• Question: Do you think that psychodynamic psychology has any basis in the teaching of psychology in the modern world?

    Asked by anon-203821 to Vassilis, Tirso, Matthew, Jane, Dawn, Alexandra on 12 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Dawn Rose

      Dawn Rose answered on 12 Mar 2019:

      Personally I am not a fan because it takes a lot of time and freedom (i.e. being quite well off normally) to commit to the process. But it can still be helpful to people so I wouldn’t say it is irrelevant nowadays. I mean, our childhoods do impact our lives a lot…

      In terms o teaching psychology, it is important to understand how it developed so why not include it in the syllabus. If I met a psychologist who didn’t know anything about Freud I would be a little worried I guess!

    • Photo: Alexandra Quigley

      Alexandra Quigley answered on 13 Mar 2019:

      I have been taught psychodynamic psychology at A-level, Bachelors and Doctoral level. It’s interesting, but has little evidence to support it. It’s taught more for historic interest, except when you do further training in psychodynamic therapy. This is generally not offered by the NHS, due to the limited evidence base. I don’t practice it; there are far more effective therapies.

    • Photo: Vassilis Sideropoulos

      Vassilis Sideropoulos answered on 14 Mar 2019:

      While I am not a fan either of the Psychodynamic Psychology, I believe it’s important to get taught the concepts of it. I did it as part of my Psychology module in High School and during Bachelors and I believe that Freud, Jung, Jones and the rest had very interesting ideas about studying how our psychological forces that underlie human behaviour, feelings, and emotions and how they might relate to early experience. I think when I am seeing the words Psychodynamic Psychology I instantly think about their theories from a philosophical perspective, and this is important because it contributes to the bigger picture in Psychology. For example, without Psychodynamic Psychology John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth perhaps wouldn’t have come up with the theories on attachment – they used the psychodynamic psychology basis broke away from Freud’s key ideas and revolutionised the field. So I think it’s important to still teach it, but more as a philosophical aspect as to how some of its concepts can contribute in Psychology.

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