Psychoanalytic Personality Assessment
The main objective of analytical psychology is to find out how wholeness comes about through integration of unconscious motivations and forces that underlies human behaviour. In this paper the ideologies given by Freud, Jung and Adler are given emphasis and how they touch on analytical psychology. Body To begin with, Carl Jung saw the psyche as being the mind but admits the soul’s mystery.
He put most of his research to base on the unconscious and one of the serious statements he gave is that the beauty about the unconscious is that it is unconscious really and therefore not touchable. This means that it can not be studied through direct approach. This comes as unconformity with Freud’s model which is based on collective unconscious through the concept of uncanny inexplicable connectedness and synchronicity that all people share. In his bid to describe the unconscious, he first of all assumed that personal unconscious is a potent part of human psych that is normal. For wholeness to be achieved there must be a reliable communication between the conscious and the unconscious.
Collective unconsciousness therefore contains archetypes that are common to all human beings. The arguments presented by Adler concerning human personality are explained teleogically. In other words, the parts of a person’s unconscious self work together to change the feeling of inferiority to that of superiority and not completeness. He continued to argue that the self ideal desires were perturbed by ethical and social demands. He further said that if correction of factors was disregarded and overcompensation done to an individual, inferiority complex could have arisen giving way to the individual to become power hungry, egocentric, aggressive or even worse.
Freud always believed in the motivating power of a dream is the wish to fulfill. The issues of lack of control, power or lack of love may come in theform of a dream in order to fulfill them. He also believed that, if one suffers depression during the day, this too may find its way in to the dream. On the other hand he also believed that all images that appear in a dream do have a sexual connotation.On comparison, the three seem to touch so much on the development of the human mind and its adaptation to the surrounding. On one hand, Curl Jung tries to explain the unconscious and how it leads to common behaviour on all human being.
He looks at traits that are common to all like fear, death and other. Freud’s theory, especially the one touching on human development seems quite clear on the stages. I agree with his theories and somehow disagree because he fails to give the conditions under which fixation might occur. He fails to openly explain why if fixation is a stage omitted during childhood development, why do issues of addiction arise. He also fails to tell how much time does fixation take, if it comes at a later stage when one is old.
There are five stages of Freud’s theory. The very first one is the oral or dependency which takes place since birth to two years and is characterized by the child using the mouth to explore the world. If such a child misses this stage, he or she may do some things later in life like smoking, drinking which are mostly referred to as fixation. The second stage is referred to as the anal or potty training where the child learns to control his/her bodily functionalities and that if the child is not taken care of properly, obsessive and compulsive behaviors can be developed. The child may dream of being of being out of control and is mostly trying to keep things in order. The phallic stage is the third where the child starts being aware of whether male or female.
His/her personality is developed. The Oedipus which is a male child’s love for his mother and the Electra which is the opposite characterized by a girl’s anger towards the mother are developed at this stage. The latency period is the fourth and very little characteristics are known to emerge aat this state. The fifth stage immerges at age 12 to the puberty when now the sexual interest is reawakened The Freud’s defense mechanisms are greatly found to apply to different people at different times. The very first in this case is the denial. This is characteristically observed when one declares or thinks that what is true is false.
It may also involve refusal of reality, some events and even external facts. In real life, this can be seen in an alcoholic who after counseling, refuses to accept that his or her drinking habits, greatly affects his/her performance in the workplace or his family. The second is displacement and is characterized by aggression or redirection of sexual impulses to a more acceptable party. It may also take the form of pointing an emotion to a safer outlet or dissuading an emotion to an object or party the will bring less risk. This is evident in a mother who may yell at her child when the husband beats her up. In such a case, the mother knows that the child will do nothing and therefore directs her anger there as an acceptable target that is less threatening or presents a less risk outcome.
Thirdly is the idealization whereby one unconsciously chooses to perceive another person or object as having more good qualities than that person or thing may really have. It is found in every household whereby one marries a man/woman and after some years one starts to learn the other person and still loves him despite the weaknesses he/she may find hidden. The beauty may be gone but idealization keeps the two together.Conclusion the theories presented by these three psychologists based on the subject of analytical are to some extent true because most of the material are relied upon by many psychologists especially Freud’s defense mechanisms which are evident in most households today. I concur with the works of these three and find the material of importance to both scholars and professional players in the field of analytical psychology.
