The advantages and disadvantages of using psychodynamic concepts of repression and resistance

The term psychodynamic suggests any score that emphasises the process of change or transformation and development, i. e. , the dynamics (changeability) of behaviour or the forces that drive an psyche to turn out the carriage he or she does. Dynamics are the things that drive us or a mold to behave in particular slipway. (Eyesenck & Flanagan, 2000. p 172)i. Sigmund Freuds psychoanalytical theory is probably the best-known example of the psychodynamic sit down.His turn over was that mental dis reads did not have a physical origin plainly instead arose out of unresolved, unconscious mind(p) fights, which formed fundament bothy in early childhood. All psychodynamic concepts arose from Freuds theory of soulfulnessality development in which he essentially argued that the mind is divided into three parts. First, in that location is the id, which consists of mainly unconscious sexual and aggressive, essentially selfish, instincts. The actuate force is the innate sexual drive found in every human i. e. the libido.Second, there is the ego, which is the keen-witted and conscious part of the mind. Third, there is the superego or the conscience. These three parts of the mind are frequently at conflict with one an different. Conflicts occur most often between the id and the superego, because the id fatalitys instant gratification, where as the superego takes account of object lesson standards and decorum. Since, conflicts cause apprehension, the ego defends itself against anxiety by using several defence mechanisms to prevent traumatic thoughts and feelings arrival consciousness.One of the major defence mechanisms is repression, which forces memories of conflicts and traumas out of consciousness and into the unconscious mind. Other defence mechanisms may admit resistance, dis key outment and projection. Resistance is also anformer(a) term to represent the process whereby thoughts and memories that are in the unconscious mind are prevented from reachin g the conscious mind. Also within psychoanalysis, the term is apply to refer to the way in which the psyche be analysed, offers resistance to the interpretations offered by the analyst (Cardwell,1996,2000)ii.Displacement occurs when aggressive or other intense impulses are transferred away from a threatening person to soulfulness or something non-threatening. Projection occurs when someone who possesses an undesirable characteristic or attitude, attributes it to other people. For example, someone who is very hostile may claim that other people are hostile to him or her (Eyesenck & Flanagan, 2000. p 173)iii. According to Freud, psychological disorders can arise when an individual has unresolved conflicts and traumas from childhood.Defence mechanisms, such as the before mentioned, may be used to reduce anxiety caused by such unresolved conflicts, however, all they do is hide the conflict rather than resolve it. This psychodynamic model proposed by Sigmund Freud was the first syst ematic model of mental illness/disorders that focused specifically on psychological factors as the cause of a mental disorder and on a psychological form of treatment. originally Freud, all explanations of mental illness were in terms of either biological (physical) causes or fantastic ideas such as possession by evil spirits.For his time, Freuds ideas must have been revolutionary but in this twenty-four hours and age, it is impossible to accept his concepts and theories without due criticism. Considering the concept of repression, one may find it hard to test the theory, and indeed hard to prove the validity of the concept of crush memories. However there have been attempts to conduct experiments to plant the phenomenon of repression. These typically involve creating anxiety to produce forgetting or repression.After that, the anxiety is removed to show that pent-up information is still in long-term memory (referred to as return of the repressed). To their disadvantage, such ex periments are ethically questionable-is it right to expose anyone to anxiety provoking situations or information in order to theme the concept of repression? (Eyesenck & Flanagan, 2000. p 174)iv One of the main methods used by Freud earlier during treatment in order to gain deeper insight into the affected roles subconscious was hypnosis. The very first disadvantage of this method is its unreliability.Not everyone can be hypnotised, and there is no way of determining who can or cant be. In addition, when downstairs hypnosis, a person is extremely vulnerable and susceptible to influence. Memories can thus be unintentionally implanted or suggested by the therapist by use of descriptive details or leading questions. There are essentially three times when memory can be affected when it is stored, while it is being stored and when it is retrieved, which basically covers all the time. Therefore, at any of these times something could be misunderstood, associated or implanted in our memo ries.Psychologists are not the moreover influences our memories may be affected by. Everyday memories like recollections of horror movies, comic books, nightmares, anything on TV and so forth are very capable of becoming embedded in our memory and then muddled up with other memories. Memories of these things can come out in the hypnosis therapy and if they are in line with the therapists own interpretations, he or she will think it to be true and valid information. Remembering detailed accounts of events that never took place is known as the False Memory Syndrome (FMS).Thus, not only is it up to the reliability of the technique being used to resurrect a repressed memory but it is also depends on the mind of the patient to distinguish these other influences and recall only the true event. One would think why people would want to dredge up memories if they are not real. The reasons can be plentiful, it can simply be fraud, or as the FMS suggests, since the persons mind has been all j umbled up with the therapists suggestions and other influences, he or she himself/herself believes the memory to be true.Ultimately, there is no easy answer or explanation to the theory of repression and retrieval yet. The implications for treatment under such a psychodynamic approach are that the primary goal of therapy is to enable patients to gain access to their repressed memories and conflicts, and to encourage them to face up to whatever emerges from their unconscious mind. Freud used the term insight to refer to the processes involved. He assumed that insight would permit the repressed memories to be integrated into the ego or conscious self, later which the patient would be better able to cope with life.Since, even though memories of the anxiety provoking conflict or trauma were repressed, they tended to surface in different forms of neurosis or psychological disorders. In the beginning, Freud used hypnosis as a means of accessing repressed memories (the famous case study o f Anna O) but later matte up that this was an unreliable method. The other two methods were dreams, as the royal road to the unconscious, and free association, a technique where the lymph node is encouraged to cite the first thing that comes to is or her mind. Eyesenck & Flanagan, 2000. p 174)v One of the first disadvantages of such a mode of treatment is that psychoanalysis depends heavily on the therapists interpretation of what the patient says.How, for example, does the therapist know that a boy who has a fear of clams is actually afraid of his father and not simply scared that the horse might hurt him in some way? At his defence, Freud argued that the acid test, which was the patients reaction to the therapists proposed interpretation could be used here.If the client accepts the accuracy of the interpretation, then it is probably correct. On the other hand, if the patient rejects the therapists interpretation of say a dream, that may simply be resistance by the patients con scious mind to an unacceptable but entirely accurate interpretation made by the therapist. The problem with this is that therapist seems to win both ways because he or she either uses the patients acceptance or denial of the reasonableness of an interpretation as corroborating show up that the interpretation is accurate. Freud argued that we can regard psychoanalysis as similar to solving a jigsaw puzzle. It may be hard to decide whether a given interpretation is correct, or to decide where to place a particular piece of the puzzle. However, the interpretations of dozens of a patients free associations and dreams should form a coherent picture, just as the pieces of jigsaw puzzle can only be arranged in one way. (Eyesenck & Flanagan, 2000. p 174) other disadvantage of treatment based on the psychodynamic approach, is that it is very time consuming, due to the concepts of resistance, i. e. , the patients reluctance to face his or her past. As Freud said (1917,p. 289)vii The patient attempts to escape by every possible means. First he says zip comes into his head, then that so much comes into his head that he cant grasp any of it At last he admits that he really cannot say anything, he is ashamed to So goes on, with untold variations. In all fairness, there is quite a bit of evidence to support the concepts of repression and resistance. But one seems to wonder if a person cannot recall a certain memory, was it ever really a memory? Did it ever really move on? Due to the breadth of recorded cases of repression, no one can deny its existence, all we can desist is that until psychologists can drag our unconsciousness completely into the light, the reliability of retrieval of repressed memories will be go forth in the dark.