what was one of alfred adlers contributions to neo-freudian theory?

Personality

Neo-Freudians: Adler, Erikson, Jung, and Horney

Learning Objectives

• Summarize the contributions of Neo-Freudians to personality theory, including Adler's inferiority complex, Erikson'southward psychosocial stages, Jung'south ideas of the collective unconscious and archetypes, and Horney's coping styles

Freud attracted many followers who modified his ideas to create new theories virtually personality. These theorists, referred to as neo-Freudians, generally agreed with Freud that babyhood experiences matter, simply deemphasized sex, focusing more than on the social environment and effects of culture on personality. Four notable neo-Freudians include Alfred Adler, Erik Erikson, Carl Jung (pronounced "Yoong"), and Karen Horney (pronounced "HORN-center").

Alfred Adler

Alfred Adler, a colleague of Freud's and the commencement president of the Vienna Psychoanalytical Order (Freud's inner circumvolve of colleagues), was the commencement major theorist to break away from Freud (Effigy 1). He afterward founded a schoolhouse of psychology called , which focuses on our bulldoze to recoup for feelings of inferiority. Adler (1937, 1956) proposed the concept of the . An inferiority complex refers to a person'south feelings that they lack worth and don't measure up to the standards of others or of society. Adler'due south ideas about inferiority represent a major difference betwixt his thinking and Freud's. Freud believed that nosotros are motivated by sexual and aggressive urges, but Adler (1930, 1961) believed that feelings of inferiority in babyhood are what drive people to attempt to gain superiority and that this striving is the force behind all of our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

Figure 1. Alfred Adler proposed the concept of the inferiority circuitous.

Adler also believed in the importance of social connections, seeing childhood development emerging through social development rather than the sexual stages Freud outlined. Adler noted the inter-relatedness of humanity and the need to work together for the betterment of all. He said, "The happiness of mankind lies in working together, in living every bit if each individual had prepare himself the task of contributing to the common welfare" (Adler, 1964, p. 255) with the primary goal of psychology being "to recognize the equal rights and equality of others" (Adler, 1961, p. 691).

With these ideas, Adler identified three fundamental social tasks that all of usa must experience: occupational tasks (careers), societal tasks (friendship), and love tasks (finding an intimate partner for a long-term relationship). Rather than focus on sexual or aggressive motives for beliefs as Freud did, Adler focused on social motives. He too emphasized conscious rather than unconscious motivation, since he believed that the three key social tasks are explicitly known and pursued. That is not to say that Adler did not as well believe in unconscious processes—he did—just he felt that conscious processes were more important.

1 of Adler's major contributions to personality psychology was the idea that our birth order shapes our personality. He proposed that older siblings, who start out as the focus of their parents' attending just must share that attention once a new child joins the family, compensate by becoming overachievers. The youngest children, according to Adler, may be spoiled, leaving the middle kid with the opportunity to minimize the negative dynamics of the youngest and oldest children. Despite popular attention, research has non conclusively confirmed Adler's hypotheses about nascence order.

As an art schoolhouse dropout with an uncertain future, young Erik Erikson met Freud's daughter, Anna Freud, while he was tutoring the children of an American couple undergoing psychoanalysis in Vienna. It was Anna Freud who encouraged Erikson to study psychoanalysis. Erikson received his diploma from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Establish in 1933, and as Nazism spread beyond Europe, he fled the country and immigrated to the United states that same twelvemonth. Equally you learned when you lot studied lifespan development, Erikson later proposed a psychosocial theory of development, suggesting that an individual's personality develops throughout the lifespan—a departure from Freud'southward view that personality is stock-still in early life. In his theory, Erikson emphasized the social relationships that are of import at each stage of personality evolution, in contrast to Freud'due south emphasis on sex activity. Erikson identified eight stages, each of which represents a conflict or developmental task (Tabular array i). The evolution of a good for you personality and a sense of competence depend on the successful completion of each task.

Table 1. Erikson'due south Psychosocial Stages of Development

Phase	Historic period (years)	Developmental Chore	Description
1	0–1	Trust vs. mistrust	Trust (or mistrust) that bones needs, such as nourishment and affection, will be met
ii	1–iii	Autonomy vs. shame/doubt	Sense of independence in many tasks develops
3	3–6	Initiative vs. guilt	Accept initiative on some activities, may develop guilt when success not met or boundaries overstepped
4	7–11	Industry vs. inferiority	Develop self-confidence in abilities when competent or sense of inferiority when not
5	12–18	Identity vs. confusion	Experiment with and develop identity and roles
6	19–29	Intimacy vs. isolation	Institute intimacy and relationships with others
7	30–64	Generativity vs. stagnation	Contribute to society and exist office of a family
8	65–	Integrity vs. despair	Assess and brand sense of life and meaning of contributions

Carl Jung

Carl Jung (Effigy two) was a Swiss psychiatrist and protégé of Freud, who later split off from Freud and developed his own theory, which he called . The focus of belittling psychology is on working to residue opposing forces of conscious and unconscious thought, and experience within one's personality. According to Jung, this piece of work is a continuous learning process—mainly occurring in the second half of life—of becoming aware of unconscious elements and integrating them into consciousness.

Effigy 2. Carl Jung was interested in exploring the commonage unconscious.

Jung'due south dissever from Freud was based on 2 major disagreements. First, Jung, like Adler and Erikson, did not accept that sexual bulldoze was the main motivator in a person's mental life. Second, although Jung agreed with Freud'southward concept of a personal unconscious, he thought it to exist incomplete. In addition to the personal unconscious, Jung focused on the collective unconscious.

The is a universal version of the personal unconscious, holding mental patterns, or retentivity traces, which are common to all of us (Jung, 1928). These bequeathed memories, which Jung called , are represented by universal themes in various cultures, every bit expressed through literature, art, and dreams (Jung). Jung said that these themes reflect common experiences of people the globe over, such every bit facing death, becoming independent, and striving for mastery. Jung (1964) believed that through biology, each person is handed down the same themes and that the same types of symbols—such as the hero, the maiden, the sage, and the trickster—are present in the folklore and fairy tales of every civilization. In Jung'due south view, the task of integrating these unconscious archetypal aspects of the self is role of the self-realization process in the second half of life. With this orientation toward self-realization, Jung parted ways with Freud's conventionalities that personality is adamant solely by past events and anticipated the humanistic movement with its emphasis on self-actualization and orientation toward the future.

Jung as well proposed two attitudes or approaches toward life: extroversion and introversion (Jung, 1923) (Tabular array 2). These ideas are considered Jung'due south almost important contributions to the field of personality psychology, as nigh all models of personality now include these concepts. If yous are an extrovert, then yous are a person who is energized by beingness outgoing and socially oriented: You derive your energy from existence effectually others. If yous are an introvert, and so you are a person who may be quiet and reserved, or you may be social, but your energy is derived from your inner psychic activity. Jung believed a residuum betwixt extroversion and introversion all-time served the goal of cocky-realization.

Tabular array 2. Introverts and Extroverts

Introvert	Extrovert
Energized by beingness solitary	Energized by existence with others
Avoids attention	Seeks attention
Speaks slowly and softly	Speaks quickly and loudly
Thinks before speaking	Thinks out loud
Stays on 1 topic	Jumps from topic to topic
Prefers written advice	Prefers verbal advice
Pays attention easily	Distractible
Cautious	Acts showtime, thinks later

Another concept proposed by Jung was the persona, which he referred to as a mask that we adopt. According to Jung, we consciously create this persona; even so, it is derived from both our witting experiences and our collective unconscious. What is the purpose of the persona? Jung believed that it is a compromise betwixt who nosotros really are (our true self) and what society expects us to be. We hibernate those parts of ourselves that are not aligned with society's expectations.

Connect the Concepts: Are Archetypes Genetically Based?

Jung proposed that human responses to archetypes are similar to instinctual responses in animals. Ane criticism of Jung is that in that location is no evidence that archetypes are biologically based or like to animal instincts (Roesler, 2012). Jung formulated his ideas about 100 years ago, and great advances have been made in the field of genetics since that time. We've found that human babies are born with certain capacities, including the ability to acquire language. Even so, we've besides found that symbolic information (such every bit archetypes) is not encoded on the genome and that babies cannot decode symbolism, refuting the idea of a biological basis to archetypes. Rather than beingness seen every bit purely biological, more than recent research suggests that archetypes emerge directly from our experiences and are reflections of linguistic or cultural characteristics (Immature-Eisendrath, 1995). Today, almost Jungian scholars believe that the collective unconscious and archetypes are based on both innate and environmental influences, with the differences beingness in the role and degree of each (Sotirova-Kohli et al., 2013).

Karen Horney

Karen Horney was one of the first women trained as a Freudian psychoanalyst. During the Great Depression, Horney moved from Federal republic of germany to the United States, and afterward moved away from Freud's teachings. Like Jung, Horney believed that each individual has the potential for self-realization and that the goal of psychoanalysis should be moving toward a healthy self rather than exploring early childhood patterns of dysfunction. Horney too disagreed with the Freudian idea that girls have penis envy and are jealous of male biological features. According to Horney, any jealousy is nigh probable culturally based, due to the greater privileges that males often take, meaning that the differences betwixt men's and women'southward personalities are culturally based, not biologically based. She further suggested that men have womb envy, because they cannot give birth.

Horney'southward theories focused on the part of unconscious anxiety. She suggested that normal growth can be blocked by basic anxiety stemming from needs not being met, such equally childhood experiences of loneliness and/or isolation. How exercise children learn to handle this feet? Horney suggested three styles of coping (Table three). The first coping style, moving toward people, relies on affiliation and dependence. These children go dependent on their parents and other caregivers in an attempt to receive attention and amore, which provides relief from anxiety (Burger, 2008). When these children grow upwardly, they tend to employ this same coping strategy to bargain with relationships, expressing an intense need for beloved and credence (Burger, 2008). The 2d coping style, moving against people, relies on aggression and assertiveness. Children with this coping manner find that fighting is the best way to deal with an unhappy home state of affairs, and they deal with their feelings of insecurity by bullying other children (Burger, 2008). Every bit adults, people with this coping style tend to lash out with hurtful comments and exploit others (Burger, 2008). The third coping manner, moving away from people, centers on detachment and isolation. These children handle their anxiety past withdrawing from the earth. They need privacy and tend to be self-sufficient. When these children are adults, they continue to avoid such things as love and friendship, and they likewise tend to gravitate toward careers that require little interaction with others (Burger, 2008).

Table 3. Horney's Coping Styles

Coping Fashion	Description	Example
Moving toward people	Affiliation and dependence	Child seeking positive attending and amore from parent; adult needing love
Moving against people	Assailment and manipulation	Child fighting or bullying other children; adult who is abrasive and verbally hurtful, or who exploits others
Moving abroad from people	Detachment and isolation	Child withdrawn from the globe and isolated; adult loner

Horney believed these three styles are means in which people typically cope with mean solar day-to-solar day problems; withal, the three coping styles can become neurotic strategies if they are used rigidly and compulsively, leading a person to go alienated from others.

Think It Over

• What is your nascency club? Do y'all concord or disagree with Adler's description of your personality based on his birth order theory, equally described in the Link to Learning? Provide examples for support.
• Would you depict yourself as an extrovert or an introvert? Does this vary based on the situation? Provide examples to support your points.
• Select an epic story that is popular in gimmicky society (such as Harry Potter or Star Wars) and explain it terms of Jung'due south concept of archetypes.

Licenses and Attributions (Click to expand)

CC licensed content, Shared previously

• Neo-Freudians. Authored by: OpenStax College. Located at: https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/11-3-neo-freudians-adler-erikson-jung-and-horney. License: CC By: Attribution. License Terms: Download for gratuitous at https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/1-introduction

blackwellwhost1993.blogspot.com

Source: https://pressbooks.online.ucf.edu/lumenpsychology/chapter/neo-freudians-adler-erikson-jung-and-horney/

Share this post