CYPW - Freud Theory help please

[Maxine73]

Can anyone help me, im researching the theories of development and how they influence current practice. I have read soooo much on Freud it all says much of the same, but dont understand how it would influence current practice (the psychoanalytic part.)
Thanks

[bunyip]

I'm too fixated to answer this.

....................................pretty sure that's my parents' fault. :rolleyes:

[Simona]

Can anyone help me, im researching the theories of development and how they influence current practice. I have read soooo much on Freud it all says much of the same, but dont understand how it would influence current practice (the psychoanalytic part.)
Thanks

I have googled to find out if there is anything that relates to current practice and that particular theory.....Freud is so complicated
Have you any examples of what you need to evidence?

Hope you find the answer ...sorry not much help

[mama2three]

Psychoanalytical learning theory
Freud’s Structure of Personality
Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939) is particularly well known for his psychosexual theory of development, which is mainly used to explain our unconscious thoughts and actions.
Freud suggested that our personalities are made up of three parts: the “id”, the “ego” and the “superego”, which are not all present at birth, but will develop as the child develops.
The id: - This is the instinctive part of our personality. It follows the drives and needs of our body, for example hunger of pleasure. The id is often thought of as the ‘selfish’ component of our personality, as it doesn’t consider how meeting our needs and desires will affect others. Freud suggested that babies have the id at birth as they will cry until they are fed, no matter how tired their primary carer may be or whether or not there are other babies around them who also need feeding. When this need is met it is known as ‘gratification’.
The ego: - The ego is the planning part of our personality. It is the part that works out how the id’s needs and desires can be met in the best way. Babies develop the ego from the id in their first few months of life, for example they might learn that if they smile in some situations, they are more likely to have their needs met, whereas others will cry to have their needs met.
In some situations, the ego might make the id wait for its needs to be met, for example if a child snatches a cake from a tray they might have it taken away from them, whereas if they wait for a cake, they might get offered one and eventually get one.
The ego is often referred to as the “common sense” part of our personality.
The Superego: - The superego usually develops later in childhood. It is known as the control part of our personality, as it tries to control the ego. It is made up of 2 different parts; the “conscience” and the “ego-ideal”. The conscience punishes the ego if it misbehaves, which is our source of guilt, whereas the ego-ideal will reward the ego when it behaves well, which is our source of confidence and pride.

Link to practice
Although Freud’s work has faced a lot of scrutiny and criticism, his observations about the link between our unconscious actions and our mind are still seen as useful. For example, his work is useful when looking at defence mechanisms in children, like when they cover their mouths when telling a lie, as if to stop the words from coming out.
Its valuable in promoting self esteem for example , and links to other theorists in that the primary 'needs' need meeting , gratifying , before moving on to other development.

Hope that helps x

[bunyip]

An excellent summary by mama2three. Wish I'd had you to help me keep my level 3 assignments to a manageable size: would've saved me a whole lot of time. :thumbsup:

It is possible to get into a deep methodological critique of Freud's so-called "research": i.e. his work is completely undermined by being based upon a self-selecting sample almost entirely comprising scr3w3d-up female members of the Viennese fin de siecle bourgoisie who were prepared to accept almost any fanciful twaddle by way of an explanation for their scr3w3d-up-ness, but by goD they needed some sort of answer in return for the fat wedges they were shelling out to meet Freud's large fees. But, in layperson's terms, it goes something like this..................

Sigmund Freud's work can be divided into 'The Useful Bits' and 'The Not Particularly Useful Bits'.

The Useful Bits pretty much amount to stating the bl33din' obvious. This is largely the stuff about gratification and meeting physical needs before being sufficiently secure to move onto 'higher' needs, though even this stuff wasn't that well explained or explored by Freud. Instead, as with most of his work, these are things he assumed/interpreted/decided for himself rather than using any sort of coherent scientific method, then imposed onto the thought processes of his infinitely impressionable subjects who thn fed it back to him as fact. (It creates the same sort of 'feedback response loop' used by toy manufacturers to market pink stuff to little girls and their sentimental credit-card-carrying parents.) This is pretty easy when your subjects are your patients who are not only highly needy and impressionable, but also paying you a big wodge of Austro-Hungarian Krone and therefore desperate to be told something that sounds good.

It took a more scientific chap called Maslow to investigate this in a sensible way (see: "Maslow's hierarchy of need.")

The Not Particularly Useful Bits are where Freud strayed from the safer ground of stating the bl33din' obvious off into his flights of frankly rather disturbing fantasy, masquerading as intelligent scientific process and thereby showing a marked tendency to disappear rather too far up his own academic backside.

The significance of Freud is not to be found within his work, but that he managed to get people to belief such cr4p for so long. This boils down to 2 things. First, you can make anyone believe anything, just so long as they want to believe it (refer to any party-political manifesto, major world religion or minor cult if you require proof.) Second: the cult of celebrity. As a vain self-publicist, Freud achieved much in getting his version of psychoanalysis (and therefore psychology in general) taken seriously as scientifically, academically and medically important. Not necessarily a bad thing, though the downside was that he was regarded as some sort of omniscient guru, and this made his own version of things dominant and virtually above criticism for more than half a century.

Only when other theorists finally got round to pointing out the flaws in Freud's work, could the whole field of psycho-thingy-ology begin to make any practical progress. Therefore, much of the value of Freud is that the complete b0ll0x he churned out at least gave later theorists some groundwork and the basis of something to criticise and start to get right. Face it: there ain't nuffin' like a good disagreement to get the academic world's juices flowing.

The most important thing to be learnt from Freud's work, therefore, is.................. that whatever the latest academic BS happens to be, even if it dominates theory and practice for a generation, you can bet your boots that some day soon it's gonna be trashed.

In summary: today's expert is tomorrow's idiot.

To summarise the summary: if you're a childminder, a mum, a grandad, or a babysitter, you already know far more about looking after a child than any educational expert is ever going to teach you. :thumbsup:

[Simona]

Hi Maxine...not sure how you are getting on with your research on Freud in relation to practice?
Mam2three has put it very well and simply ...so you could use the theory and relate it to the L&D areas of EYFS...if that is what you have been asked to evidence in your essay?

My thoughts is that your OP wanted a link of his theory to practice ...so I wonder if you have thought of PSED...PD and also linking his theory to the Characteristic of Effective Learning which go along with what his theories are?

Good luck and let us know how you get on :thumbsup:

[Maxine73]

Thanks guys, didnt realise I had any replies hadn't received any notifications. mama2three I have read that somewhere, but its not enough for me to understand and put in to my own words. I like to read lots of different write ups to help me get my head around it. Finding all this theory stuff abit mind boggling. I have messaged my tutor over a week ago for help, she still hasnt got back to me, so maybe its too hard for her as well. Lol

[mama2three]

Ok Maxine , think of any baby or toddler - babies are completely self centred , they want what they want and they want it NOW! This is necessary as they are unable to meet any of their own needs and so are , naturally , demanding. The toddler has learned that there are ways of getting what he wants , and he tests them out constantly - in positive ways ( cute smiles to grandma get me more sweets!!) and in negative ways ( tantrum and whinging might eventually wear mum down and Ill get what I want ) .
Freud put psychological terms of ego and id to these phases - its relevant to us as cms because these are the stages many of our children are at. Much later the superego is the childs 'self - conscience' - if I keep doing this then mummy will be sad , etc. We can help this step by helping the child see the consequence of their actions - what might happen if we keep running inside etc etc....

Does that help?

[Maxine73]

Thanks mama2three, Thats put in an easy to understand format. I am very grateful. I'll be glad when this section is complete.

[EMMA123W]

mama2three - how would this be applied in a nursery setting? I'm doing my level 3 diploma and I too am stuck on this section. I can break down the theories etc its just how to apply the theory to children's development :huh:

[mama2three]

Hi Emma , welcome to the forum , this thread takes me right back.... my rusty brain might need oiling a bit before answering!

The thoeries are just as applicable in a nursery setting. If you want some examples of how freuds theory is demonstrated in practice , maybe discuss self esteem and how it comes from the ego and superego? If your essay is about all the theorists then i would focus my examples on the work of maslow , his hierachy of needs is much easier to show in 'practice'!