Psychodynamic Perspective

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Psychodynamic Perspective

• Research Techniques

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Overview
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Research Techniques

• Clinical Observation and Validation
• Freud primarily based his theories his patients
• Claimed his successful treatments validated his
  theories e.g. Little Hans

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Research Techniques

• Free Association
• Freud asked patients to relate anything which
  came into their mind, however unimportant or
  potentially embarrassing the memory threatened to
  be.
• An Example

Source
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Research Methods

• Projective Tests
• Designed to let a person respond to ambiguous
  stimuli, presumably revealing hidden emotions and
  internal conflicts.
• Evaluations made to discover conflicts and hidden
  emotions

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Research Techniques

• Examples 1. Rorschach inkblot test, explaining
  what you see in inkblots.

Source
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Research Techniques

• 2. Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) describing
  ambiguous scenes of people

Source
8
Freuds Definition of Dreams

• Dreams are
• thoughts in pictures
• believable
• focused on wishes and anxieties
• often immoral
• royal road to the Unconscious

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Freuds Definitions of Dreams

• Hallucinatory. We believe the reality of the
  dream while in it.
• Drama. Dreams are not random images. They are
  stage managed into very definite, sometimes
  recurring, themes and plots.
• Dreams connect us with our childhood selves

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Dream Analysis Key Concepts

• Manifest content surface meaning expressed in
  symbols and containing residues of the day.
• Latent content unconscious repressed wishes
  often infantile

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Dream Analysis Key Concepts

• Displacement and Symbolism a event or person
  stands for something or someone else to relieve
  stress. For instance the dreamer might use a king
  in place of the father. This allows them to
  fantasize/dream events that might otherwise be
  blocked.

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Dreams

• Through dreams, Freud felt the patient could
  gradually uncover the ways their libido (psychic
  energy) was repressed, cross wired, or
  traumatized. This development of insight could
  release them.

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Jung

• Jung argued that dreams often deal with the
  collective unconscious
• Collective unconscious is humanitys common
  storehouse of symbols