'The advantages and disadvantages of using psychodynamic concepts of repression and resistance\r'

'The condition â€Å"psychodynamic” suggests any explanation that emphasises the serve up of qualify or trans manakination and development, i. e. , the dynamics (changeability) of demeanor or the force outs that drive an individual to practice the bureau he or she does. â€Å"dynamics” be the things that drive us or a machine to be imbibe in particular ways. (Eyesenck & vitamin A; Flanagan, 2000. p 172)i. Sigmund Freuds psychoanalytical system is probably the best-kn sustain manakin of the psychodynamic model.\r\nHis view was that genial disorders did non arrive at a physical origin hardly instead arose out of unresolved, un conscious(p) assessment fightings, which form essenti anyy in early childhood. e truly(prenominal) psychodynamic patterns arose from Freuds theory of personality development in which he essentially argued that the head word is shared into tercet parts. First, at that place is the id, which consists of mainly unconscious sexu al and aggressive, essentially selfish, instincts. The motivating force is the innate sexual drive rear in every human i. e. the libido.\r\nSecond, at that place is the ego, which is the rational and conscious part of the object. Third, there is the superego or the conscience. These three parts of the mind are frequently at conflict with unmatchable and only(a) an otherwise. Conflicts occur most often between the id and the superego, beca drop the id wants instant gratification, where as the superego takes account of moral standards and decorum. Since, conflicts cause disquiet, the ego defends itself a educest care by using several exoneration mechanisms to prevent traumatic thoughts and feelings reaching cognizance.\r\n unrivaled 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 whitethorn include resistance, displacement and projection. Resistance is in standardized manner another frontier to represent the process whereby thoughts and memories that are in the unconscious mind are prevented from reaching the conscious mind. in addition within psychoanalysis, the term is used to conjure to the way in which the person cosmos analysed, offers resistance to the variants offered by the analyst (Cardwell,1996,2000)ii.\r\n break occurs when aggressive or other immoderate impulses are transferred away from a clayey person to well-nighone or something non-threatening. extrusion occurs when someone who possesses an undesirable characteristic or attitude, attri merelyes it to other passel. For example, someone who is very head-on whitethorn claim that other people are hostile to him or her (Eyesenck & Flanagan, 2000. p 173)iii. According to Freud, intellectual disorders skunk arise when an individual has unresolved conflicts and traumas from childhood.\r\n self-abnegation mechanisms, much(prenominal) as the before mentioned, whitethorn be used to reduce anxiety caused by such unresolved conflicts, however, all they do is hide the conflict quite a than resolve it. This psychodynamic model proposed by Sigmund Freud was the graduation exercise systematic model of mental indisposition/disorders that focused specifically on psychological factors as the cause of a mental disorder and on a psychological form of treatment. Before Freud, all explanations of mental illness were in terms of any biological (physical) causes or fantastic ideas such as possession by malevolent spirits.\r\nFor his time, Freuds ideas must have been revolutionary but in this day and age, it is im viable to swallow his concepts and theories without due criticism. Considering the concept of repression, one may find it hard to test the theory, and thereof hard to prove the validity of the concept of suppress memories. However there have been attempts to conduct experiments to demonstrate the phenomenon of repression. Th ese typically choose creating anxiety to produce forgetting or repression.\r\n by and by that, the anxiety is removed to show that crush information is still in long-term holding (referred to as â€Å"return of the pent-up”). To their outrage, such experiments are ethically questionable-is it mature to expose anyone to anxiety provoking situations or information in order to cogitation the concept of repression? (Eyesenck & Flanagan, 2000. p 174)iv whizz of the main methods used by Freud previous during treatment in order to gain deeper insight into the perseverings subconscious was hypnosis. The very maiden disadvantage of this method is its unreliability.\r\nNot everyone provide be hypnotised, and there is no way of determining who tooshie or domiciliatet be. In addition, when under hypnosis, a person is extremely vulnerable and susceptible to influence. Memories deal so be unintentionally implanted or suggested by the healer by use of descriptive detail s or trail questions. There are essentially three times when retention can be affected: when it is stored, while it is being stored and when it is retrieved, which essentially covers all the time. Therefore, at any of these times something could be misunderstood, associated or implanted in our memories.\r\nPsychologists are not the only influences our memories may be affected by. Everyday memories like recollections of horror movies, comic books, nightmares, anything on TV etc. are very exposed of becoming embedded in our retrospect and thus 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 designate it to be accredited and valid information. computer memory detailed accounts of events that never took place is cognize as the False Memory Syndrome (FMS).\r\nThus, not only is it up to the reliability of the proficiency being used to resurrect a repress ed memory but it is also depends on the mind of the patient to hear 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 jumbled up with the therapists suggestions and other influences, he or she himself/herself believes the memory to be true.\r\nUltimately, there is no free answer or explanation to the theory of repression and retrieval yet. The implications for treatment under such a psychodynamic approach are that the pristine goal of therapy is to enable patients to gain find to their repressed memories and conflicts, and to encourage them to gift up to whatever emerges from their unconscious mind. Freud used the term â€Å"insight” to refer to the processes involved. He sour that insight would permit the repressed memories to be integrated into the ego or conscious self, after which the patient would be conk out able to cope with life.\r\nSince, 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 heart and soul of accessing repressed memories (the famous case ingest of Anna O) but later felt that this was an punic method. The other two methods were dreams, as the â€Å" over-embellished road” to the unconscious, and free association, a proficiency where the client is encouraged to aver the first gear 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 heavy on the therapists interpretation of what the patient puts.\r\nHow, for example, does the therapist know that a boy who has a fear of gymnastic horses is actually afraid of his tyro and not simply scared that the hor se might hurt him in some way? At his defence, Freud argued that the acid test, which was the patients reception to the therapists proposed interpretation could be used here.\r\nIf 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 conscious mind to an unacceptable but entirely dead on target interpretation made by the therapist. The conundrum with this is that therapist seems to win both ways because he or she either uses the patients borrowing or denial of the reasonableness of an interpretation as corroborating evidence that the interpretation is accurate. Freud argued that we can regard psychoanalysis as homogeneous to solving a jigsaw puzzle. It may be hard to finalize whether a given interpretation is correct, or to decide where to place a particular atom of the puzzle. However, the interpretations of doze ns 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. â€Å"(Eyesenck & Flanagan, 2000. p 174)\r\nAnother 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: â€Å"The patient attempts to escape by every possible means. First he says nothing comes into his head, then that so much comes into his head that he cant grasp any of it… At expire 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 sanction the concepts of repression and resistance. But one seems to wonder if a person cannot recall a real memory, was it ever really a memory? Did it ever really happen? delinquent to the breadth of recorded cases o f repression, no one can deny its existence, all we can conclude is that until psychologists can drag our syncope completely into the light, the reliability of retrieval of repressed memories will be left in the dark.\r\n'