Freud, Jung and Rogers

Freud stressed the unconscious – all the ideas, thoughts, and feelings of which we are not normally aware of. Freud’s ideas form the basis of psychoanalysis, a term that refers to both Freud’s theory of personality and to the form of therapy that he invented. According to Freud, human behavior is based on three kinds of unconscious instincts, or drives. Some instincts are aggressive and destructive. Others such as hunger, thirst, and self-preservation are necessary for the survival of the individual. Freud theorized that personality is formed around three structures: the id, the ego, and the superego.
Id is the only structure present at birth, completely unconscious. It consists of unconscious urges and desires that continually see expression. Id tries to obtain immediate pleasure and to avoid pain. It obtains gratification through reflex actions (coughing) or through fantasy [wish fulfillment (daydream)]. The id itself is not very effective at gratifying instincts so it must link up with reality through the ego to satisfy its needs.
The ego learns about the external world through the senses, but instead of acting on the pleasure principle, the ego delays the id’s desires until it can do it safely and successfully.
To have only a personality that consisted only of ego and id would be completely selfish. A personality as such would behave effectively but unsociably. Full adult behavior includes the third part of Freud’s theory: the superego. The superego acts as an individual’s conscious. The superego is not present at birth, but in time, the superego takes over the task of observing and guiding the ego.
Ideally, our id, ego, and superego work in harmony; however, when there is no harmony between the three, anxieties arise within the ego. Certain variety of defense mechanisms includes the following: denial, repression, projection, identification, regression, intellectualization, reaction information, displacement, and sublimination.
Freud’s theory of how personality develops focused on the way in which we satisfy sexual instinct during the course of life. The energy generated by sexual instinct is called libido. According to Freud, there are three stages during a child’s development that endure into adulthood. The first stage, the oral stage, is from birth to 18 months. The second stage, the anal stage, is from 18 months to about 3 years of age. The third stage, the phallic stage, is from age 3 to around 5 years of age.
Carl Jung embraced many of Freud’s tenets; however, Jung contended that libido represented all the life forces, not just the sexual ones. Jung’s analytic psychology saw the unconscious as the ego’s source and vitality, not the superego. Jung believed the unconscious consisted of the personal unconscious and collective unconscious. The personal unconscious includes our repressed thoughts, forgotten experiences, and underdeveloped ideas which may rise to consciousness if an incident or sensation triggers their recall.
Jung divided people into two general attitude types: introverts and extroverts. Introverts are caught up in their own world and are unsociable. Extroverts turn their attention to the external world, taking an active interest in other people and the events that go on around them.
Jung further divided people into rational and irrational individuals. Rational people regulate their actions by thinking and feeling. Irrational people base their action on perception. Jung thought the psychic development only comes to its peak during middle age.
Carl Rogers, a humanistic theorist, maintained that men and women develop their personality in the service of striving towards higher goals. According to Rogers, the drive in all organisms such as plants, animals, and humans, is to fulfill its biological potential. A human’s potential is not only in fulfilling their inborn biological potential but their self-concept of what their conscious tells them who they are or what they should do with their lives.
When a person’s self-concept is closely matched to their inborn capacity, they are likely to be a fully functioning person, or self-directed. People become more fully functioning if they are brought up with unconditional positive regard, being loved regardless of their behavior. Unfortunately, it is more often parents offer conditional positive regard which means they value only certain aspects of the child. One response to conditional positive regard is to change your self-concept to please your caregiver. Because their lives are directed to satisfy another’s value and want, they experience no satisfaction and do not know who they really are or what they want.