Psychoanalytic Personality Assessment

Psychoanalytic Personality Assessment
PSY/250

Psychoanalytic Personality Assessment

The psychoanalytic theory states that there are inner forces other than your awareness that affect your behavior. Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler and Carl Jung influenced psychology with their theories making a very large impact on psychology. As the writer I will compare and contrast the theories of these three gentlemen and decide which of these theories in which I agree and which of these theories I do not agree with.
Freud’s work is now the most recognized and most heavily cited in all of psychology and referenced in humanities as well. Freud emphasized on dreams and sexuality. 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)
In his theory “libido” was the sexual energy that was responsible for psychological tension. Freud believed that the principal driving force behind men and women’s activities was either repressed or expressed sexuality. Unfulfilled sexuality led to pathological conditions. In other words that the unconscious was the storage facility for repressed sexual desires. (Friedman, Schustack, 2009)
Freud also felt that religion was just an escape and a misleading notion which was an idea that should not be spread to people, that religion was a drug of the masses. His faith was fully in the minds ability to access its unconscious thoughts, thus avoiding any psychiatric disorder. Freud viewed the unconscious as a collection of images, thoughts and experiences that an individual refused to process, which led to psychiatric problems. (Wikipedia, 2010)
On the other hand Jung disagreed on what constituted the unconscious. Jung added to Freud’s definition by stating that each individual also possessed a collective unconscious, a group of shared images and archetypes common to all humans. Jung was fascinated with symbols. He argued that there are “archetypes” among these symbols which relate common human heritage, not just individual experiences. (Wikipedia, 2010) Thus each of us has a set of common symbols within us.
Jung’s neo-analytic theory also differed suggesting that “libido” was a general psychic energy that was not sexual in nature. Jung believed that sex amounted to only one of the many things that drive humans. More importantly, humans are driven by their need to achieve individuation, wholeness or full knowledge of the self. Jung quite different in his beliefs, suggests that religion was an important place of safety for the individual as he or she began the process of individuation, exploring and excepting all parts of the self, that religion was a means of communication between all types of people, because although religions differed, the archetypes and symbols remained the same. In my opinion Jung was more mythical.
Adler as opposed to Freud and Jung was in a class of his own. He believed that people were social creatures, forming goals and striving to meet them. Adler saw mental health in terms of having healthy values, which affect what goals we try to achieve. He believed that inferiority complexes affected self esteem and caused a negative effect on human health. Adler argued for holism, masculinity and femininity were crucial to understanding human psychology (Friedman, Schustack, 2009). The desire of the self was offset by social and ethical demands. Adler suggested that social realm was important to psychology as was the internal realm. That the dynamics of power and compensation extend beyond sexuality, and that gender and politics were important considerations that go beyond libido. As you can see Adler was quite the socialist and realist and emphasized the role of empathy.
One of the characteristics that I agree with is the theory that dreams play a part in psychoanalytic personality. I say this because of my own personal relationship with dreams. I believe that dreams are a part of our unconscious mind, either from repressed traumatic experiences, which can contribute to nightmares, night sweats, waking up at all hours of the night, which in turn can cause emotional instability and psychiatric disorders. In the same token, I also believe that daydreaming and pleasant dreams can be healthy to ones overall mental health.
Another characteristic that I agree with is the theory that parenting and childhood development plays an even greater role in personality. I believe that from the moment you are born how you are nurtured, loved, and cared for, shapes who you will become as an adult. Childhood is the most critical time in the development stages of the one’s personality.
On the other hand, one of the theories that I disagree with is Freud’s libido theory. I think that he had a dark deep obsession with sex and over emphasized it, in including it in his theory. I felt he had no basis, no proof, and no real meaning in his conclusion. The only connection to personality that I believe sex would have, is if one has been through a traumatic experience such as rape, suffer from sexual identity, a sexual addiction or other sexual crisis, otherwise I feel it has no place in personality. Freud just put way too much emphasis on sex in his theory.
Another Freudian theory I disagree with is that religion is just an escape and a misleading notion. I have a strong disenchantment with this, being I am a very religious person. For the most part all nations, all creeds, all walks of life on this earth, have some sort of religious views. Religion is taught to us as children and plays a very important role in how we place our values, our morals, our principals, so to exclude religion from psychoanalytic personality is preposterous. Our religion, along with our childhood development determines who we are and who we will become. Religion is the most destructive of all weapons of mass destruction, and yet Freud looks at it so nonchalantly. More people have died in the name of religion that any other causes. I know that my religion weighs heavily on my personality.
The five stages of Freud’s theory are that from age 0-2 (Oral) which is the first stage, the characteristic is the mouth: sucking, biting and swallowing, the conflict is the weaning away from the mother’s breast. This stage suggests that the willing personality is preoccupied with oral activities such as eating, smoking, biting nails or drinking. The oral aggressive personality is hostile and verbally abusive using mouth based aggression. The second stage from age 2-4 (Anal) is the defecating or retaining of feces. The conflict is toilet training. The anal personality is stingy, and has a compulsive desire for order and tidiness. This person is generally stubborn and a perfectionist. The anal expulsive personality has a lack of self control, being generally messy and careless. The third stage from ages 4-5 (Phallic) is genitals. A boy being Oedipus and a girl Electra, which is a process through which they learn to identify with the same gender parent by acting as much like that parent as possible. Boys suffer castration anxiety by believing that the father knows that they desire their mothers, and thinking that the father will castrate him. Girls suffer from penis envy, where she is attached to her mother but then shifts her attachment once she realizes her mother lacks a penis, she then desires her father but later represses her desire for her father and incorporates the value of her mother and accepts her inferiority. The fourth stage, age’s 6-puberty (Latency) is unacceptable sexual desires that may flow into sports and hobbies, having the same sex friends help avoid sexual feelings. This personality is relatively calm. Sexual and aggressive behavior is less active. The fifth and last stage is the Genital stage and this personality represents maturity, intellectual and artistic creativity. This personality is well adjusted and balanced. Now after all of this, are you convinced as well as I am that Freud was way off the charts? Again I say that he put much too much emphasis on sex.
Freud believed and developed a series of defense mechanisms and all of his defense mechanisms shared two common properties. One in which they often appeared unconsciously and two they tended to distort, transform, or otherwise falsify reality. One of his defense mechanisms “Intellectualization” is taking on an objective viewpoint. Suppose a husband learns that his wife has an incurable disease. He tries to learn everything he can about the disease and treatment options and by doing so represses feelings of anxiety, feelings of not being able to do anything to help his wife and any feelings of anger he may be feeling. Focusing on the facts rather than the emotional content of the situation.
Freud, Jung and Adler each had their own ideas when it came to psychoanalytic personality, though they did not agree on all aspects of each other’s ideas, combined they were the founding fathers of psychoanalytic 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. I believe in the field of psychology a little of each of their theories are being practiced today. There is a little Jung, Adler and Freud in each of us as we try and decipher the human mind and human behavior.

References Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2001). Sigmund Freud. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu
Friedman, H. S., & Schuustack, M. W. (2009). Personality: Classic Theories and Modern Research (4th ed.). : Pearson Education, Inc..
Boeree, G. C. (1997,2006). Alfred Adler. Retrieved from http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/adler/html

References: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2001). Sigmund Freud. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu Friedman, H. S., & Schuustack, M. W. (2009). Personality: Classic Theories and Modern Research (4th ed.). : Pearson Education, Inc.. Boeree, G. C. (1997,2006). Alfred Adler. Retrieved from http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/adler/html