PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT



Psychoanalytic Personality Assessment

Psychoanalytic Personality Assessment

Compare and contrast the psychoanalytic theories of Freud, Jung, and Adler

Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and Alfred Adler, these three figures loom large in the history of up to date psychology, casting long shadows that have, in the course of one 100 years, eternally altered the way we use the first-person pronoun, "I." Among these giants, Freud is indisputably the most towering monolith. It was Freud's pioneering use of the period "the I" ("das Ich" in his native German, which was then translated into the Latin "ego") that conveyed "ego" into widespread parlance and well liked interest to the process of self-consciousness.

Freud's innovative treatment method in which the patient is encouraged to speak freely about memories, associations, fantasies and dreams and which relies on Freud's theories of interpretation—was Freud's noble cause and, for a time, it was Alfred Adler's and Carl Jung's as well.(Wallace, 1983) Alfred Adler, a medical doctor with a deep interest in psychology and human nature, met Freud in their native Vienna in 1900 at a medical conference where Freud presented his new theories about dreams and the unconscious. Freud's radical ideas were met with scorn and open hostility—as they often were during these early years of the psychoanalytic movement. Adler, one of the few who had recognised the brilliance of Freud's first major work, The Interpretation of Dreams, was dismayed by the proceedings and came to Freud's defense in an article he wrote for a medical journal in which he demanded that Freud's views be given the respect and attention they deserved.(DeBerg, 2003) Adler soon joined the circle of psychologists who gathered at Freud's home on Wednesday evenings for animated discussion, debate and collaboration about emerging psychoanalytic theory.

Adler's school of psychology, which he called "Individual Psychology," was based on the idea of the indivisibility of the personality. His most significant divergence from Freud's premises was his belief that it was crucial to view the human being as a whole—not as a conglomeration of mechanisms, drives or dynamic parts. And in contrast to most psychological thinking of the time, Adler believed that, fundamentally, human beings are self-determined. Central to his therapeutic approach was his belief that people always have control over their lives and make choices that shape them. "Individual Psychology breaks through the theory of determinism," he writes. "No experience is a cause of success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences—the so-called trauma—but we make out of them just what suits our purposes. We are self-determined by the meaning we give to our experiences." Adler's emphasis on the wholeness of the person and the fact that our values inevitably shape our experience led to his conviction that, in the end, there is only one true meaning to human life: care and love for our fellowmen.”

Carl Jung met Freud in 1907, after he sent Freud a report on some of his early research in the psychotherapeutic technique of word association, to which Freud responded with an ...