Psychology Essays (UOP)

Hum/405 dialog

There are two major theorist that have had a profound effect on what is personality development. Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung have had a long history of studying the human mind together and separately. Each broke apart due to disagreements on the unconscious mind and how it effects an individual's personality. This debate will bring about information on what each group believes what theorist has a strong theory.

Jamie - Modern takes on Psychodynamic theories of personality are built on theories of early psychologists such as Sigmund Freud, Erik Ericson, and Alfred Adler. Freud's theories are still commonly believed to be most accurate by man in the field even in present day

Sam – Carl Jung's personality theory is the better theory due to the fact that it is not one dimensionally based and has more than one factor that ties into what makes a person.

Sandra- Freud's theory of personality is comprehensive, and has internal consistency which make his theory more grounded than that of Jung's. The start of all things is the beginning. Jung groups the stages of development as childhood, youth, middle life, and old age. Freud proposes stages of infantile period, oral phase, latency phase, and genital period. Each of these phases in psychosexual development organizes not only the present state of mental functioning but it future state (Rabain, 2005).

Sam – I can't disagree that Freud's theory does have an internal consistency as Sandra has pointed out especially sense it does cover both the present and future state of mentality. However, with that said. Jung's theory provides more openness to the idea that not just sex and aggression can make one person. Jung "introduced the concepts of extraversion and introversion, and that explained human behavior as a combination of four psychic functions—thinking, feeling, intuition, and sensation. (Gannon, 2008)" As you can see Jung doesn't completely discredit Freud's theory that sex and aggression have a part because they fall under the categories of feelings and sensations. Jung just provides a more in-depth view of what makes a person besides only the two that Freud's theory only allows.

Sandra- Freud's theory rates very high on causality, while Jung has very little to say about differential effect of social practices, his theory leans strongly in the direction of biology (Feist, Feist, & Roberts, 2013).

Josephine – Yes Jung does have little to say about the effects of social practices. However, Jung's theory of psychological types is simple; when our minds are active and we are awake, we are alternating between taking in information and making decisions in our internal and external worlds. There are eight different patterns for how we carry out these mental activities commonly referred to as the function attitudes, functions- in-attitude or the eight mental processes. Jung created these patterns through combining opposite pairs of attitudes and their functions. Behavior stems from the differences in one's individual inborn tendencies and their minds in different ways. As one acts on their tendencies they develop predictable patterns of behavior.

Lisa – Furthermore Jung's research in attitude and repressed memories were more in-depth than that of Freud's theory of the unconscious mind. Jung was much closer to common sense than Freud. He had a much more optimistic view of mankind, along with receiving less criticism than Freud: Minor psychiatric illnesses are still treated by art therapy, which uses many of the techniques of Jungian therapy due to the fact that his theory is more on a positive note than that of Freud's psychosexual developments.

Sandra – Yes, Jung is more recognizable because his theories are a bit more positive. The point though is that without Freud's psychodynamic theory these other theorists such as Carl Jung would have no bias for their own theories to play off of.

Jamie - Freud hypothesized that one of the primary drives of the subconscious mind was innate, born with ID, the pleasure driven portion of the human psych. This in Freud's mind was the primary drive of all things, gratification being the target. To describe this theory Freud used the scenario of a newborn baby, whom realizing a need cries until this need is met. If the child is cold, it cries until it has been provided warmth, if the child is hungry it cries until it is provided with sustenance. During the development from infant to toddler, the EGO begins to develop. The EGO differs from the Id in that while the Id drives humans to seek gratification of needs without regard. The Ego balances this with experience, and incorporates information at hand, balancing the Id and Super Ego. During the next few years, the Superego develops to weight morality, as taught by parental figures. Situations and needs still are balanced but with more understanding of what constitutes right from wrong.

Samantha – Okay, so without Freud there is no base for which theories can grow from. Yet because of his theories others were able to expand upon that and grow from a one dimensional point of view of how aggression and sex are the only desires that drive a person's personality to having multiple points that help build personality.

Josephine - Jung identified was the way people adapt to or orientate their selves to the world. Extraversion and introversion are the explanations of how one receives and interoperates the energies of the outside world which reflects ones personality and behavior to what they are exposed to. The energy that one receives the environment around affects ones inner world from our thoughts and ideas inside of us which is known as introversion. Humans react to these vibes and their personalities and/or behavior reflects what is felt off previous experiences. The extraversion is the energy that moves to the outer world of people which affects things in our surroundings and how people will behave or react to situations in the world outside of one's comfort zone. Jung made sense that our orientation to the world is a fundamental aspect of our personality and attitude. As we alternate between these two energies our attitudes and personalities reflect back and forth as needed to adjust to the environment. When one is born they are nurtured by their environment ant the energies that surround them either positive or negative which eventually reflects in their personalities. Although, Jung based his theory of personality off extraversion and introversion of energy there were other properties that he instilled into his theory of personality such as sensing perception and perception intuition

Josephine - Jung's theory is better because he explains how different elements and energies of the environment effects ones personality and behaviors being able to predict how one will act or react to different situations.

Sandra – While you may believe that Jung's theory is better. We believe that the fact that Freud was able to identify the stages of the unconscious mind as the ID, Ego and Superego made for a huge open floor plan for others and paved the way for them. He also might have created some controversy with his psychosexual developments, but it did make sense to others about these stages and how they do show signs that cone side with the Ego and Superego developments.

References

Atwood, G. E., & Tomkins, S. S. (1976). On the subjectivity of personality theory. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 12(2), 166-177.

Evans, R. I., Jung, C. G., & Jones, E. (1964). Conversations with Carl [Gustav] Jung and reactions from Ernest Jones (Vol. 23). Princeton, NJ, Van Nostrand.

Vincent, A., & Ross, D. (2001). Personalize training: determine learning styles, personality types and multiple intelligences online. The Learning Organization,8(1), 36-43.

McLeod, S. A. (2014). Carl Jung. Retrieved from

Study: Freud Was Wrong About Repressed Memories

Alexandra Sifferlin @acsifferlin March 19, 2014

Webster, R. (1995). Why Freud was wrong: Sin, science, and psychoanalysis. London: HarperCollins.

Freud's Psychosexual Theory. (2015). Retrieved from

Gannon, T. (2008). Jung, Carl (1875–1961). In F. Leong (Ed.), Encyclopedia of counseling. (Vol. 2, pp. 668-669). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: