Some practitioners felt psychodynamic theory focused too much on psychotherapy treatment rather than addressing broader social concerns. This is a particular concern for social workers who identify social justice as a core value of their profession. Modern social workers and practitioners consider the broader social structures that affect the client.
You also can learn more from:. Social work students benefit from learning about different theories and practice models, including psychodynamic theories and treatments. Delving into the history of psychodynamic theory gives students a deeper appreciation for the benefits and possibilities of talk theory.
It also provides them with a wealth of strategies to work with clients based on their unique needs and goals. The flexibility within psychodynamic therapy gives social workers many ways to help clients address their circumstances and drive change. Introduction to Psychodynamic Theory in Social Work Social workers balance many clients suffering from a wide range of problems, including trauma, medical conditions, mental health issues, unemployment, lack of education, discrimination, criminal records and more.
What is Psychodynamic Theory? How psychodynamic theory differs from other types of therapy Many modern types of therapy emphasize mitigating or getting rid of the symptoms of a problem. A Brief History of Psychodynamic Theory Many professionals have contributed to psychodynamic theory and its relationship to social work over the years.
The evolution of psychodynamic theory can be understood through four schools of thought: 1. Object relations theory Psychodynamic theory originally saw behavior as a function of drives. Assumptions of Psychodynamic Theory There are several key assumptions in psychodynamic theory: All behavior has an underlying cause. Both innate, internal processes and the external environment contribute to adult personality.
Goals of psychodynamic theory Psychodynamic therapy pushes for clients to: Acknowledge their emotions. Over time, clients can start to recognize patterns in their emotions and address them, which can lead to making better choices.
Identify patterns. Clients can begin to see patterns in more than just their emotions, but also their behaviors and relationships. Or, if clients are aware of negative patterns in their life, therapy can help them understand why they make certain choices and give them the power to change. Improve interpersonal relationships.
Modern psychodynamic theory helps clients understand their relationships, as well as patterns they exhibit with relationships. Recognize and address avoidance. Everyone has automatic ways of avoiding bad thoughts and feelings. Strengths and weaknesses of psychodynamic theory There are several strengths to psychodynamic theory. Types of psychodynamic treatments There are many different treatments social workers can use as part of a psychodynamic approach to modern types of therapy.
Criticism of Psychodynamic Theory Psychodynamic theory has been criticized as being too deterministic or victim-blaming to be used in modern psychology and social work.
You also can learn more from: Mitchell, S. Moore, B. Gabbard, G. In projection , a person refuses to acknowledge her own unconscious feelings and instead sees those feelings in someone else. Other defense mechanisms include rationalization , displacement , and sublimation. Freud believed that personality develops during early childhood: Childhood experiences shape our personalities as well as our behavior as adults.
He asserted that we develop via a series of stages during childhood. Each of us must pass through these childhood stages, and if we do not have the proper nurturing and parenting during a stage, we will be stuck, or fixated, in that stage, even as adults. The stages are oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital [link]. Given that sex was a taboo topic, Freud assumed that negative emotional states neuroses stemmed from suppression of unconscious sexual and aggressive urges.
In the oral stage birth to 1 year , pleasure is focused on the mouth. At around 1 year of age, babies are weaned from the bottle or breast, and this process can create conflict if not handled properly by caregivers.
According to Freud, an adult who smokes, drinks, overeats, or bites her nails is fixated in the oral stage of her psychosexual development; she may have been weaned too early or too late, resulting in these fixation tendencies, all of which seek to ease anxiety.
After passing through the oral stage, children enter what Freud termed the anal stage 1—3 years. In this stage, children experience pleasure in their bowel and bladder movements, so it makes sense that the conflict in this stage is over toilet training. Freud suggested that success at the anal stage depended on how parents handled toilet training.
Parents who offer praise and rewards encourage positive results and can help children feel competent. Parents who are harsh in toilet training can cause a child to become fixated at the anal stage, leading to the development of an anal-retentive personality. The anal-retentive personality is stingy and stubborn, has a compulsive need for order and neatness, and might be considered a perfectionist.
If parents are too lenient in toilet training, the child might also become fixated and display an anal-expulsive personality. The anal-expulsive personality is messy, careless, disorganized, and prone to emotional outbursts. The erogenous zone in this stage is the genitals.
Conflict arises when the child feels a desire for the opposite-sex parent, and jealousy and hatred toward the same-sex parent. At the same time, the boy is afraid his father will punish him for his feelings, so he experiences castration anxiety. The Oedipus complex is successfully resolved when the boy begins to identify with his father as an indirect way to have the mother.
Failure to resolve the Oedipus complex may result in fixation and development of a personality that might be described as vain and overly ambitious. Girls experience a comparable conflict in the phallic stage—the Electra complex. Jung also said that girls are angry with the mother for not providing them with a penis—hence the term penis envy.
Following the phallic stage of psychosexual development is a period known as the latency period 6 years to puberty. This period is not considered a stage, because sexual feelings are dormant as children focus on other pursuits, such as school, friendships, hobbies, and sports. Three key mechanisms Freud proposed are:. Techniques to do this include:. Current psychologists using the psychodynamic approach still utilize case study evidence e. Philosopher of science Karl Popper famously argued that a theory is not scientific if it is not falsifiable.
Company Reg no: VAT reg no Main menu. Subjects Shop Courses Live Jobs board. View shopping cart. View mytutor2u. Whether they are good or bad, people develop a comfort level with the dynamics of their earliest relationships and are often drawn to relationships that can in some way recreate them. In addition, no matter what a new relationship is like, an individual will look at a new relationship through the lens of their old relationships. This is called "transference" and offers a mental shortcut to people attempting to understand a new relationship dynamic.
As a result, people make inferences that may or may not be accurate about a new relationship based on their past experiences. Psychodynamic theory has several strengths that account for its continued relevance in modern psychological thinking.
First, it accounts for the impact of childhood on adult personality and mental health. Second, it explores the innate drives that motivate our behavior. On the one hand, it points to the way the unconscious mental processes people are born with influence their thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
On the other, it emphasizes the influence of childhood relationships and experiences on later development. Despite its strengths, psychodynamic theory has a number of weaknesses , too.
First, critics often accuse it of being too deterministic, and therefore, denying that people can exercise conscious free will. In other words, by emphasizing the unconscious and the roots of personality in childhood experience, psychodynamic theory suggests that behavior is pre-determined and ignores the possibility that people have personal agency.
Psychodynamic theory is also criticized for being unscientific and unfalsifiable—it is impossible to prove the theory to be false.
Yet, there are some psychodynamic theories that can be studied, which has led to scientific evidence for some of its tenets. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data.
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