Axia College Material TV Character

Axia College Material

TV Character Evaluation

Write a summary of 350-700 words identifying the contributions of Freud, Jung, and Rogers.

Sigmund Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis and the father of modern psychology. His contributions to the study of personality include the differentiation and description of the three major parts of the psyche; the id, ego, and superego. In Freud's view, the id is the only structure that is present at birth and is entirely unconscious. It operates on the pleasure principle, and drives the individual to seek satisfaction for the primal drives, namely the sex drive and the hunger drive, as well as to relive discomfort either through unconscious actions like coughing and blinking, or through fantasies which Freud called wish fulfillment. But because the id is purely unconscious it needs a liaison between itself and the real world. The ego is this liaison; Freud believed that this controlled thinking and interactions with the world, and saw to the external satisfaction of the id's impulses. The last part of Freud's personality construct is the superego, which limits the selfishness of the id and ego by imposing learned moral standards on them.

Freud believed that it was the combination of these three elements and the way they developed and were influenced by each other and outside influences that creates personality. This happened, according to Freud, in five major stages, each associated with a different focus of sexual pleasure. From the oral stage, through the anal and phallic stages and latency period, until the genital stage was reached in during puberty, Freud saw personality as a constantly shifting balancing act between the id/ego and the superego. Disruptions during a particular period of development would lead to specific personality "disorders;" differences in upbringing were therefore seen as the main agents of personality definition.

Carl Jung was a student and colleague of Freud's but he broke with him in several major regards. One of the major ways in which Jung's theories differ from Freud's is in regards to personality, Jung was not so much concerned with what caused different personalities as defining what they were and how they acted. He categorized people as either introverts or extroverts, and furthermore as either rational -- basing their decisions on thinking and/or feeling -- and irrational -- basing their choices on information provided by the senses or intuition. Though all four thinking components are used by everyone to some degree, Jung believed that different personalities utilized these modes to different degrees. The Jungian model uses rationality and spirituality in place of Freudian sexuality as the main determiners of personality. Jung also believed that personality continued to evolve until at least middle-age; far later then the pubescent cementing of personality that Freud described. In today's world, Jungian types (with the additional differentiation between perceiving and judging) are used much more often than Freudian models.

Another great personality theorist was Carl Rogers. Rogers took a vast departure from both Feud and Jung in his basic approach to psychology and especially when it came to personality. Rather than ever seeing personality as a finished product, Rogers believed that the innate purpose of a human individual was fulfillment of our genetic capabilities through the completion of positive works, a drive that he called the actualizing tendency. Personality is born through the relationship of an individual's self-concept with their inborn potential -- the closer the two ideals are, the more full functioning that person is, and the more independent and happy their personality will appear. The reverse is also true; if someone's self-concept is very far from their potential, they may become withdrawn, harsh, and bitter. These people also by definition submit to the desires of other people rather than listening to their own; basically, it is the denial of their personality that makes them into defensive people.