The ego (the rational and conscious part of the mind)

The Super ego (the conscience)

He argued that these 3 parts of the mind are in conflict with each other and conflicts arise most between the id and the super ego (the id wants immediate gratification whereas the superego takes into account moral standards).

Psychosexual development:

The infant goes through a series of stages (oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital – see attachments), if the enfant is over indulged/under deprived during one of these stages it can result in fixation and this can result in having an effect on behaviour and personality in later life. For example Freud argued that those ‘’fixated’’ in the oral stage are more likely to smoke or develop eating disorders where as those who are fixated in the anal stage are more likely to develop OCD.

Implications of the psychodynamic model for treatment:

The prime goal here is to enable patients to gain access to their repressed ideas and conflicts, and to encourage them to face up to whatever emerges from their unconscious. Freud used the term ‘insight’ to refer to the process involved. In the beginning, Freud used hypnosis, but he later rejected this method. The other 2 methods used are dream analysis and free association (where the patients is asked to say the 1st thing that comes to their mind). Psychoanalysis relies heavily on the therapists interpretation of what the client reports. Before Freud all explanations of mental illness heavily relied on physical causes such as possession by evil spirits. There are ethical concerns around the subject of false memory Syndrome. Also the focus here is around the patients past rather than the circumstances they may currently be suffering, which may be linked to a mental disorder.