Psycho_Analytic_Approach

Psychoanalytic Approach Terry Richards PSY/250 21 February 2012 Dr. Sabrina Norman Introduction The psychoanalytic approach to personality and theories will be compared and contrasted in this report, letting the readers be aware how the approach and or theories is directing one’s behavior. These approaches and or theories will be from Freud, Jung, and Adler. There will be two characteristics of these theories that the author will agree with and two characteristics that the author will not agree with. Also the stages of Freud’s theory will be explained in detail by using the components of Freud’s theories. This paper will explore and describe at least three of the Freudian defense mechanisms with some real-life examples. What are the components of the psychoanalytic approach to personality through the eyes of Freud, Jung, and Adler' Psychoanalytic Approach The most well known psychologist Sigmund Freud is known to be one of the best or even the greatest psychiatrist of all times. Freud’s psychoanalytic theory was the earliest well defined theory of personality. The psychoanalytic approach or theories from Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Alfred Adler make it known that there is an inner force that directs one’s behavior. Freud, Jung, and Adler believed that parenting and childhood development played a large role in the shaping of a personality and all three believed that dreams and daydreams play an important role as well. Another similarity in each of their beliefs was the impact that the unconscious mind played in psychoanalytic analysis. Jung and Freud both depended on the ideas of unconscious determinants of behavior, but to Jung the unconscious was broader than Freud could see. Freud unconscious only discusses a personal unconscious, which many of these contents were unacceptable or unpleasant. Freud’s work is now the most recognized and most heavily cited in all of psychology and referenced in humanities as well. Freud put a lot of emphasis on sexuality and dreams. Jung and Adler did not believe sexuality had much to do with psychology. Jung developed the analytical psychology, which interprets feelings and behavior in terms of both an individual and racial unconscious. On the other hand, Adler developed individual psychology, which interprets behavior in terms of a desire to be a pouter in the social order. Dreams according to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory are said to have two levels of content, manifest content and latent content. The manifest content is what a person remembers and consciously considers. The latent content is the underlying hidden meaning. This is the trademark idealism of the psychoanalytic approach to personality, in other words what we see on the surface is only a part of what really lies underneath. (Friedman & Schustack 2009) There are many characteristics of the psychoanalytic theories from Freud, Jung, and Alder. The two characteristic mostly agreeable in Jung’s theory is that he classified psychological functions and developed archetypes. The character types consists of functions and attitudes used in everyday life and the archetypes shows how behavior is the dominance of relative functions. On the other hand, some characteristics are from the Freud theory are not agreeable. Freud’s believe was that the unconscious escapes into conscious through dreams and that people’s motivation comes from the psychosexual pleasure in one’s mind. Freud’s theory uses five stages of personality and development which are the Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, and Genital Stages (Friedman & Schustack 2009). Freud recognized strong sexual conflicts in newborns and young child, encounters that seemed to revolve around certain areas of the body. From observing the different conflicts, he developed the theory of the psychosexual stages of personality development; each stage is marked by an erogenous zone of the body. The first stage that will be talked about is the oral stage where infants’ pleasure is the mouth. The infant obtain pleasure from sucking, biting, and chewing. If a child is fixated at this stage later in life causes an adult to smoke cigarette or a teenager to suck his thumb. The child who surpassed the oral stage moves on to the anal stage which is the second stage. Moving on to the other end of the body, this stage includes toddlers. At about 18 months toilet training starts, Freud believe defecation produced some sort of erotic pleasure for the child. At this time in a child life, he could develop to be an adult who is hostile or sadistic behavior, depending on how aggressive the parents’ toilet trained the child. The third stage deals with a child around the age of five which is the phallic stage began whereas the anus was the focus of the last stage, in this stage he focused on the genitals. Children pleasure comes from masturbation and the child usually begin to identify with the parent of the opposite gender. In this stage, there is the Oedipus complex that differs for girls and boys. The conflicts of this stage determine the relationships and attitudes adults will have with the differing sex. After a child has gone through these different feeling or stages, the latency stage occurs. The major components of personality have been developed and are solid. During the latency stage, the sex drive is marked by dormancy. The child is usually so involved in activities at school and making new friends of the same sex, and the aggressive drives are temporarily limited. The final and last stage of development is the genital stage, which begins at puberty. During this stage, the body is maturing and the sexual drive can be satisfied by socially acceptance or later in life by a relationship with the opposite sex. The conflict in each stage must be resolved before the child can move to the next stage. When conflict is not resolved, the child becomes fixated at a stage of development, which causes a portion of libido to remain in that stage. When the libidinal and aggressive drives of the id come into conflict with the prohibitions of the superego – an intra-psychic conflict, defense mechanisms are activated by the ego in order to avoid anxiety (Priestley, 2001). Freudian defense mechanisms were one of his contributions to psychology. Some of the mechanisms include denial, repression, rationalization, and displacement (Friedman & Schustack 2009). Many of the defense or self-defense mechanisms have differences, and it is noted that using one mechanism is rarely used. Denial is associated with repression and includes denying the existences of traumatic events that has happened. For instance, when your child dies in a shooting accident in the home and the parents decide to keep the child’s room up with no changes to it or even blame each other for the accident. People usually defend themselves by using several mechanisms at a time. Perhaps, a person who is passed over for a promotion says he did not want it in the first place and then going home and taking it out on their spouse or even their children by yelling after not getting the promotion. That example used displacement and rationalization showing how one can use more than one mechanism to defend oneself from anxiety (Priestley, 2001). Conclusion Freud, Jung and Adler each had their own ideas when it came to psychoanalytic approach to personality, though they did not agree on all aspects of each other’s ideas, combined they were the founding fathers of the psychoanalytic approach to personality and are still highly regarded in the field of psychology today. Their theories combined opened doors into the vastness and complexity of the human mind and unconsciousness. It is believed that the field of psychology and the theories that the big three bring to the table are still being practiced today. There is a little Jung, Adler and Freud in each of us as the world still try’s to decipher the human mind and human behavior. These men change the world with their theories of the human mind. Reference Friedman, H. S. & Schustack, M. W. (2009). Personality: Classic theories and modem research (4th ed.). Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon. Priestley, B. (2001). Freudian Psychoanalysis: Psychosexual theory of personality development and defense mechanisms. Retrieved from: http://www.brentonpriestly.com/writing/freud