Deck 14: Psychoanalysis: After the Founding

Question 1

What personal experiences influenced Maslow's approach to psychology?

Answer 1

Two psychologists who worked in the field of humanistic psychology are Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow. Abraham is also known as the humanistic psychology's spiritual father. He studied a handful of outstanding people to analyze their base of difference from the other normal people. Maslow was enrolled as a psychology professor, the subject, to which he was not familiar with. The course that had to teach did not fascinate him much.
Hence, he turned away from it and got transferred to Wisconsin university. He started with his own childhood stories; how he used to escape from the awful situation by reading books. Hence, he became the first psychologist to study the human's positive aspects. He determined his work that would be helpful for humans, for developing their personalities and positive attitude towards life.
The term used to describe this situation is self-actualization. Maslow proposed that every individual possess an inborn inclination towards the self-actualization. According to him, the self-actualization in an adult can be developed only when sufficient love is achieved in the childhood.
Bad parenting results in loss of self-actualization. This concept of Rogers, however, failed because of less subject size. Later other experiments were performed and it was observed that the people who are satisfied in their belongingness, love, health and wealth are less likely to develop neurotic disorders.

Question 2

In what ways did the neo-Freudians change Freudian psychoanalysis?

Answer 2

Many psychologists were in the favor of Freud' theory of psychoanalysis; however, some of them favored its modification and extension. Amongst the Freud's loyalists were his daughter, Anna Freud and Melanie Klein. They believed in the extension of the ego theory. They proposed that the individuals are attendants of ego, rather than the id.
According to the ego psychology, ego acts independently of the id. It has the energy of its own. This energy is not extracted from the id and is separately functional. In Freud's perspective, ego always acts as a servant to the id, never getting free of its call. Neo-Freudian psychologists also proposed that the ego is unconfined to the id's conflicts, generated when its impulses are squeezed for fulfillment.
Neo-Freudian also proposed that the biological impacts play less important role in the development of the personality of an individual. Instead of the biological impact, psychological and the social forces were given more importance in shaping the individual's personality. They also said that psychosocial forces, instead of psychosexual forces, are more important in development of the personality.
Hence, during childhood, social interactions have a critical importance in the personality development of children. The movement of ego psychology was led by Ann Freud. She took the subject of child's analysis and used her knowledge in treating children with less verbal skill and immaturity.

Question 3

How did the changing Zeitgeist in social science influence the later development of psychoanalysis?

Answer 3

The 19 th century science had a great impact on Freud. He was greatly influenced by its positivistic and mechanical outlook. However, by the end of the century, many ways were discovered by different disciplines, to view the human nature. These perspectives were studied beyond the biological boundaries. Researches were made in the field of social psychology, anthropology and sociology.
As a result, it was understood that the humans are not merely the products of biology, but their nature is shaped by the institutions and the social forces; hence, the study of humans should not be done only in biological terms but, also in social terms. The anthropologists initiated their observation on various cultures, public; soon it was observed that the Freud's views on some taboos and neurotic symptoms were not generalized.
For example, all the cultures do not prohibit incest. The social psychologists and sociologists also observed that the human nature is conditioned by the social forces and not alone by the biological satisfactions. Thus, a revised concept to study the human nature was called upon by Zeitgeist; however, Freud was confined only to the biological origin of personality.
The younger disciplines were not bounded to the orthodox thoughts and hence, they parted away and discovered the social science thought of reshaping the Freudian theory. They perceived the human behavior to be conditioned by environment and this thought went well along with the American culture. Two scientists who worked separately in this respect were Karen Horney and Alfred Adler. They proposed that human nature is mainly shaped by the environmental forces faced by an individual, especially during childhood.

Question 4

Describe Anna Freud's relationship with her father. What changes did she introduce into psychoanalysis?

Question 5

To what does the word object refer in object relations theory?

Question 6

How did the approaches of Melanie Klein and Heinz Kohut differ from each other, and from Freudian psychoanalysis?

Question 7

In what ways did Jung's life experiences influence his analytical psychology?

Question 8

Describe the Jungian concepts of the collective unconscious and the archetypes.

Question 9

How did Jung's analytical psychology differ from Freudian psychoanalysis?

Question 10

On what issues did Adler and Freud disagree?

Question 11

Explain what Adler meant by "style of life." According to Adler's theory, how do inferiority feelings develop?

Question 12

What lasting contributions to psychology have been made by Jung and by Adler?

Question 13

How were Horney's views of personality influenced by her childhood experiences?

Question 14

In what ways did Freud and Horney differ in their views of feminine psychology?

Question 15

Explain Horney's concepts of basic anxiety, neurotic needs, and idealized self-image.

Question 16

On what grounds did the humanistic psychologists criticize behaviorism and psychoanalysis?

Question 17

Compare the views of Maslow and Rogers on self-actualization and the characteristics of the psychologically healthy person.

Question 18

On what grounds have the theories of Maslow and Rogers been criticized?

Question 19

For what reasons did humanistic psychology fail to reach its goal of transforming psychology?

Question 20

In your opinion, will the positive psychology movement have a more lasting influence on the field than the humanistic psychology movement did? Why or why not?

Question 21

What factors have been shown to affect subjective well-being? What factors can you list that influence your own happiness?