Psychoanalytic and Humanistic With Regard to Human Motivation - Essay Example

Critical Comparison of Psychoanalytic and Humanistic With Regard to Human Motivation al Affiliations Critical Comparison of Psychoanalytic and Humanistic With Regard to Human Motivation Introduction The study of human psychology centers on various theories of psychology, some of which explain the basis of human motivation towards various achievements (Melé, 2013). Some of these theories with some aspects of human motivation include the traits theory, the theory of social learning, bio-psychological theory, the psychoanalytic theory, behavioral and humanistic theory among several other theories of psychology (Zhao, Wayne, Glibkowski, and Bravo, 2007). This paper however systematically and critically draws a comparison between the humanistic and psychoanalytic theoretical positions in terms of how they influence human motivation. The Psychoanalytic Position In this particular theory of psychology on human personality, human behavior said to be a product of a combining several aspects of human personality. The founder of this theory was Sigmund Freud in which he explained human nature to be perfectly dependent on psychological energy, otherwise referred to as psychic energy (Shultz, 2014). Psychic energy, in this case, refers to the motivation that stimulates a person to undertake a certain activity or not to undertake it. According to the Freud, there exist certain forces, either internal or external, which accords the humans energy to perform particular activities and he called such forces instincts (Sternberg, 2008). Under the same theoretical position, Freud went ahead to combine what he called self-preservation and sexual instincts together to come up with another term that he called libido implying that these were life instincts. Freud later went ahead to describe Thanatos as instincts of death for purposes f explain human motivation under different conditions (Guga, 2012). Freud further continues to argue that the human mind is made up of three essential psychological components, one of which is the conscious mind. This portion of the mind contains various aspects motivation such as the present feeling, thoughts, and perceptions while the preconscious portion of the mind (the second component) keeps a record of previous memories that may not be present, but can be retrieved with ease to induce consciousness. The final component of the mind is the unconscious mind that makes the biggest portion of the mind and stores all the unacceptable thoughts and pieces of information of that kind. It has been outlined that things do not just happen, rather, all things that happen dont just do so but occur as a making of the mind. For this reason, therefore, all human perceptions, behaviors and feelings are pre-synthesized and stored in the mind such that such human aspects occur as an expression of what the mind contains (Melé, 2013). Humanistic Theoretical Position This theoretical position arose in an attempt to criticize the principle of the psychoanalytic theory suggested by Sigmund Freud. The subscribers of this theoretical approach emphasize the fact that there exists a conscious awareness of needs that human beings have, their individual choice and their personal responsibilities (Udechukwu, 2009). In fact, the entire meaning of life as per his position is the ability of the individual to make their informed choices in life and be ready to take responsibilities accompanying the choices made. This position also emphasizes on the value of the individual in terms of their worth, the idea of human values being central to all forms of human motivation in addition to the activeness and creativity of individuals as part of their nature. This theoretical position was a creation of both Carl Rodgers and Abraham Maslow, who came up with the idea that all humans are initially born for a good purpose with positive and benevolent human nature (Guga, 2012). They also attributed human nature to both a self-concept and yet another concept of self-actualization in which the aspect of self-concept emphasized on a self-perception of who an individual is. How an individual view themselves is the most important in life and actually what matters in the attempt to create a self-drive and self-motivation to perform an activity (Dubas, Dubas & Mehta, 2014). Differences between Psychoanalytic and Humanistic Positions There are various concepts in both of these theories that clearly show aspects of difference, keeping in mind that these are two of the most contradictory theoretical positions in psychology. One of the differences between them which are clearly seen is in their approach towards the nature of humans with respect to its impact on the society. According to the subscribers of the psychoanalytic theory, humans are naturally bad, born with evil ideas of self-centeredness simply referred to as the id (Moorer, 2014). This natural aspect of life is driven by selfish desires to achieve maximum personal pleasures without caring much about the moral soundness of their behaviors. Nevertheless, such individuals care less about how other people feel about their selfish actions, despite the fact that most of these actions may be harmful to others. The motivation that drives such individuals is to avoid pain on their part without being considerate of the impacts of their actions on the well-being of others (Demetriou & Christodoulides, 2011). The id perception of thinking and way of doing things is quite far away from an act of reality with the implication that its methods of achieving personal cravings are basic unrealistic. The psychoanalysts only express a desire for the most unpleasant pleasures from deep within their unconscious minds, despite being fully aware of the erotic consequences of their destruction intentions (Shultz, 2014). Surprisingly, these individuals look at the society as the source of ego and superego for men as the only moral values that guide their decisions and subsequent actions. A good example is the birth of a male child who is brought up to acquire attitudes of ego and super ego aimed at making the child flourish and competitively succeed in life (Guga, 2012). On the other hand, however, the subscribers of the humanistic theory look at human nature as originally good with a positive point of view towards men, hence contradicting the psychoanalytic theory of personality. Humanistic theorists believe humans are born with upright and morally acceptable behaviors as opposed to the view of psychoanalysts who believe that individuals are born wicked (London, Downey & Mace, 2007). They are full convicted that human beings possess the ability to grow and become the best people they ever wished to be in the course of life. Moreover, it is the decision of an individual to choose the life that they would want to live. It is the society; however, that is responsible for impacting bad morals to the initially good human beings. Apparently according to the humanistic theorists, it is the society that negatively influences the ability of an individual to grow into a mature and virtuous human being as was originally born to be (Cao et al., 2013). The two theories also differ in terms of in terms of how the theorists perceive the idea of personality development. As a matter of fact, the psychoanalysts attribute the development of personality to the various stages through which an individual goes in order to develop fully into maturity. All stages that the individual crosses from infancy to adulthood according to this theory take a chief role in shaping the individuals personality (Thielke et al., 2012). It is this series of changes throughout life that the psychoanalysts refer to as psychosexual development. Through solving the various conflicts that a human being faces as they go through the stages of psychosexual development, the individual gets new experiences that shape how their personality develops. Since individual face different challenges of different magnitudes, they acquire different personalities that act on the basis of their differences (Mitchell, 2006). The basis of the various developmental stages according to psychoanalysts is a shift of the ids sexual energy from one body part to another. For instance, psychoanalysts focus on five developmental stages with the first one being the oral stage in which the child derives pleasure from the mouth. The second stage is the anal stage during which the child develops the ability to do toileting on an individual basis. Thirdly, the sexual energy shifts to the genitals during which the individual learns to differentiate between male and female individuals that are part of their normal development (Melé, 2013). A latent stage follows during which the child directs its focus on schoolwork and most of the play that the child engages in is centered n same-sex friends who mold the childs personality and motivation. During the last stage of psychosexual development, the individuals learn to develop new sexually active relationships with the opposite sex in pursuance of the reproductive role. Children are expected to successfully manage conflicts occurring during these stages; otherwise, the children may develop what is called a fixation. Such fixations at different stages of psychosexual development determine the future personality of the individual, and since the challenges are different for different individuals, then personality is different in different people (Lemma, 2013). Humanist theorists, on the other hand, believe that understanding and fully developing the human potential may take up to a lifetime period. This approach is well exemplified in Maslows hierarchy of needs whereby the bottom represents prime needs of physiological importance for the survival of humans (Sternberg, 2008). These are followed closely by the need for shelter in order to protect the human from any imminent danger after which comes the need to belong to a particular group. At the fourth level upwards is located the need for self-esteem while on the top there exists the need for self-actualization, acquired when all other needs have been taken into consideration. It is only after an individual has attained self-actualization that the individual can be considered to have fully utilized their personality potential. The systematic arrangement of these needs implies that the highest ranked nee cannot be fully achieved if the lower ranked ones are not adequately achieved (Barabasz, 2014). Additionally, the two theories differ in the way the theorists give their views on the origin of motivation among individuals. The origin of motivation according to the psychoanalytic theory is based on selfish motives. Human motivation therefore as per this theory is determined greatly by selfishness in that an individual will strive to attain whatever they want irrespective of the consequences such a move may have on others. Achieving personal desires and interests seems to be the key motivating factor towards achieving personal goals according to the psychoanalysts (Pera, 2014). They also believe that another key human motivational factor is the sex drive, and this is why a movie, a song or a TV program may not sell in the modern world without certain elements of sex in it. This belief is, however, contrary to the belief of the humanistic theorists who according to Maslow are motivated by fulfilling the human needs in order of their importance (Shultz, 2014). The desire for certain chemicals in the body, for instance, motivates someone towards looking for food after which other aspects of lesser importance can be pursued. These theorists do not attribute sex drive to the acquisition of personality traits as it is with the psychoanalysts (Udechukwu, 2009). Similarities Despite their many differences, these theories also have similarities like for instance in terms of their similar individualistic themes in which the human being is placed at the central point of the entire discussion on personality. Both of these theories look at the human being as the most important aspect while studying personality development with psychoanalysts looking at the humans as born with evil desires while humanists are looking at the same humans as born with good intentions (Zhao et al., 2007). Moreover, both of these theories have received criticisms with the psychoanalysts being criticized for presenting their opinions as those from a case study rather than developing current research in support of their arguments. For this reason, the critics claim that this theory would have been better positioned for historical use rather than for scientific use for lack of current scientific evidence (Guga, 2012). The basis of this theory of psychopathology further gives the critics the opportunity to face off its arguments on such a basis can be falsified without scientific evidence. As part of his available evidence also, Freud used a bunch of women from Vienna that lived in a men-ruled region to develop his ideas. This was only a portion of study sample that cannot be considered useful to produce valid scientific results on personality development (Barabasz, 2014). The humanistic theory, on the other hand, faces criticisms based on the ambiguity of information provided in the theory. For instance, critics find it difficult to establish a methodology for finding out whether an individual has acquired self-actualization and if so, how to measure the self-actualization (Sternberg, 2008). Like the psychoanalytic theory, this theory is also criticized for not having empirical evidence to objectify the findings of the theory. Furthermore, too much common sense issues are raised in the humanistic psychology, making it less of a scientific approach towards explaining the development of human personality and motivation (Melé, 2013). Conclusion The humanistic and psychoanalytic theories of personality development differ in a number of ways, especially considering the fact that they were developed by two different theorists. The psychoanalytic theory is based on the idea that humans are born evil and are motivated by their evil desires to achieve their life goals. On the other hand, the humanistic theory is based on the idea that humans are born ‘good, and they are motivated by the various needs as per the hierarchy of needs outlined by Abraham Maslow. Nevertheless, these two theories have similarities especially based on the fact that both of them have individualistic themes and also face criticisms concerning their scientific validity. References Barabasz, A. (2014). 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