Psychodynamic Psychology: Core Definitions and Key Principles

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Psychodynamic Psychology: Core Definitions and Key Principles

Psychology of Personality · Chapter 7: Psychodynamic Theories and Their Key FiguresSection 7.1 · lesson 42 of 838 min · free with a free account

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In this lesson

Personality as a system in motion, and the problem of reading it.

  • Define psychodynamic psychology and the meaning of dynamic
  • State what psychic determinism claims
  • Describe the roles of id, ego and superego
  • Explain how the unconscious is claimed to be accessed

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Psychodynamic Theories and Their Key Figures

Psychodynamic Psychology

You forget an appointment you were dreading. Twice. One reading is that memory is imperfect, and that is all there is to say. Another is that some part of you did not want to go. Psychodynamic psychology is the tradition that takes the second reading seriously. And builds an entire account of personality on it. In this section we will define psychodynamic psychology, and the word dynamic. State what the principle of psychic determinism actually claims. Describe the roles of the id, the ego and the superego. And look carefully at how the unconscious is supposed to be accessed.

Definition

Forces You Cannot Observe Directly

Psychodynamic psychology is the study of how unconscious forces shape personality and behaviour. Along with early experiences, and inner conflicts. It is rooted in the work of Sigmund Freud. The founding premise is that much of mental life occurs outside awareness. Thoughts, feelings and motives that we cannot directly observe. Nonetheless drive how we act. Everything in this chapter rests on that premise, so it is worth noticing how strong it is. Now the word dynamic, which is not decoration. It emphasizes the constant interplay and tension among competing mental forces. Not one force. Several, pulling against each other, continuously.

In Motion

Not a Fixed Set of Traits

That has an immediate consequence for what kind of thing personality is. The approach treats personality as a system in motion. Rather than as a fixed set of traits. Which sets it directly against trait models, that describe stable quantities. Energy, in the form of drives and wishes, is channelled. It is blocked, and it is redirected. As the mind balances impulses against internal standards, and against external reality. So understanding a person, in this view, is not a matter of measuring them. It means tracing how these hidden processes express themselves. In symptoms. In relationships. In dreams. And in everyday slips.

First Principle

Nothing Mental Is Random

Several principles organize psychodynamic thought, and the first one is foundational. Psychic determinism holds that mental events have causes. So even apparently random behaviour carries meaning. Return to the forgotten appointment. A person who repeatedly forgets an appointment they dread. May, in psychodynamic terms, be expressing an unconscious wish to avoid it. Rather than experiencing a simple memory lapse. Now notice that this principle is the engine of the whole approach. And also its central vulnerability. If every act carries meaning, then an interpretation is always available. For any behaviour at all, including the opposite behaviour. That makes the framework powerful, and it makes it difficult to disconfirm.

Structural Model

Three Claims on the Same Person

The structural model divides the mind into three parts. The id is the source of primitive drives. The superego is the internalized moral standard. And the ego mediates between them, and between both of them and reality. Picture the ego at the centre of that arrangement. Pressed by drives on one side, by conscience on another. By external reality on a third, and by the anxiety all of that generates. The ego's job is not to win. It is to manage. Which is why the tradition treats ordinary functioning as an achievement, rather than a default.

The Vocabulary

Five Terms and What Each Does

Five terms carry most of the theory, so let us fix them. The id holds primitive drives and wishes, and seeks immediate gratification. The ego is the reality-oriented mediator, balancing id, superego and reality. The superego is internalized morality, imposing standards and guilt. The unconscious is material outside awareness, storing hidden motives. And a defense mechanism is an anxiety-reducing distortion, which protects the ego. One caution about all five. These are not locations in the brain, and they are not parts of a person. They are functional roles within a model of conflict. Treating them as literal components is the most common beginner error.

Defences

Protection Bought With Distortion

Defense mechanisms deserve a closer look, because their definition contains a cost. They protect the ego from anxiety. By distorting, or excluding, threatening material from awareness. So read what is being traded there. The relief is genuine. And it is purchased with accuracy. A defense works precisely by making something less true to you than it actually is. That is not a criticism of the concept. It is what the concept says. And that trade-off is why, in later ego theory, the maturity of a person's defenses matters so much. Some ways of paying that price cost far more than others.

The Past

Early Conflicts as Templates

Developmental history is the other central commitment of the approach. Early relationships and conflicts are thought to leave lasting templates. Templates that influence how a person functions much later. So present difficulties are read partly as echoes of the past. A current pattern gets interpreted through an earlier one. Now consider what kind of claim that is. It is a claim about causation running across decades of a life. Which is exactly the kind of claim that is hardest to verify. You cannot rerun the childhood, and the person's memory of it is itself part of what is being explained.

Access

Everything Here Is Reached Indirectly

Which raises the practical question. How do you study any of this? If hidden motives shape much of behaviour, they cannot be asked about directly. The answer the tradition gives is that access is indirect. It comes through interpretation. Of dreams. Of slips. Of symptoms. And of patterns in a person's relationships. That is a real method, and it produced genuine clinical insight. But be clear-eyed about what it involves. Each of those becomes evidence only once someone reads a meaning into it. Two skilled clinicians can read the same slip quite differently. And the material itself will not settle the disagreement between them.

Consolidate

Influential, and Still Contested

Taken together, these principles frame personality in a particular way. As the ongoing, often unconscious management of conflict. Between desire, conscience, and the demands of the outside world. The value of that framing is real, and it is worth naming precisely. It supplies a vocabulary for conflict, ambivalence and self-deception. No other tradition offered one at the time, and clinicians still use it. But its evidence remains indirect, by design rather than by accident. So hold both facts about this chapter as you go into it. Psychodynamic theory has been among the most influential frameworks in the history of psychology. And its central claims are reached through interpretation, rather than through measurement. Neither of those cancels the other out.

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FAQ

Questions students ask us

About Psychodynamic Psychology: Core Definitions and Key Principles

What is psychic determinism?
Psychic determinism is the psychodynamic principle that mental events have causes, so even apparently random behavior carries meaning. For example, someone who repeatedly forgets an appointment they dread may be expressing an unconscious wish to avoid it rather than having a simple memory lapse. The principle drives the whole approach, but it also makes interpretations hard to disconfirm, since a meaning can be found for any behavior.
What are the id, ego, and superego?
In Freud's structural model, the id is the source of primitive drives and seeks immediate gratification. The superego is internalized morality that imposes standards and guilt. The ego is the reality-oriented mediator that balances the id, the superego, and external reality. These are functional roles in a model of conflict, not locations in the brain, and treating them as literal parts is a common beginner error.
What do defense mechanisms do, and what do they cost?
Defense mechanisms protect the ego from anxiety by distorting or excluding threatening material from awareness. The relief is real, but it is paid for with accuracy, because a defense works by making something seem less true than it is. Repressing a painful memory is a standard example. This trade-off is why later ego theorists cared about how mature a person's defenses are.
How do psychodynamic psychologists study the unconscious?
Because hidden motives cannot be asked about directly, psychodynamic psychologists reach them indirectly through interpretation of dreams, slips of the tongue, symptoms, and recurring relationship patterns. Present difficulties are read partly as echoes of early relationships. The method produced real clinical insight, but each clue becomes evidence only after someone reads a meaning into it, and two skilled clinicians can interpret the same slip differently.

About the Psychology of Personality course

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Psychology of Personality (Psychology 300) carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.
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