Definitions

Psychodynamic theories of the person emphasize unconscious dynamics within the individual - such as inner forces, conflicts, or instinctual energy. They share an intra-psychic view of the individual, emphasizing the internal, hidden mechanisms of the "psyche" or mind. Dynamics is a term from physics that refers to the motion and balance of systems under the action of external forces. (For example, the science of thermodynamics studies the relationship between heat and mechanical energy.) Freud borrowed from nineteenth-century physics the idea of the conservation of energy: Within any system, he thought, energy can be shifted or transformed, but the total amount of energy remains the same. Psychological energy - the energy it takes to carry out mental and emotional processes, such as thinking, dreaming, and worrying - was, to Freud, a form of physical energy.

Freud argued that conscious awareness is merely the tip of a mental iceberg. Beneath the visible tip, he said, lies the unconscious part of the mind, containing unrevealed wishes, ambitions, passions, guilty secrets, unspeakable yearnings, and conflicts between desire and duty. These unseen forces, Freud believed, have far more power over behaviour than consciousness does, so that true study of psychology must probe beneath the surface. In effect, the psychoanalyst must be an archaeologist of the mind.

Psychology in Perspective. Carol Tavris, Carole Wade. (HarperCollins 1995). Page 25.