The unbearable dynamicity of psychological processes
highlights of the psychodynamic theories
pp. 1-30
in: Jaan Valsiner, Peter Molenaar, Maria Lyra, Nandita Chaudhary (eds), Dynamic process methodology in the social and developmental sciences, Berlin, Springer, 2009Abstract
The term dynamic generally refers to the psychology grounded on and informed by psychoanalysis—even if dynamic perspectives do not necessarily coincide with it. It is well known that in Freudian theory, the dynamic level of analysis is that focused on conflicts and their role in shaping psychological facts. Yet contemporary psychoanalytically oriented psychology gives a broader meaning to the label, and consequently dynamic psychology is the psychology concerning the affective source (motivation, instinct, intra-psychic, and/or interpersonal conflicts) shaping (inter)subjectivity. Thus, in contemporary psychology the term psychodynamic can be seen as a synecdoche where the whole—the psychoanalytically oriented psychology—is referred to by means of the part—the dynamic level of analysis as conceptualized by Freud. Here we assume this broad definition. Therefore, henceforth the term psychodynamic will be used as being synonymous with psychoanalytically oriented psychological theory.
