PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND CLIENT-CENTERED THEORY

Sigmund Freuds psycho-analysis and Carl Rogers client-centered theory

Sigmund Freuds psycho-analysis and Carl Rogers client-centered theory

Sigmund Freuds psycho-analysis

Freud's methods of psychoanalysis were based on his theory that people have repressed, hidden feelings. The psychoanalyst's goal is to make the patient aware of these subconscious feelings. Childhood conflicts that are hidden away by the patient become revealed to both the analyst and the patient, allowing the patient to live a less anxious, healthier life. (Okun 2008)

Freud first developed these methods of psychoanalysis when he met with patients whose disorders did not make neurological sense. A patient, for example, may have suddenly gone blind. The problem is that there is no damage to either of his eyes. Freud began to wonder if this disorder might be psychological rather than physiological. A patient not wanting to see something that aroused anxiety might have caused his own blindness, he hypothesized. In order to find out what the anxiety stemmed from, he used methods of free association where the patient would say whatever came into his mind. Through the slips made when the patient was told to carry out the free-association process, and some of the patient's beliefs and habits, Freud could delve into the patient's subconscious. These thoughts produced a chain directly into the patient's subconscious, and unearthed memories and feelings. This process soon became known as psychoanalysis. Freud also believed that dreams were an important way of getting into the patient's subconscious. By analyzing dreams, he could reveal the basis of conflict within the patient. (Rogers 1980)

Freud developed one of his most famous theories of the mind when he realized the source of conflict in a person. He theorized that there were three interacting systems within the mind: the id, ego, and superego. The id is the largest part of the unconscious, and operates mainly on the need to gain pleasure and satisfaction. It mainly is the driving force behind a newborn infant who has no cares of the outside world, and will start to cry the moment it needs to be satisfied. The id is mostly the instincts that are part of a person for his whole life. The ego develops in a young child as a method to cope with the real world and satisfy the id's impulses in more realistic ways other than crying. The ego can be seen as the moderator between the id and superego. Finally, the superego is the region of the mind that is mostly conscious. The superego forces the ego to consider the most ideal way of dealing with a problem. It is made up of morals, values, and culture's influence on a person. The superego's demands are very much opposed to those of the id, and it is the ego that must struggle to balance the ideas of the two. To live in a society one must be able to control the sexual impulses of the id. (Okun 2008)

The roots of the anxiety in most of Freud's patients, he discovered, had usually come ...