each is qualitatively distinct from the other 

• The Id, Ego and Superego are not separate entities; they work together within the personality of each individual but not necessarily in harmony e.g.

  • some people may be more 'Id' than others but they will still have a functioning Ego and Superego (though these parts of the personality will have to work harder to override the Id)

Id

• According to Freud, the Id is present from birth (Freud described babies as being 'bundles of id')

• The id is the instinctive part of our personality and operates according to the pleasure principle 

  • It consists of pure erotic energy and primal urges (termed 'drives' by Freud)

  • The id seeks only self-indulgent pleasure and instant gratification

    • Rather like a spoilt child e.g. 'I want it 'now!'

• The Id is important in early life to ensure survival, which is why an infant will cry until their needs are met

Ego

• The Ego, according to Freud, develops around the age of two

• The Ego operates according to the reality principle, rather like a sensible adult e.g.

  • 'I'd like to have it but it may take time to get it and I must accept that it may never happen'

• The Ego is the reality principle, acting as the mediator between the Id and the Superego and balancing the demands of each at all times e.g.

  • The id must sometimes be 'tamed' as its wild impulses could lead to trouble

  • The Superego must sometimes be ignored if it is likely to lead to punitive self-blame or excessive guilt

• The Ego develops in response to control by others - usually one's parents - during the anal stage of development

Superego

• The Superego, according to Freud, develops around the age of five

• The Superego operates according to the morality principle, rather like a disapproving teacher or parent e.g.

  • 'Why would anyone want that? It is wrong and it means that you are weak and sinful to want it!'

• The Superego can also show approval (though this is likely to be rarer than disapproval) e.g.

  • 'You did very well to resist that temptation, what a good person you are!'

• The Superego represents an internalised sense of right and wrong, the conscience/morality/ethics/judgemental aspect of the self

  • Moral standards are specifically learned via one's same-sex parent  and the specific type of discipline instilled in one's childhood

Evaluation of the role of the unconscious & structure of personality

Strengths

• Freud was at the forefront of the move in psychology towards considering the role of childhood experience as being a key influence on behaviour

  • It makes sense to see the link between parental treatment of the child and conflicted behaviour in the adult as parents are at the core of a child's world until (and beyond) adolescence

  • This makes his theory high in external validity

• The psychodynamic approach has informed therapy (specifically 'talking' therapy) since the early twentieth century and continues to be a driving force today in one-to-one and group counselling

  • This means that it has good application to settings beyond the merely theoretical

Limitations

• Freud's theory of the unconscious mind and structure of personality is extremely difficult to operationalise, test and measure

  • This is because the concepts and mechanisms involved are highly subjective and open to interpretation

  • Therefore the theory is unfalsifiable and lacking in scientific methodology

• Freud's theory suffers from psychic determinism which can be summed up in the phrase 'there's no such thing as an accident'

  • This assumes that all outcomes have already been decided and that deliberate forces intrude from the unconscious mind (seen, for example, in Freudian slips)

  • Therefore this negates the idea of people having free will which ultimately limits the scope of the theory