Students apply creativity to Psychology topic during lockdown

Lower Sixth Psychology students have been applying their creative skills to the topic of Approaches.

They learned about the Psychodynamic approach by creating inkblots, joining a scavenger hunt and carrying out dream analysis. As part of the Humanistic approach they were asked to construct a pyramid of human needs to see how close they could match Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Inkblot

Following Rorschach, students created an inkblot and carried out a projective test on themselves or others. The aim was to gain insights into the unconscious mind.

Scavenger hunt

During a live Teams lesson students were tasked with searching their house for objects they could connect to the Psychodynamic approach. This opened up interesting discussions and helped to clarify common misconceptions about the approach.

Dream analysis

Students were also asked to reflect on a commonly occurring dream either they or a family member had. Drawing on the ideas of Freud, they were then asked to describe the manifest (what we remember about our dreams) and latent content of the dream (what it actually means at an unconscious level). Perhaps the most interesting dream was of school friends and teachers going to a theme park. The student suggests this may highlight unconscious feelings of missing school during our current period of remote learning.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Students had to deduce Maslow’s hierarchy of needs with little background information. The pyramid of books demonstrates a successful completion of the task.

It’s great to see such creative thinking during these unusual times, well done to all students who took part.