Both Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler grew up in Vienna in the late 1800’s. Both were physicians and both contributed greatly to the world of Counseling and Psychotherapy. Whilst Adler studied under Freud for many years, they parted company on the basis that Adler believed Freud’s basic theories were excessively narrow. Their individual childhood experiences, personal struggles and the people they worked with were defining factors in the developing of their particular views of human nature. (Schulz & Schulz 2009).
Psychoanalytic Therapy, developed by Sigmund Freud, is a model of personality development and an approach to psychotherapy bringing attention to psychodynamic factors that determine behavior, focusing on the role of the unconscious and developing procedures to modify the structure of basic character. The key philosophical ideas were deterministic, unconscious motivation, psychodynamic, developmental, intrapsychic conflict, id-ego-superego.
Freud’s view of human nature was deterministic and influenced by irrational forces, unconscious motivation and biological/instinctual drives as these develop during key psychosexual stages in the early stages of life.
Freud emphasized the importance of early development and identified three stages: the oral stage dealing with the inability to trust oneself and others affecting close relationship and self esteem; the anal stage, being the inability to recognize and express anger leading to the denial of one’s own power as a person and the phallic stage, the inability to accept one’s sexuality and sexual feelings and the acceptance of ones gender, which are established in the first six years of life. This period is the foundation on which latter personality development is built. At any point in a person’s life, if these developmental stages are not adequately met, they may become fixated at that stage and behave in immature ways later in life.
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Bibliography: Corey, Gerald. 9th Edition (2013). Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy. Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning Orgler, Hertha (1963). Alfred Adler: The Man and His Work. Capricorn Books Edition Freud, Sigmund (1901). The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. Ernest Benn Limited Prochaska, J.O.& Norcross, J.C. 6th Edition (1969) Systems of Psychotherapy. Thomson/Brooks/Cole