psychodynamic

American  

[sahy-koh-dahy-nam-ik] / ˌsaɪ koʊ daɪˈnæm ɪk /

adjective

1. Psychology. of or relating to any clinical approach to personality, as Freud’s, that sees personality and behavior as the result of the ongoing, shifting interplay of conscious and unconscious emotional and motivational forces.

   By identifying the unconscious drives and forgotten experiences that influence decisions, psychodynamic therapy can be helpful in choosing new positive behaviors and leaving self-destructive ones behind.

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Other Word Forms

• psychodynamically adverb

Etymology

Origin of psychodynamic

psycho- ( def. ) + dynamic ( def. )

Example Sentences

Even after encounter therapy involving a foam dummy and a baseball bat and five years of psychodynamic group sessions, that fear remained.

From New York Times • Mar. 14, 2023

The center embraces psychodynamic and systems theories and uses a strengths-based model.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 22, 2022

At the peak of its power, psychodynamic psychiatry, Scull writes, claimed “that psychological factors loomed large in the genesis of illnesses that had traditionally been seen as rooted in the body.”

From Washington Post • Jun. 3, 2022

Diane Roberts of the Florida Phoenix summarizes this unhealthy psychodynamic:

From Salon • Apr. 13, 2022

This identity disturbance, which is at the psychodynamic root of both pathological narcissism and rapacious psychopathy, is all-pervasive.

From Moral Deliberations in Modern Cinema by Vaknin, Samuel