Psychoanalytic, Psychosocial, Cognitive, Behavioral, and Other Theories - Essay Example

Significant life Events Sigmund Freud (May 6, 1856 – September 23, 1939) An Austrian by nationality, Sigmund Freud was a neurologist who laid foundations of psychoanalytic school of psychology. He is well known for redefining sexual drive as the primary driving force of human life. Moreover the clinical practice of solving psychological problems through dialogue between a psychoanalyst and a patient is also one of his discoveries. Freud changed the field of psychology by his theories of unconscious mind and defensive mechanism in human beings. There are however many arguments against his work and a school of psychology know as Neo-Freudians have altered or completely negated many theories laid down by Sigmund. Regardless, his is still considered to be the greatest psychologist of all time. For these reasons he has been chosen as the subject of analysis. Born to a family of Jews in Austrian Empire, Freud was considered intelligent from a very young age. His mother was 21 when she gave birth to Freud and his father a wool merchant Jakob, was 41. Together he had eight siblings and was favored over them all. This favor from his parents allowed Freud to receive proper education even in very dismal economic conditions. After moving to Vienna because of bad economic conditions, Freud got admission in Leopoldstädter Kommunal-Realgymnasium. This was a very prominent school of Vienna; here Freud once again displayed his extraordinary mind and graduated with honors. After receiving his education and working for some time as a zoologist, just before serving a year in the army, in 1885 Freud started his career as a neurologist working alongside Jean Martin Charcot. This fellowship was instrumental in diverting Freud from being a neurologist to a career of medical psychopathology. Freud married Martha Bernays, who was a daughter of a Rabbi. During his own practice Freud first started experimenting with conversation as a source of medical cure. There is solid evidence indicating that during this era Freud had an affair his sister in law. This romantic relationship ended up in an abortion. This was a very troubled time in Freud’s life. In his early forties Freud indeed creating some of his most amazing works. According to (Corey 2001, p. 67) Freud "had numerous psychosomatic disorders as well as exaggerated fears of dying and other phobias." During this period Freud spent a lot of time studying his own past and emotions. His studies according to Freud showed that he has sexual feelings for his mother and hatred for his father. The World War II was a very dark period for Freud. His sisters became a victim of Holocaust, and his work was burned in streets of Germany. He however escaped Austria with the help of Anton Sauerwald; a Nazi official. With his help Freud escaped to Great Britain. In Britain Freud with his family members settled at Maresfield Gardens. His continuous cigar smoking had given him oral cancer, which he endured for thirty years before finally giving up. He has for a long time asked his doctor Max Schur to help him in committing suicide if the time ever came. Therefore with aid of his doctor, Freud finally committed suicide using doses of morphine. He was one of the greatest psychologists to have ever lived; his theories although controversial are still practiced widely. Psychoanalytic Theory The psychoanalytic theory of psychological study is propelled mainly by many of Freud’s very own theories. According to Freud a very significant importance existed of the unconscious. According to psychoanalysis to understand a personality a detailed analysis of a person’s dreams is very important. These dreams can lead to uncovering painful and repressed memories forced into unconscious by the mind. The stages of psychosexual development are also very important because they can help determine fixations developed by a personality. The id, super ego and ego are the most prominent theories of Psychoanalysis. They ascertain that a personality is made up of three components, an id (a child like components which is wild and desires), Super-ego (which is morality) and an ego which keeps balance between the two. If we observe history of Sigmund we can observe that Freud had problems in his psychosexual development. Most of these could have been due to fixations developed in the oral stage of psychosexual development. This is described even in many of Freud owns statements that he admired his mother and despised his father. This fixation is usually common to children who have many siblings and have to share a mother’s attention. The jealousy of Freud for his father can be referred to as a desire of the unconscious for phallus. This jealously can create a disliking or even a hate for one’s own father. Freud during his own personality analysis admitted that he did face certain hostility towards his father. Another strong evidence of oral fixation in Freud can be understood by his love for cigars. In the latter half of life Freud also experienced some death drives which are an inherent love for calm in all living beings. These can be exemplified by his inevitable suicide. Psychosocial Theory The theory of psychosocial development of a person’s personality was first put forth by Erik Erikson. This is known as one of the best theories of personality development and similar to Freudian theories of Psychoanalytic analysis. Erikson had the belief that personality developed in a series of stages however according to him social interactions have the most important impact on a person’s personality. The central study is development of ego in his theory; this ego identity is the ‘conscious sense of self that is developed through social interactions’. This ego identity is not constant but dynamic in nature and is shaped by our everyday social experiences. Each stage of this psychosocial development is critical to a person’s present and future personality. If each stage is handled well a sense of competency will establish a sense of ego strength. However if a person faces problems in these stage a sense of inadequacy is developed. In each stage a significant even is present which serves as a turning point and is referred to as ‘conflict’. If we apply the psychosocial theory of psychological study we will have to take into account numerous conflicts in Freud’s life. In the first stage of psychosocial development which ranges from birth till one year of a person’s life and is known as the trust vs. mistrust stage of psychosocial development. In this stage Freud faced conflicts because he shared his mother with many siblings. This develops mistrust in eyes of a sibling who starts to take life as unreliable and unpredictable. In the second stage Freud faced competition from his other family members for limited resources of his father. This could have weaken his sense of autonomy and left him with inadequacy. These conflicts can explain his extensive usage of drugs in latter life and continuous criticism of others as well as his phobias. Other conflicts faced by Freud include death of his sisters by in World War II holocaust and migration from Austria. In the last stage of his life known as ego integrity vs. despair, Freud faced severe conflicts and this crisis led to his inevitable suicide. Trait, Evolutionary, Genetic/Biological approaches Traits are described as general patterns of behavior, thoughts and emotions displayed by humans. This theory tries to establish patterns in these traits and predicts personality characteristics based on recurrences. According to Gordon Allport a renowned researcher in trait theory ‘central traits are basic to an individuals personality, whereas secondary traits are more peripheral’. According to trait school of psychological study, all humans display certain characteristics of behavior, which is influenced by culture and many other factors as well. Some traits are called cardinal traits and are considered very important in differentiating personality types. In theory there are numerous traits which are specific to different people, statistically however it has been proven that certain traits correlate together. This analysis proves that only three traits are needed to describe a personality. There is however conflict as to whether three or five personality traits are enough to describe a personality. Three factor models contain the traits of extroversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism. The five factor model however includes two more traits into analysis and the thus five trait model consists of openness, extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. The trait model has the advantage over others for being empirically strongest of all psychological models. If we apply trait theory we can understand Freud’s personality according to the following traits. Openness: Freud will be without doubt, rated high on openness because of his love for art and high intellect. His unusual ideas are still debated today and wide dimensions of his imagination are bewildering. Extraversion: Freud can be regarded as average on extraversion as he did not have any extended social networks but was also not an introvert. Neuroticism: In later half of his life Freud is said of have developed some form of neuroticism which led to his suicide but that was mostly result of a long painful illness. Agreeableness: Freud was very compassionate about his work and friends. This is illustrated by many examples. Conscientiousness: He was low on this trait, as most of his work is indeed spontaneous in nature; he was not known to go by the book. Cognitive, Behavioral, and Social Learning theories The theory of behavior defines that all learning comes from the environment a person is brought up in. This means there is a strong influence on personality of upbringing of a person. This field of psychology uses two main components for study of human behavior which are classical conditioning and operant conditioning. In analysis of personality an emphasis is laid upon the type of environment a person is brought up, and specifically speaking roles of family members in raising a child. There are criticisms to this theory of analysis, and is usually referred to as a one dimensional approach to study of psychology. While using behavior in personality analysis we must also understand that this approach does not account for free will and moods in personality. If we analyze Freud’s history we can understand expectancy from him displayed by his parents. He was thought of as the brightest of all his siblings, which raised parent’s expectations from Freud. This can be a reason as explained by behavioral theories for his success in life. As they thought of him to be smart and expected him to turn out as a success. This as we can see turned out to be true, family expectations drove Freud to think of himself as capable and smart. This confidence and high self esteem was displayed by him throughout his life. For example when his experiments failed e.g. use of cocaine as a drug for treatment of mental disorders, he didn’t give up but continued to work and produced great results. Many of Freud’s critics also believe that Freud was too over confident in presenting his works which led to errors and overstatements in many of his theories. His drive and confidence of success was so strong that many critics accuse him of falsifying results and theories. Humanistic theories Humanistic theories of psychology basically emerged in mid 20th century as a reaction to psychoanalysis and various behavioral theories. One of the most prominent theories provided by this branch of psychology is the hierarchy of needs. This is theory was presented forward by Maslow and is therefore called Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Before we actually carry out any analysis using humanistic theories, it must be taken into account that observations of humanistic psychology are unverifiable. For example it’s impossible to say if someone is self actualized. Therefore individuals own assessment of personality is imperative in applying humanistic theories of personality development and thus is one its biggest disadvantage. We can apply Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to Freud’s personality development. In personality analysis we can see that Freud was high on needs of esteem and self actualization. This is evident from his career choice. This high self esteem is usually presented by strong personalities such as Freud. This is also displayed by the fact that Freud usually did not pay any heed to his critics. He made his own choice and gave open opinions which created controversy throughout his life. Freud was very high on self actualization, which is evident from his struggle in the field of psychology to become the best at what he did. Recommendations Each individual has a unique personality and keeping in view that no single personality assessment is best, we must use psychoanalysis techniques for Freud. There are a number of reasons for this choice; first of all it was contributed by Freud. This means this way of personality assessment is a reflection of how he thought personality can best be analyzed. This gives a fair advantage as it would be easier to understand personality on a scale that a subject himself thinks is right in his expert opinion. Psychoanalysis also allows in depth knowledge of a person’s unconscious. Analysis by stages of psychosexual development actually gives a foundation on which to analyze future behavior. Other prominent theories (trait theory) present more instantaneous view of personality and therefore cannot be used to build upon reliable future assumptions. Psychoanalysis also has the advantage of taking into account personality problems which are missed by other prominent theories. Trait theory establishes Freud as a normal functional human being with not many psychological issues. Psychoanalysis and psychosocial theories however point to some prominent problems in initial stages of his personality development. Humanistic theories suggest his highness on self actualization. Behavioral theory however goes absolutely opposite to psychosocial and psychoanalysis. It gives credit of Freud’s success in life to his early upbringing. References Cloninger, S. C. (2008). Theories of personality: Understanding persons. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall. Friedman, H.S., & Schustack, M.W. (2006). Personality: Classic theories and modern research. Boston: Pearson. Wahba, A., & Bridgewell, L. (1976). Maslow reconsidered: A review of research on the need hierarchy theory". Organizational Behavior and Human Performance. Hergenhahn, B.(2005). An introduction to the history of psychology. Belmont, USA: Thomson Wadsworth. Read More