Psychodynamic Theory of Personality - Research Paper Example

Psychodynamic Theory of Personality Table of Contents Contents Page No. Abstract 3 Introduction to psychodynamic approach 4 Assumptions of psychodynamic theory 5 The major principles of psychodynamic theory 5 Psychodynamic theory’s stance on differences in gender and culture 6 Study of personality development in psychodynamic theory 6 Changes in personality over the lifespan in view of the psychodynamic theory 8 My views about the psychodynamic theory 9 Validity of the psychodynamic approach today 10 References 11 Abstract The psychodynamic theory is one of the most prominent and widely employed theories of personality in the field of psychology. Psychodynamic theory connects one’s behavior in adulthood to infancy and early childhood experiences and considers unconscious and hidden motivations as the drivers of one’s behavior. Identifying those unconscious thoughts is fundamental to the successful resolution of psychological and behavioral problems of the patients which incorporates a lot of subjectivity in the theory as the treatment is affected by personal bias of the psychologists. Nevertheless, psychodynamic approach has led to successful treatments in the past and continues to be applied to date. Psychodynamic Theory of Personality Introduction to psychodynamic approach There is a variety of scientific personality theories that are used in the study of human psychology. Most of these theories reflect the childhood experiences, personal backgrounds, interpersonal relationships, and philosophy of life of their authors. Differences of personality among the theorists comprise basic disagreements between the theorists that support the quantitative side of psychology like the social learning theorists, the behaviorists, and the trait theorists; and the theorists that lean toward psychology’s qualitative or clinical side like existentialists, humanists, and psychoanalysts (Feist, 2006). Amongst the most prominent and widely employed approaches to the study of psychology is the psychodynamic approach. The work of Sigmund Freud has a huge influence on the psychodynamic theories of personality (Cherry, 2013). Psychodynamic theories place emphasis upon the impact of childhood experiences and unconscious mind upon the personality. Psychodynamic theories also emphasize upon unconscious motivations and desires and particularly the impact of past experiences of an individual upon health. One’s actions, in view of psychodynamic theory, are the outcome of the desires, motivations, and drives of the unconscious. Some of the main psychodynamic theories include Erik Erikson’s psychosocial developmental stages and the psychosexual stage theory proposed by Sigmund Freud. According to Sigmund Freud, personality has three essential components namely ego, id and superego. Ego tends to moderate between the requirements of ide, reality, and superego. Id takes care of all urges and needs of an individual whereas the superego deals with moral and ideals. Erik Erikson proposed the view that personality advances through numerous stages and each of these stages comprises certain conflicts. Successful psychosocial development of an individual fundamentally depends upon whether or not the individual has been able to overcome the conflicts arising in the different stages. Assumptions of psychodynamic theory The main assumption of the psychodynamic theorists is that there is a range of unconscious forces that depict human behavior. Each thought or behavior that an individual carries has an underlying latent intention or motive. The latent motives behind the human behavior are driven by the life experiences during the infancy and early childhood till the age of five as well as the instinctive biological drives. Most specifically, the way children are treated by the parents has a magnanimous impact on their behavior in adulthood. The major principles of psychodynamic theory One factor that basically differentiates between the psychodynamic theory and the rest of the theories of personality development is that in the former, the unconscious happens to be the core concept unlike the latter. There are just two drives in the psychodynamic theory proposed by Sigmund Freud, namely eros and sexual pleasure. Eros is the drive for love whereas sexual pleasure is the drive for life as well as death. The id and superego are the two extremes of personality with the former being an individual’s primitive motivation to gain immediate gratification whereas the latter represents an individual’s morals instilled in him/her by the care takers during the infancy and the childhood. Since the id and superego are opposite to each other and are in complete contrast with each other, ego plays the role of a mediator. The ego draws a compromise between the id and superego so that the desires of id can be fulfilled remaining within the limits and morals established by the society. The defense mechanisms of the ego handle the conflicts arising between id and superego. These conflicts include but are not limited to denial, reaction formation, repression, rationalization, regression, projection, sublimation, and displacement. Psychosexual stages constitute another component of the theory of Sigmund Freud. The order in which the psychosexual stages occur include “the oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latency and the genital stage” (neric.org, n.d.). Although he is considered as the psychodynamic theory’s father, Sigmund Freud is not the only theorist who proposed the psychodynamic theory. Many neo-Freudians like Electra complex and Oedipus have broken with Sigmund Freud in certain aspects, though they have maintained the psychodynamic aspects in their theories also. Carl Jung is one such neo-Freudian theorist who considered spirituality to be a comparable motive to the motive of sexuality. Psychodynamic theory’s stance on differences in gender and culture Since Freud’s sample mainly comprised wealthy women who were not only psychologically ill but were also raised in a society in which discussion of sex was thought of as uncivilized, his sample of unrepresentative (Westmont College, 2002). Freud particularly focused on the psychosexual development of the males. His ideas are distorted by his bias toward the male anatomy as envied by women. Similarities of culture in the therapeutic dyad facilitate the treatment by promoting the understanding about language and cultural traditions. Nevertheless, these similarities may also play the role of hindrances thus causing the attention to the process to remain paramount. “Simply assuming that cultural matching invariably enhances treatment may undermine the ability to recognize pitfalls related to cultural issues for the therapist. A balanced observation of transference and countertransference, bolstered by attentive supervision, can remediate such potential problems” (Rodriguez et al, 2008). Study of personality development in psychodynamic theory Psychodynamic psychologists study personality development by considering the unobvious and underlying meanings of the things that are said, done, or thought by the people. To achieve this, psychodynamic psychologists need to obtain a lot of qualitative information about the subjects that is achieved by using individuals as case-studies. The case study’s subject is often someone that has a psychological disorder and is treated with psychoanalysis. The analyst obtains information using the actions, behaviors, or conversation of the person in the therapy including even dream descriptions and free association. The material is examined to be able to identify recurring themes and ideas that might reflect the memories and motives that have remained unconscious. The researchers understand the material by finding out the way it symbolizes the issues in the unconscious of the subject. For instance, when a person has repeated dreams about police officers, this might mean that he/she has an unconscious concern with such authority figures as his/her parents. Despite the frequent use of patients in the analysis of psychodynamic research, almost anything that is produced or done by people can be analyzed symbolically. Therefore, certain researchers tend to analyze literary works, advertisements and paintings in terms of the symbolism of the unconscious meanings that they carry. A particular example of the psychodynamic research is the case study carried out by Sigmund Freud about Little Hans in the year 1909 (Richards, 2010, p. 86). Little Hans was a boy that feared horses. This phobia of horses was interpreted by Freud as a fear of the boy’s father and the fear that the boy had of being bitten by the horse was connected to the boy’s castration anxiety. Freud recognized numerous symbolic links unconsciously made by Hans between horses and his own father. Freud used this analysis as a proof to suggest that boys do have Oedipus complex in them. In light of these facts, it can be said that although the psychodynamic theory explains the way personality develops, yet the explanation it offers is not comprehensive because it is filled with subjectivity of thought patterns and the influence of the psychologist’s or the therapist’s own personality that have a role in the determination of the signs and links between the events in the patient’s life and his anxiety. Changes in personality over the lifespan in view of the psychodynamic theory The psychodynamic theory suggests that the inner forces from the childhood continue to influence the behavior throughout the life span. Certain unfavorable events during the early childhood may make an individual substantially different from what he/she would have been otherwise. A good part of the behavior daily executed by an individual can thus be attributed to the unconscious. In the psychodynamic approach, the behavior of an individual is determined by the unconscious motives that are designed by the individual’s previous experiences and biological drives. This essentially makes the psychodynamic approach a deterministic approach. The psychodynamic approach’s position with regard to the debate of nature vs nurture is interactionist in that it suggests that human nature is driven by biological and innate instincts and yet maintains the perspective that the expression of these instincts is regulated by nurture. The psychodynamic approach lies in between the ideographic and nomological approaches to psychology. “Whilst Freud argued that human behaviour is governed by universal processes that apply to everyone (the psyche, the psychosexual stages), reflecting a nomological understanding, psychodynamic psychologists agree that the exact ways in which these processes manifest themselves in the individual is unique in every case” (Sammons, n.d.). This reflects uniqueness as well as exemplifies a way of studying people that is ideographic in nature. Nevertheless, since it generally interprets complicated behaviors in terms of manifestations of the biological drives that are more primitive, the psychodynamic approach is generally considered as a reductionist rather than a holistic approach to psychology. My views about the psychodynamic theory The psychodynamic approach has a lot of criticisms centered on its methods. Psychologists that adopt the psychodynamic approach are frequently accused of researcher bias as they are in need of interpretation of the gathered material. This accusation is based on the fact that psychodynamic psychologists tend to support such interpretation of the information that approves of and reassures them of the beliefs that they already carry. The psychodynamic theory does not adequately explain the concepts of personality because there is lack of objectivity in the methods since two different researchers may interpret the situation in completely different ways from each other. Another point of criticism of the psychodynamic approach is that it heavily relies upon the theoretical constructs like the unconscious mind proving whose existence is not easy. The overdependence of the psychodynamic approach to the study of psychology on the unobservable constructs and its methods’ lack of objectivity makes the theory as hard as impossible to empirically test. This, in effect, gives the approach of Sigmund Freud more than a science, the status of religion. In addition to that, Freud’s belief that it is basically the unconscious and the instinct that drives human beings overlooks the evidence of existence of plentiful human behavior that includes conscious learning and decision-making and goes far beyond mere gratification. Supporters of the psychodynamic approach to the study of psychology highlight the fact that this approach provides a unique way to recognize the irrationality of human behavior as well as study of the complexity of the human motives. Supporters of the psychodynamic approach also draw attention toward the fact that the use of psychodynamic approach has led to various developments and advancements in the treatment of such psychological disorders as the talking cure as a result of which, many patients of psychology have been enabled to live fulfilling and productive lives that they never have been able to achieve without the use of psychodynamic approach to the study of their psychology. Besides, rejection of Freud’s theories makes the contribution he made to the subject of Psychology quite unarguable. Validity of the psychodynamic approach today Despite its flaws and shortcomings, the psychodynamic approach is valid today since it refutes the idea of people having their own free will without respecting the societal limits. Although many of the theoretical concepts proposed by Sigmund Freud have been rejected to date, yet there is a range of insights provided by him like the idea of human behavior being influenced by unconscious processes and the importance of parental treatment of children in depicting their adult behavior have continued to remain very influential to date. An in-depth analysis of Sigmund Freud’s psychodynamic theory of personality suggests that it is indeed, an influential personality theory amongst all that have been proposed to date (Westmont College, 2002). An example of the ways in which psychodynamic theory has been used to obtain favorable results is the treatment of mentally ill patients with the concept of psychotherapy that was developed using the ideas of Sigmund Freud. Another example is the obtainment of personality assessment from the same psychodynamic approach to the study of psychology. References: Cherry, K. (2013). Theories of Personality. Retrieved from http://psychology.about.com/od/psychologystudyguides/a/personalitysg_3.htm. Feist, G. J. (2006). The Psychology of Science and the Origins of the Scientific Mind. USA: Yale University Press. neric.org. (n.d.). The Psychodynamic Theory of Personality. Retrieved from http://ves.neric.org/cabouton/socialstudies/Waters/Psychodynamic/index.htm. Richards, A. D. (2010). The Jewish World of Sigmund Freud: Essays on Cultural Roots and the Problem OF Religious Identity. USA: McFarland. Rodriguez, C. I., CabanisS, D. L., Arbuckle, M. R., and Oquendo, M. A. (2008). The Role of Culture in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: Parallel Process Resulting From Cultural Similarities Between Patient and Therapist. The American Journal of Psychiatry. 165(11). Sammons, A. (n.d.). Psychodynamic approach: the basics. Retrieved from http://www.psychlotron.org.uk/newResources/approaches/AS_AQB_approaches_PsychodynamicBasics.pdf. Westmont College. (2002). Theories of Personality. Retrieved from http://www.westmont.edu/~bsmith/general/lectureoutlines/15personality/psychodynamic.html. Read More