The main aspect of the psychodynamic theory is that behavior is directed by forces within one’s personality, but is usually hidden in the subconscious. According to Sigmund Freud, behavior is caused by unconscious thoughts, impulses and desires. He also theorized that many of our unconscious thoughts are too hard for us to deal with and so are repressed. Many of Freud’s theories seem either extreme or brilliant, but I can’t make up my mind about this one. I don’t think that people walk around like zombies letting their subconscious decide how they should act out. I do believe that people repress memories or feelings about those memories which have some bearing on a person’s behavior, although it is not the main aspect of why a person acts or behaves the way they do.
I do consent to the idea of people’s inner feelings or conflicts that have been repressed, coming out in dreams, but Freud also believes that a “slip of the tongue” is not just an accident, but the true inner feelings coming out. There are a lot of times I’ll call someone the wrong name, just because I was hanging out with a different person earlier that day and simply got used to saying their name, not because I wished I was still with that person or something. This entire theory has left me riding the fence. I suppose it did the same for many others, which is why there are not a lot of true Freudians left, but instead Neo-Freudians who have revised a lot of the theory’s features.
