Describe and Evaluate the Psychodynamic Approach in Psychology

The psychodynamic approach believes that personality and behaviour is governed by the
tripartite personality, made up of the ID – which operates on the pleasure principle and is
the cause of irrational and unreasonable behaviour, the Superego, which is formed at about
age 5 and governs morality, and the ego which acts to balance the needs of both.
In addition the psychodynamic approach assumes that much of behaviour is decided in the
unconscious, without the conscious mind having access to or even being aware of any of it.
They view the mind as an iceberg, with the conscious being the tip floating visible above the
water and the rest of the unconscious mind submerged below. Freud also believed that
many problems that occur in adult life are the result of childhood issues, either because of
the employment of defence mechanisms such as repression or projecting, or because of an
unresolved conflict at one of the psychosexual stages
An issue with the psychodynamic approach is that suffers from psychic determinism, the
idea that childhood trauma or events determine behaviour in later life, this does not account
for the idea of free will that humans are perceived to have. The Humanistic approach, on the
other hand, does not suffer from this issue – it believes that Humans have total free will, and
our decisions are our own. Behaviour is decided by the human itself not by any prior actions
or external influences.
The humanistic approach has been assumed by many to be too idealistic, it states that
humans are innately good and strive to be the best they can be, even in the presence of
research such as Zimbardo’s prison study and Milgram’s shock test which point to the
contrary, on the other hand, the psychodynamic approach is much less idealistic – through the tripartite personality it provides a combined view of human nature, with the ego
balancing the selfish pleasure principle of the ID with the moral demands of the superego.