THE PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSPECTIVE: UNDERSTANDING THE INNER PERSON

To many people who have never taken a psychology course, psychology begins and
ends with the psychodynamic perspective. Proponents of the psychodynamic perspective
argue that behavior is motivated by inner forces and conflicts about which
we have little awareness or control. They view dreams and slips of the tongue as
indications of what a person is truly feeling within a seething cauldron of unconscious
psychic activity.
The origins of the psychodynamic view are linked to one person: Sigmund
Freud. Freud was a Viennese physician in the early 1900s whose ideas about unconscious
determinants of behavior had a revolutionary effect on 20th-century thinking,
not just in psychology but in related fields as well. Although some original Freudian
principles have been roundly criticized, the contemporary psychodynamic
perspective provides a means not only to understand and treat some kinds of
psychological disorders but also to understand everyday phenomena such as
prejudice and aggression.