3021 Week 2 notes

Psychodynamic Theory

• Emphasizes unconscious processes and unresolved past conflicts influencing behavior.
• Sigmund Freud is the founder.
• Other significant contributors are Carl Jung, Melanie Klein, Alfred Adler, Anna Freud, and Erik Erikson.
• Uses methodologies like case studies, dream analysis, free association, projective tests, clinical interviews, and hypnosis.
• Strengths include being the first "talking cure" and highlighting the importance of childhood and personality development.
• Weaknesses include being unfalsifiable, subjective interpretations, lacking empirical evidence, and being deterministic.

Logical Constructivism

• Learners actively construct knowledge.
• Incorporates biological, psychological, and social factors.
• No specific founder, but it's a philosophical approach.
• Employs contingency-based learning.
• Acceptance criteria vary over time.
• Strengths include providing a holistic understanding and emphasizing interaction.
• Weaknesses include rejecting superhuman necessity and varying standards for acceptance.

Social Constructivism

• Knowledge is socially constructed through interaction.
• Includes biological, psychological, and social factors.
• Developed by Lev Vygotsky.
• Emphasizes interaction over observation and a sociocultural perspective.
• Strengths include acknowledging the interplay of factors and emphasizing culture.
• Weaknesses include rejecting objectivity and variability based on context.

Ecological Theory

• Considers interconnected environmental systems.
• Levels include microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem.
• Urie Bronfenbrenner is the founder.
• Uses case formulation, considering predisposing, precipitating, perpetuating, and protective factors.
• Strengths include a holistic view of development and highlighting interactions.
• Weaknesses include overlaps with other theories and complexity.

Biopsychosocial Model

• Considers biology, psychology, and social environment.
• Recognizes patient self-awareness and life context.
• Founded by Dr. George Engel and Dr. John Romano.
• Uses biological, psychological, and social factors as a methodology.
• Strengths include a holistic approach and effectiveness in treatment.
• Weaknesses include overlapping systems and being patient-centered.

Function of Developmental Theories

• Provide frameworks for interpreting children's behaviors and environments.
• Explain typical and atypical development.
• Must be testable and account for existing research findings.
• Can be falsified by evidence contrary to predictions.
• Guide scientific inquiry by providing explanatory frameworks for research results.
• Theories that withstand empirical tests and generate falsifiable hypotheses endure, even if aspects are revised based on new evidence.

Psychodynamic Psychology

• Proposed by Sigmund Freud, it suggests that conscious and unconscious aspects of the mind influence behavior and development.
• Three components interact to produce behavior:
  • Id: represents inherited traits.
  • Ego: develops through interactions and needs satisfaction.
  • Super-ego: internalizes moral values and dictates what is right and wrong.
• Psychosexual stages:
  • Oral Stage (0-1 years): Focus on sucking and swallowing.
  • Anal Stage (1-3 years): Toilet training.
  • Phallic Stage (3-6 years): Masturbation and superego development.
  • Latency Stage (6-Puberty): Reduced sexual motivation, platonic friendships.
  • Genital Stage (Puberty Onwards): Sexual urges directed toward opposite-sex peers.
• Moving successfully through each stage leads to a healthy personality.
• Fixation at any stage results in a problematic personality.
• Maladaptive tendencies can indicate the stage of fixation.
• Unsuccessful resolution of early stages may lead to neurosis.

Genital Stage

• The final stage of psychosexual development.
• Focuses on sexual interest and activity directed towards sexual partners.
• Genitals are the primary source of pleasure.
• Successful completion of prior stages leads to well-adjusted and secure individuals.
• Fixation can occur at any stage, limiting progression to further stages.
• Individuals channel sexual energy through psychological processes like displacement, sublimation, and reaction formation.

Development of Personality Traits

• Oral Stage:
  • Displacements: Pleasure from acquiring knowledge or possessions.
  • Biting or oral aggression: Sarcasm and argumentativeness.
  • Feelings of dependency:
    • Mother fulfilling needs: Trusting and warm relationships later in life.
    • Mother rejecting needs: Pessimism and mistrust in later life.
• Anal Stage:
  • Ego development is complete.
  • Pleasure-seeking is altered by maternal care and toilet training.
  • Regression to this stage can lead to compulsive neatness.
  • Strict parenting can lead to retentive character traits (obstinate, stingy).
  • Excessively expelling feces leads to traits like cruelty, destructiveness, temper tantrums, and disorderliness.
  • Normal continuation involves interest in bowel habits.
  • Failure to resolve anal conflicts results in an "anal character."
  • Excessive devotion to detail and unevenness of character lead to easy anger outbursts.
• Phallic Stage:
  • Oedipus Complex: Repression leads to superego development.
  • Differences in Oedipus and Electra complexes influence male and female personalities.
  • Transition to adult sexuality is crucial.
  • Failure to resolve the Oedipus complex leads to adult neurosis.
• Latency Stage:
  • Child gains competency and industry through non-sexual activity (recreational, academic, and social).
• Genital Stage:
  • Group activities, vocational planning, and preparations for family life become central.
  • Transformation from a narcissistic infant to a socialized adult.

Psychodynamic Diagnostic Evaluation

• Aims to determine why a child's psychosocial development is inconsistent with their age, environment, genes, and culture.
• Evaluates temperament, attachment style, and ego functions according to developmental stage.
• Identifies ego defense mechanisms used.
• Common ego functions include moderating drives, reality testing, impulse control, affect regulation, defense mechanisms, object relations, and self-reflective functioning.
• Develops a hypothesis about the origin of the child's conflict.

Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM)

• Mental Functioning for Children and Adolescents Axis (MCA)
• Psychodynamic Functioning Scales (PFS) focus on adolescent affect management and problem-solving.
• Uses tools like thematic apperception tests, Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale, and Shedler-Westen Assessment Profile for Adolescents (SWAP) to assess personality.

Psychodynamic Therapy

• Aims to increase self-awareness of conscious and unconscious aspects of oneself.
• Emotional distress is seen as a signal of internal conflict.
• Symptoms are coping strategies for distress.
• Therapist helps the child express emotions verbally for emotional freedom.
• Studies indicate that psychodynamic interventions may improve symptoms of various clinical diagnoses.
• Internet-based psychodynamic therapy is now available for adolescents.

Criticisms and Revisions of Freud's Theory

• Criticisms:
  • Psychosexual stages are culture-bound.
  • Primarily based on male subjects.
  • Many claims lack substantiation.
• Revisions:
  • Erik Erikson proposed psychosocial stages of development.

Erikson's Theory

• Psychosocial Stages of Development:
  • Trust vs Mistrust (0 - 1 year): Developing trust through caregiving.
  • Autonomy vs Shame and Doubt (1 - 3 years): Developing independence and self-control.
  • Initiative vs Guilt (3 - 5 years): Exploring and asserting oneself.
  • Industry vs Inferiority (6 - Puberty): Developing competence and skills.
  • Identity vs Identity Confusion (10 - 20 years): Establishing a sense of self and belonging.
  • Intimacy vs Isolation (20 - 30 years): Forming intimate relationships.
  • Generativity vs Stagnation (40 - 50 years): Contributing to society and making a difference.
  • Integrity vs Despair (60 years onwards): Reflecting on life with a sense of satisfaction.

Identity vs Identity Confusion

• Establishing a clear sense of self and belonging.
• Exploring possible life options.
• Psychosocial moratorium: A period of exploration and experimentation.
• Considering traits, abilities, and interests.

Developing a Sense of Identity

• Personality experimentation to find a place in the world.
• Identity comprises:
  • Vocational/career identity.
  • Spiritual identity.
  • Achievement and intellectual identity.
  • Cultural/Ethnic identity.
  • Interests.

Logical Constructivism

• Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development:
  • Sensorimotor Stage (0 - 18 to 24 months): Object permanence development.
  • Preoperational Stage (2 - 7 years): Symbolic thinking emerges.
  • Concrete Operational Stage (7 - 11 years): Logical thinking with concrete objects.
  • Formal Operational Stage (Adolescence to Adulthood): Abstract and hypothetical thinking.

Characteristics of the Formal Operational Stage

• Logic: Ability to use knowledge and skills to determine outcomes.
• Abstract Thought: Ability to think abstractly and consider consequences.
• Problem Solving: Logical and methodical problem-solving skills.

Adolescent Egocentrism

• Resurgence of egocentrism that differs from childhood egocentrism.
• Imaginary Audience: Feeling like everyone is watching and judging.
• Personal Fable: Believing that one's experiences and feelings are unique and special.

Assessment of Formal Operational Stage

• Third Eye Problem: Imagining a third eye and its location.
• Pendulum Test: Identifying factors that influence the swing of a pendulum.
• Logical Inference Tasks: Understanding logical relationships between concepts.

Treatment Approaches for Formal Operational Stage Deficits

• Domain-specific approaches are necessary in subjects like:
  • Math.
  • English.
  • History and Social Studies.
  • Science.
  • Social interactions with peers.

Social Constructivism (Lev Vygotsky)

• Sociocultural Theory of Cognitive Development: Cognitive development is socially mediated through interactions with more competent members of society.
• Zone of Proximal Development: The distance between independent problem-solving and problem-solving with guidance or peer collaboration.
• Cultural Tools: Oral and written language, numbers, symbols, and maps are developed through cooperation.
• Influences of Cultural Context: Cultural context induces the creation of meaning in biological organisms.

Zone of Proximal Development - 4 Stages

• "I can do this by myself": Tasks that can be completed independently.
• "I can do these with some help": Tasks that require assistance.
• "I can do these even with help": Tasks that require significant support.

Assessment

• Aims: To identify maturing psychological functions and determine factors influencing mental development.
• Collaboration Procedure: Identifying individuals with larger or smaller zones of proximal development through instructional experiments.
• IQ Tests: Used to assess the size of the zone.

Treatment Approaches - Social Constructivism

• Scaffolding: Guiding and supporting learners towards independent task completion.
• Affective Intervention: Addressing boredom, confusion, and frustration.
• Cognitive Intervention: Providing appropriate learning materials.
• Effective Zone of Proximal Development: Determining the difficulty of tasks possible with available help.

Mastery Criterion

• Determines when an adolescent can move on to the next content unit
• Can be influenced by the number of times an individual needs to be given a problem exercise on a particular topic
• Related to but not the same as the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) Criterion
• Assumed to be present by the ZPD Criterion

Applying the ZPD Criterion

• Involves understanding the individual's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
• Measurement of the ZPD indicates if adolescent learning was efficient for the previous (or current) problem set
• The goal is to challenge the adolescent at an appropriate level
• Challenge level can be inferred from the number of failed attempts or hints needed to solve a problem

Ecological Systems Theory (Bronfenbrenner)

• Focuses on the interaction between the active child and their environment
• Identifies four levels of influence:
  • Process: refers to interactions that take place with objects or people
  • Person: refers to characteristics such as personality, physical characteristics and IQ
  • Context: refers to environmental settings such as home, school, work, peer group, or community
  • Time: refers to the length of time or process of cultural historical changes
• Proximal processes, "the interactions between the individual and the environment", are key in development

The Microsystem

• Refers to the individual's immediate surroundings.
• Influences include:
  • immediate family
  • neighborhood
  • school
  • peers
• The microsystem is thought of as the core system.

The Mesosystem

• Involves connections between different parts of the microsystem.
• Examples of connections include:
  • Relationships between family, neighborhood, and school.
• The mesosystem is considered a broader system compared to the microsystem

The Exosystem

• Encompasses situations a child does not directly participate in, but still affect their development.
• Examples of influences:
  • Parents' employment status
  • Social support
  • Social networks
• The exosystem can have an indirect impact on the microsystem and mesosystem.

The Macrosystem

• Includes larger societal influences such as:
  • Cultural values
  • Laws
  • Economic conditions
• The macrosystem influences all other systems, including the individual's development.

Time in Ecological Systems Theory

• Macrotime: Encompasses long-term changes, such as historical events or shifts in cultural expectations.
• Mesotime: Covers shorter-term changes, such as changes in classroom structure or the introduction of a new technology
• Microtime: Refers to the specific interactions or events that occur within the proximal process, such as a particular conversation or activity.

Assessment in Ecological Systems Theory

• Should consider the adolescent's wider environment and potential influences, as well as their individual characteristics and experiences.
• Focus on the interplay of individual characteristics and their contexts.
• Examples of influences to consider:
  • interactions with family, teachers, and peers
  • environmental influences such as community, socioeconomic status, and culture

Treatment in Ecological Systems Theory

• A multi-faceted approach is typically used.
• The specific level(s) that require intervention are targeted.
• May involve:
  • providing advocacy and/or contact with social welfare organizations
  • including family, teachers, and/or community in the intervention
  • removing environmental stressors from the adolescent's life
  • providing strategies for coping with stressors.
  • social skills training
  • training to improve communication

Biopsychosocial Model

• An interdisciplinary model that examines the connection between biological, psychological, and social processes.
• Emphasizes the interaction between these three levels to understand human functioning.
• Recognizes that all three components are interconnected and influence each other.

Components of the Biopsychosocial Model

• Biological: Focuses on physical health, genetics, neurology, and physiological processes.
• Psychological: Focuses on cognition, emotions, personality, and behavior
• Social: Focuses on social relationships, culture, socioeconomic status, and environmental factors.

Assessment Methods with Adolescents

• Importance of Building Rapport:
  • Establishes trust and increases the likelihood of accurate information.
• Consider the Developmental Stage:
  • Ensure assessment tools are age-appropriate.
  • Avoid overburdening adolescents with extensive questions.
• Explain the Purpose
  • Transparency and clear communication enhance adolescents' understanding and cooperation.
• Use Multiple Methods
  • Observation: Provides valuable information about behavior, social interactions and communication patterns.
  • Self-report: Allows adolescents to share their opinions and experiences, although caution is needed regarding reliability and potential bias (social desirability).
• Consider the "Big Picture"
  • Integrate individual characteristics, environmental influences, and contextual factors for a comprehensive understanding.

HEADSS Assessment Example:

• A health screen for adolescents assessing various aspects of their lives:
  • Home and environment
  • Education and/or employment
  • Activities, affect, hobbies, peers/friends
  • Drugs, alcohol, caffeine, cigarette, health (sleep, diet)
  • Sexuality - gender orientation, sexual practices, and safe sex
  • Suicide Risk, depression, anxiety
  • Spirituality

Study Tips for Exam Preparation:

• Understanding key theoretical perspectives helps to interpret adolescent development and apply knowledge to practical situations.
• Theories guide interventions and assessment tools used with adolescents.
• Different research methods are used to understand adolescents' behaviors, thoughts, and social experiences.

Key Theoretical Perspectives

• Biological Theories:
  • Focus on puberty, brain development, and hormonal changes.
  • Applications involve considering physical and neurological development, promoting health education.
• Cognitive Development Theories (e.g., Piaget):
  • Focus on the development of advanced reasoning, abstract thinking, and problem-solving skills.
  • Applications include providing challenges that foster critical thinking.
• Psychosocial Theories (e.g., Erikson's Stages of Development):
  • Emphasize identity formation and exploration of roles during adolescence.
  • Applications include encouraging autonomy, self-expression, and opportunities for exploration.
• Socio-cultural Theories (e.g., Vygotsky's Theory):
  • Stress the influence of social interactions and cultural contexts.
  • Applications include promoting collaborative learning and integrating cultural relevance.

Suitable Research Methods for Studying Adolescence

• Longitudinal studies: Tracking changes over time to understand the dynamic nature of adolescence.
• Interviews and surveys: Gathering insights into adolescents' subjective experiences, social relationships, and identity development.
• Observational techniques: Assessing behaviors in educational or social settings without interfering.
• Self-report measures: Allowing adolescents to share their viewpoints and feelings while considering potential limitations.
• Cultural Considerations: Tailoring research methods to ensure they are culturally sensitive and age-appropriate.