Horney and Freud's approaches to understanding human personality (Term Paper Sample)

Horney and Freud's approaches to understanding human personality
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Introduction
The term personality is defined as an organized set of characteristics possessed by an individual and tends to affect his/her emotions and behaviors in various situations. The term personality has its roots in the ancient Latin language which means a mask. The mask was used at that time to recognize and represent a particular character. In its overall definition, personality is the pattern of characteristics feelings, thoughts and behaviors that differentiate one individual to another and it tend to persists over time and situations. Personality involves the most important and unique part of a person’s psychological life (Hergenhahn 2008, p 23). It concerns whether an individual is sad or happy, smart or dull. Most of the definition of this term tends to refer to an individual’s mental system that includes a collection of psychological parts such as thoughts, emotions, and motives.
In general terms, personality is all about nature interacting with nurture. In simple terms personality = temperament plus character. Here, temperament refers to the inborn traits or an individual’s factory setting in other words, how a person is wired. This can even be identified at birth of the new born baby (Hergenhahn 2008, p 91). There are variations in character among the new born babies. On the other hand, character is all about an individual’s acquired characteristics or custom settings. This is how a person has learned on how to deal with life since he/she was born. Character sometimes can be termed as a sum of a person’s virtues and vices. Psychologists explain temperament as something human beings share with other animals while character is uniquely human.
Human personality is a topical issue that has been studied by various psychologists for along time. It has been studied under the branch of psychology called personality psychology that focuses on personality and individual differences. The areas of focus in this branch include designing a coherent picture of an individual and his psychological processes. Secondly, it investigates individuals’ difference that is how people are unique (Sidney, 2007, p 427). Then lastly, it focuses on investigating the human nature that is how people are alike. Indeed, the study of human personality by the psychoanalysts has a broad and extensive history. Many theories have been postulated by these psychoanalysts and they include; traits, psychodynamic, humanistic, biological, behavioral and social learning theory. This paper focuses on the views of two psychologists Sigmund Freud and Karen Horney on human personality. It will show their common believes and differences in understanding human personality.
Life history of Freud and Horney
Sigmund Freud a German neurologist was born in 1856 in Czech Republic and died in 1939 at the age of 83 in London. He was called the father of psychoanalysis because of his distinguished work he did in psychology. He graduated in the University of Vienna in 1881 as a doctor of medicine (Sidney, 2007, p 419). He carried out a lot of research while at Vienna general hospital in the fields such as aphasia, cerebral palsy, and microscopic neuro-anatomy. His extensive research made him to be awarded as a neuropathology lecturer; however, he later on resigned and went into the private practice.
In the course of his usual research, he developed theories about the unconscious mind and the mechanisms of repression. He went on and came up with psychoanalysis which is a clinical way of treating psychopathology. This is done through holding a dialogue between the patient who is called the analysand and the psychoanalyst (Sidney, 2007, p 402). Though psychoanalysis has been overtaken by other modern methods of treating psychopathology, it has really helped in inspiring the development of many modern methods. In fact, some of these methods tap their basic ideas from this initial knowledge of Freud.
Karen Horney like Freud was a German psychoanalyst born in 1885 in Humburg and died in 1952. At her early age of about nine years, Karen changed her perspective to life because of the condition she was being raised in. Her father Danielsen was a ship captain and a cruel disciplinary figure. Thus, at this tender age, Horney became ambitious with life and even became rebellious; she invested most of her energies in her intellectual qualities. She managed to secure an enrolment in the University of Freiburg and took a medical course. She refined her interests and decided to pursue psychoanalysis.
In her career, she had a position within the institute in Berlin for psychoanalysis where she lectured for some years. She even taught in new school in the New York City. She was regarded by her fellow lecturers as an extensive and gifted analyst and the teacher of psychoanalysis. In her career while in the United State, she was made to be an associate director of the Chicago institute for psychoanalysis. It was at this time Horney developed and advanced her composite theories about neurosis and personality. This was based on her experience she had gained when working in n psychotherapy in German. She even managed to publish a book called “the neurotic personality of our time” which was much welcomed by other psychologists. She was also the dean of the American institute of psychoanalysis. She later on taught at the New York medical college and continued to practice as a psychiatrist until she made her death in 1952.
As we can see from the short history of Freud and Horney, these two psychologists concentrated on studying psychoanalysis. As a therapy, psychoanalysis is built on the concept that people are often unaware of the many factors that tend to cause their behavior and even emotions (Hergenhahn 2008, p 16). These unconscious factors tend to cause unhappiness in their life; these factors are expressed through a score of differentiated symptoms. Some of these symptoms include funny personality traits, disturbance of self esteem, difficultness in relating to other people and even general disposition.
Therefore, psychoanalytic treatment is highly individualized and strives to show how these unconscious factors tend to influence the behavior patterns, relationships and the general mental health (Farrell, 1981, p 202). The psychoanalytic treatment traces these unconscious factors to their origin, show how they came to existence for along period. Success treatment by use of psychoanalytic treatment helps many victims to overcome the challenges they often face in life.
Apart from being a therapy, psychoanalysis is one of the methods used to understand the mental functioning and the growth and development stages of a human being (Farrell, 1981, p 202). It is a general theory of the human behavior and experience, thus, it has enriched other disciplines. In additions, it seeks to explain the complex relationship between the human mind and the body. This understanding helps the psychoanalysts to know the role of the emotions in medical illness. Generally, psychoanalysis has helped a lot inn designing the treatment programs of family therapy, psychiatric practice and child psychiatry (Farrell, 1981, p 202). A lot of criticisms have been advanced concerning psychoanalysis on whether it is a science or not over the years. However the central issue is that psychoanalysis is indeed a great idea which has been proven by many scholars in their studies and research.
Freud view of human personality
Sigmund Freud was the proponent of the psychoanalytic theory, he believed that every individual tend to have unconscious component and that childhood experiences often continue to influence individuals’ behaviors. His theory states that personality has three parts; the id, the ego and the superego (Hergenhahn 2008, p 17). He proposed that the id is the most primitive part of personality. It is present at the time of birth and it is a reservoir of instincts and other biological drives that often energize individuals. It works on the basis of pleasure principle hence it lead us to seek gratification of our desires. For example when some body is deprived of water, food air or sex, a tension develops until he desire is satisfied. This means that the id is the blind part in us and pleasure seeking part of us that aims for the reduction or elimination of the tension.
The superego on the other had is the socially developed aspect of personality that tend to motivates people to behave in the ways that seems to be perfect. While the id pressurizes individuals to seek gratification, the superego is moralist; it is a part that shuns the innate source of pleasure (Hergenhahn 2008, p 42). Freud explains that children get this superego behavior through learning from their parents. They get this through repeated experiences with the reward for good behavior and punishments for bad ones.
The ego is the third aspect of personality Freud identified in the psychosexual period. This is the aspect that mediates the conflicts between the needs of the id and that of the superego. This is the part that helps us achieve the actual form of gratification. It operates according to the reality principle. Its goal is to reduce an individuals tension but at the right time, at the right place, and in a socially manner.
These parts are the ones that mold and shape our personalities. He advanced that personality is formed during the first six years of human life he called this stage the psychosexual stages of development. At this stage, the child experiences a number of discrete and biological psychosexual phases where the essential sexual energies are invested in particular areas of the body. Unlike other theories, the psychoanalytic theory is a complete theory since it explains the behavior...