The Psychodynamic Approach

The role of the unconscious

• Most of our mind is made up of the unconscious
• Unconscious has a significant influence on our behaviour/personality
• Contains threatening and disturbing memories
• Under surface of conscious mind is preconscious - parapraxes

The structure of personality: tripartite structure

• Id - pleasure principle - only the id is present at birth - entirely selfish - immediate gratification
• Ego - reality principle - mediator - develops around age of 2 years- reduce conflict between id and superego - defence mechanisms
• Superego - morality principle - formed at end of phallic stage

Defence mechanisms

• Unconscious
• Ensures that the ego is able to prevent us from being overwhelmed by temporary threats/traumas
• Often involve distortion of reality - psychologically unhealthy/undesirable
• Repression: forcing a distressing memory out of conscious mind
• Denial: refusing to acknowledge some aspect of reality
• Displacement: transferring feelings from true source of distressing emotion onto a substitute target

Psychosexual stages of development

EVALUATION

Explanatory power

• Huge influence on psychology and Western contemporary thought
• Dominant force in psychology for first half of 20th century
• Significant in drawing attention to the connection between experiences in childhood - relationship with our parents and later development

Case study method

• Detailed and carefully recorded - not possible to make such universal claims about human nature based on studies of a small sample of psychologically abnormal individuals
• Highly subjective
• Unlikely that any other researcher would have drawn the same conclusions
• Lacks scientific rigour 

The Oedipus complex and Little Hans 

• In phallic stage, little boys develop incestuous feelings towards mother and murderous hatred for their father(the Oedipus complex)
• Fear that their father will castrate them, boys repress feelings for their mother and identify with father - gender role and moral values
• Girls of some age experience penis envy - desire their father and hate their mother(the Electra complex)
• Freud was less clear on process in girls
• Girls are thought to give up desire for father over time - replace with desire for a baby
• Supported this with case study of Little Hans
• 5 year old boy who developed a phobia of horses
• Freud suggested that Hans' phobia was a form of displacement - repressed fear of father transferred onto horses
• Horses were a symbolic representation of Hans' real unconscious fear: fear of castration experienced during Oedipus complex

Untestable concepts

• Popper - psychodynamic approach doesn't meet scientific criterion of falsification - not open to empirical testing
• Difficult, or impossible, to test unconscious
• Popper - psychodynamic theory is a pseudoscience(fake)

Practical application

• Psychoanalysis(therapy) - hypnosis and dream analysis
• Forerunner to many modern day psychotherapies
• Criticised as inappropriate/harmful for people with more serious mental disorders(schizophrenia)

Psychic determinism

• No such thing as "accident"
• Determined by unconscious conflicts rooted in childhood
• Any free will we think we may have is an illusion

The Nervous System

- A specialised network of cells in the human body and our primary internal communication system

What are the two main functions of the nervous system?

1. Collecting, processing and responding to information in the environment
2. Coordinating the work of different organs and cells in the body

What are the two subsystems?

1. Central Nervous System(CNS) - THE BRAIN AND THE SPINAL CORD

• Brain - centre of all conscious awareness
• Cerebral cortex - outer layer of the brain - highly developed in humans
• The brain is divided into two hemispheres
• Spinal cord - extension of the brain - responsible for reflex actions
• Passes messages to and from the brain + connects nerves to the PNS

2. Peripheral Nervous System(PNS)

• Autonomic nervous system(ANS) - governs vital functions such as breathing and heart rate
• Somatic nervous system(SNS) - controls muscle movement and receives info from sensory receptors

The Endocrine System

• Works alongside the nervous system to control important functions in the body
• Acts much more slowly than the NS - but powerful and widespread effects
• Glands produce hormones which are secreted into the bloodstream - they affect any cell that has a receptor for that hormone
• Pituitary gland located in the brain - 'master gland' - controls release of hormones from all over the body

What is Fight or Flight?

- When the body experiences a stressful event, the Endocrine system and ANS work together. 

- Hypothalamus triggers activity in the sympathetic branch of ANS

- ANS changes from the parasympathetic to the sympathetic state

- Adrenaline is released from the adrenal medulla into bloodstream

- This increases heart rate/breathing rate etc which creates physiological arousal necessary for the        fight or flight response

- This all happens as soon as the stressor is perceived

- Once the threat has passed, body returns to sympathetic state 

Neurons are the main communication for the nervous system!

Types of neuron

• Motor neurons - connecting CNS to effectors. SHORT DENDRITES and LONG AXONS.
• Sensory neurons - carry messages from PNS to CNS. LONG DENDRITES and SHORT AXONS.
• Relay neurons - connecting sensory neurons to motor/other relay neurons. SHORT DENDRITES and SHORT AXONS. 

But what does a neuron look like?..

• Firstly, they vary in size but all have the same basic structure.
• The cell body(or soma if you want to use those smart words) has a nucleus(inc. genetic material of the cell)
• Dendrites(they look like branches) protrude from the cell body. What do they do? They carry nerve impulses from neighbouring neurons towards the cell body
• The axon... this carries impulses away from the cell body down the length of the neuron. It's covered in a fatty layer of myelin sheath(one of my favourite terms in psychology and I don't know why) but it protects the axon while speeding up electrical transmission of the impulse
• Important to note that the myelin sheath is not continuous else it would just slow down the electrical transmission. It's segmented by nodes of Ranvier(where do they even get these names from?) - this speeds up transmission because the impulse is forced to "jump" across the gaps. 
• At the end of the axon - terminal buttons which communicate with the next neuron in the chain across a gap known as the synapse. 

And what on earth is electrical transmission?..

The inside of the cell is negatively charged unlike the outside when a neuron is in its resting state but when it's activated by a stimulus, the inside becomes positively charged for a very small amount of time. This causes an action potential to happen - creating an electrical impulse which travels down the axon towards the end of the neuron.

Synaptic transmission

Firstly, chemical transmissions and synapses...

Neural networks: Groups in which neurons communicate(Neuron group chat, lol)

Synapse: What keeps each neuron separated - synaptic cleft, pre synaptic terminal and post synaptic receptor site

IMPORTANT: Signals within neurons are transmitted electrically. Signals between neurons are transmitted chemically(synaptic transmission)

When the electrical impulse reaches the end of the pre synaptic terminal, it triggers the release of neurotransmitter from the synaptic vesicles(or tiny sacs)

But, what is a neurotransmitter?..

Chemicals that diffuse across the synapse to the next neuron in the chain.

- Once it crosses gap, it is taken up by the post synaptic receptor sites - the chemical message is converted back into an electrical impulse - the process of transmission begins again

- Each neurotransmitter has its own specific molecular structure which fits perfectly into a post synaptic receptor site(like a lock and key) 

- Neurotransmitters also have specialist functions

Excitation and inhibition

- Serotonin causes inhibition in the receiving neuron - neuron is more negatively charged - less likely to fire

- Adrenaline causes excitation of the post synaptic neuron - increases positive charge - more likely to fire