Compare And Contrast Carl Rogers And Psychodynamic Approaches

Q: Compare and contrast the approaches of Carl Rogers and Sigmund Freud to understanding people and to helping them. Which approach do you think is more useful in a social care setting?

This essay will compare and contrast the differences between the works of Sigmund Freud and Carl Rogers and their approaches to understand people and to help them. It will look at the factors of Client centred therapy. It will also argue that Rogers’ humanistic approach is more useful in a social care setting rather than the psychodynamic approach of Freud.
There are many differences between that of Carl Roger’s approach which is the humanistic approach and that of Sigmund Freud’s psychodynamic approaches to psychology. The main difference between these
two approaches is that psychodynamic psychology only looks at the brain whereas humanistic psychology looks at the person as a whole. Freud looks at how psychosexual development affects the person. According to Glassman and Hadad, psychosexual development is the stages that ‘reflect differences in the expression of (sexual) drive energy, associated with the changes in the functioning of the mind.’ In contrast, Rogers does not bring up the area of sexuality unless the person brings it up himself or herself. Rogers does not look at the unconscious as he just looks at the ‘here and now’ aspect of the mind. Freud also brings up the unconscious when looking at a persons’ mind. In Freud’s psychodynamic approach, he breaks down the mind into three areas: id, ego and superego to get a better understanding of the client’s brain activity. However, Rogers just looks at the mind as a whole and does not break it down into complex areas. Another difference between the works of Freud and Rogers is that in the psychodynamic approach believes that behaviour is set from early childhood. Rogers believes that a person can choose his or own behaviour. Humanism believes that the person is his or her own expert on their own behaviour. In comparison to this, psychodynamics advise it should be put in place by an analyst. In conclusion, it is clear that there are not just similarities in the approaches between Rogers and Freud but there are also differences that are clearly stated above.
However there also similarities between these two approaches to psychology.
One similarity is that both Rogers and Freud use Client Centred Therapy. Client centred therapy is ’a form of therapy developed by Carl Rogers which emphasizes the responsibility of the individual. ’ Client centred therapy should involve the therapist having empathy towards the client as well as being non-judgemental. This type of therapy should be non-directive and that the client is the professional on his or her own feelings, not the therapist. It is very helpful to those who had a childhood trauma and is also used in family therapy. Although both approaches use this, the humanistic approach is where the client tells the psychologist what he or she can do for himself or herself. On the other hand, the psychodynamic approach is where the psychologist tells the client what steps to follow. Another similarity in approaches to psychology is that both Rogers and Freud had to study defence mechanisms in order to help clients. According to Freud, defence mechanisms are ‘techniques used by the ego to protect itself from anxiety and the treats which give rise to it.’ In psychodynamic and humanistic psychology, there are seven known types of defence mechanisms. These are: repression, denial, displacement, rationalisation, projection, regression and
humour.
To conclude, it is clear from above that the humanistic approach is more useful in a social care setting. It is more useful because it looks at the person as a whole. A social worker is not a psychologist so he or she cannot psychoanalyse a client but can only assess them as a human being. Although both approaches use client centred therapy, humanistic psychologists let the client decide how he or she wants to be treated. The humanistic approach in psychology best suits the social care practitioner as his or her job is to help the client form ideas for himself or herself.

Reference List:

Approaches to Psychology (Glassman, W; Hadad, M, 2013)

Psychology (Martin Neil, G; Carlson R, N and Buskist, W, 2007)

http://www.simplypsychology.org/psychodynamic.html

http://www.simplypsychology.org/humanistic.html

http://maria-calo.com/compare-and-contrast-the-psychodynamic-and-person-centred-models-of-counselling

http://moodle.lit.ie/pluginfile.php/4369/mod_resource/content/1/defence_mechanisms_in_action.pdf

http://moodle.lit.ie/pluginfile.php/4370/mod_resource/content/1/psychodynamic_effectiveness.pdf
Bibliography:

Glassman, W., & Hadad, M. (2013). Approaches to Psychology. Berkshire: McGraw Hill.