Psychoanalytic Approach to Personality the Three Major

Psychoanalytic Approach to Personality

The three major psychoanalytic theories and approaches to personality could not be more different. Freud, who focuses on early childhood and sexual urges, differs from Jung who focuses on the unconscious, who differs from Adler who focuses on human motivation and superiority (Weiten, 2005). Of course, what they all have in common is trying to tease out an understanding of human personality. This paper will compare and contrast each of Freud's, Jung's, and Adler's psychoanalytic approaches, as well as two characteristics in which this author agrees or disagrees with the theories presented. Then the focus will mainly be on Freud and his structure to personality, and finally using real world examples for his defense mechanisms. Overall, this paper strives to present a well-rounded view of Freud's theory, and the theories of his time.

The structural model for Freud's psychoanalytic theory is based on three different levels of personality; the id (immediate personal gratification), the ego (takes into account the reality of the situation, tries to please but also get things done), and the superego (society's values and standards, very strict) (Burger, 2008). Freud also divided personality into three separate conscious, known as the topographic model; it includes the conscious (thoughts one is aware of), the preconscious (readily available information), and the unconscious (no access, thoughts one is not aware of) (Burger, 2008). Freud was known for the structural model, but perhaps he was better known by the controversy surrounding his theories on how personality develops within a person, each stage is marked by an erogenous zone and a fixation (the oral stage is fixated on the month, etc.) (Burger, 2008).

By comparison, Jung's theory emphasized the conscious and unconscious minds. He come to call these the personal conscious, which has thoughts, memories, etc. that are not in one's conscious awareness (similar to Freud's unconscious), and the collective unconscious, which, according to Jung, has all the memories, thoughts, images and ideas from humankinds ancestral past (Weiten, 2005). Obviously, this is where Freud and Jung diverge sharply from the conscious ideas. Jung referred to the collective unconscious as "archetypes," meaning that the material within the collective unconscious is not so much taken from individual people, but represents symbols and images with "universal meaning" (Weiten, 2005).

By contrast, Adler's theory diverges sharply from both Freud and Jung, he did not focus on consciousness, or genitals, or ancestors, but instead decided to focus on motivations (like Freud), specifically striving for superiority and birth order (Weiten, 2005). Adler maintained that each person is "striving for superiority as a universal drive to adapt, improve oneself, and master life's challenges," (Weiten, 2005) which is a focal point within his theory along with pioneering the research for birth order, in which Adler posits that a first born child is likely to feel more inferiority, thus strive for superiority more; middle children are often the "highest achievers"; and last born children will become adults with no "personal initiative" (Burger, 2008).

From each of these theories this author agrees with Freud's structural model, as it seems to fit the best with every person. Most people can say they have felt pulled by what they want to do, what they feel like they should do, and end up doing a little of both. Also agreed upon is the idea of an unconscious or personal conscious, that there may be something within that only comes out in dreams, or not at all. What is not agreed upon is the psychosexual model of development, as it has been rejected many times, in many forms of research. Childhood experiences do influence people, but not in the way that Freud describes. In addition, what is not agreed upon is birth order; this theory has also been rejected by scholarly research and the ideas cannot be supported, replicated, or predicted (Burger, 2008).

Going back to Freud's stages of psychosocial development, which was really the benchmark of his theories and garnered him the most attention, the first being the Oral Stage, which occurs doing the first year of life and the main source of stimulation is in the mouth; making it through the stage a child will be successfully weaned from the bottle, if not a fixation occurs such as smoking or overeating later in life (Weiten, 2005). The second stage is the Anal stage, which occurs during potty training, success is marked by being potty trained, failure is marked by difficulties during this time and could lead to sexual anxiety later in life (Weiten, 2005). The third stage is the Phallic Stage, which occurs in years three through five and children become fixated on their genitals and self-stimulation, they also come to develop the Oedipus Complex in which a child must identify with their same sex parent (success), if not they harbor feelings of resentment and do not identify with the proper parent, causing the child to not develop normally (Weiten, 2005). The last stages are the Latency and Genital stages, occurring from years five onward, during latency children move away from their genital fixations and focus on socialization with peers, and once puberty hits teenagers are once again fixated on the genitals, hopefully on other partners rather than themselves (Weiten, 2005).