Tania Jorge 20081419

17 April 2008

Psychodynamic and Humanistic Approaches to Personality PS103 Semester One: Essay

Tutor:

Sarla Sujan

Word Limit: 1500-1800 Word Count: 1776

The psychology of personality can be seen from both the psychodynamic and humanistic perspectives (Mayer: 2001). A persons personality is their exclusive collection of steady behavioural qualities (Weiten: 2007). Although these two perspectives of personality differ in their focus and language there are also many similarities between them. There are both differences and similarities in the central focus of the psychodynamic and humanistic approaches to personality. Both of these theories of personality cover mental mechanisms, mental models and traits. They generally address the same topics in relation to their structures. They also have sets of primary parts including their structural sets (Mayer: 2001). Each approach to personality development has the basic idea that the development of the personality begins in childhood with childhood experiences. Psychodynamic theory then goes on to describe psychosexual stages that a child goes through while humanistic theory attributes personality development to whether a child receives conditional or unconditional love from their caretakers. There are advantages in both approaches to personalities. They have made some groundbreaking insights into certain aspects of personality development. However there are also gaps in each of the two approaches (Weiten: 2007). There are many consistencies and differences between the humanistic and psychodynamic approaches to personality. There are also many positive aspects as well as gaps in each approach. In this essay I will discuss the consistencies and inconsistencies of each of these two approaches and finally, evaluate each of them.

Psychodynamic and humanistic approaches to personality have different central focuses but certain aspects of each approach are still similar. The centre of the psychodynamic theory of personality is on the importance of unconscious mental forces (Weiten: 2007). It also emphasises the importance of conflicting mental processes. Sexual and aggressive desires, in psychodynamic theory, have a large role in both consciously and unconsciously swaying behaviour, emotions and opinions. Interpersonal habits, which are determined during childhood, have ongoing effects on the personality throughout adult life in the psychodynamic approach to personality. This emphasises the great influence of past experiences on a persons functioning present and future. Psychodynamic theory also emphasises the importance of defence mechanisms and self-deception (Westen: 1990). The humanistic approach to personality, on the other hand, looks optimistically at human potential. It emphasises the exclusive qualities of humans, particularly their liberty and potential for human expansion (Weiten: 2007). Humanistic theorists believe that a persons unique memories and experiences lead to a unique behavioural pattern as human beings dynamically process information (Revelle: 1995). In contrast to the psychodynamic approach the humanistic approach, to personality makes the assumption that people are able to manage biological urges and climb above their ancestral animal traditions. Again, unlike the psychodynamic theory, humanistic theory believes that humans are more often than not aware and sensible beings that are not conquered by unconscious illogical clashes. In humanistic theory a persons subjective view of the world is more important than objective reality. It takes on a

phenomenological approach. To actually recognise their behaviour, it is believed that a person has to understand their own individual skewed experiences (Weiten: 2007).

Humanistic and psychodynamic approaches to personality differ in their idea of the structure of personality. Carl Rogers humanistic view of personality is a person-centred theory because of its emphasis on a persons subjective point of view (Thorne: 1992). The personality structure of the humanistic approach is made up of one construct, this being the self-concept. The self-concept is a mental picture of yourself, it is a collection of self perceptions. It may not be entirely consistent with a persons experiences or realities and when this is the case it is said to be incongruent. People often distort their experiences and realities in order to promote good self-concept. In psychodynamic theory the structure of personality is broken up into three distinct parts unlike the humanistic theory that acknowledges only one. The id is the primal, intuitive part of personality that demands instant satisfaction of its urges. The second of the three parts is the ego that is the choice making part. It tries to hold-up the satisfaction of the ids urges pending a point in time when appropriate passages and circumstances can be found. The superego is the ethical part that integrates communal values about right and wrong. It appears out of the ego at three to five years of age. The structures of personality are distributed evenly across three levels of awareness (Weiten: 2007). These are the conscious, the preconscious and the unconscious (Lemma-Wright: 1995). The humanistic approach to

personality does not place the emphasis on the unconscious that the psychodynamic approach does (Weiten: 2007).

Psychodynamic theory asserts that patterns of a stable personality begin in childhood with a persons childhood experiences with their caretakers (Westen: 1998). Your development as a child determines how you will function as an adult (Hingley: 2001). This theory puts forward the idea that the caretakers of a child, such as a mother or father, play a crucial role in moulding their adult personalities, especially in shaping the ways that the children will interact with others in the future (Westen: 1998). A caretakers capacity to respond calmly and securely to a childs distress leads the child to develop positive ways of responding to their own distress (Hingley: 2001) The psychodynamic approach to personality acknowledges five psychosexual stages of development. The Oral stage that occurs from zero to one year of age, the Anal stage that occurs from two to three years of age, the Phallic stage that occurs from four to five years of age, the Latency stage that occurs from six to twelve years of age, and the Genital stage that goes from puberty onward. The psychosexual sages in a childs life leave a mark on the childs adult personality. Each of the psychosexual developmental stages has challenges and it is how these challenges are handled and resolved that shape the childs adult personality. Too much satisfaction or aggravation of a childs needs during each psychosexual stage can lead to fixation. Fixations left over from childhood influence the adult personality. A failure to move on from one stage to the next as predicted leads to an

overemphasis on the psychosexual needs that are present during the particular psychosexual stage of fixation. For example, fixation in the oral stage could cause obsessive eating or smoking in later life. Excessive punishment in training in the anal stage may lead to a feeling of hostility towards the mother that could then be generalised to all women. It could also lead to a link between genital concern and anxiety. The anxiety from toilet training could also then lead to anxiety about sexual activities later in life (Weiten: 2007).

The humanistic approach to personality development is, like the psychodynamic approach, concerned with childhood experiences. However, it is concerned with how childhood experiences promote congruence, a relatively accurate selfconcept, and incongruence, a gap between self-concept and reality. Like the psychodynamic theory of personality, the humanistic theory places an emphasis that the role of the caregiver of a child plays in influencing the childs adult personality. Unconditional love from parents or caregivers in childhood is seen to foster congruence in later life while conditional love is seen to foster incongruence. People with highly incongruent self-concepts are more prone to recurrent anxiety, which triggers defensive behaviour, like the defensive behaviour that is seen in the psychodynamic theory, which then leads to more incongruence (Weiten: 2007).

There are both positive and negative aspects of the psychodynamic and humanistic approaches to personality. Both approaches have poor testability and

a lack of a firm base of research. It is difficult to put either theory to an empirical test and due to this there is an inadequate base of empirical evidence. The humanistic approach in contrast to the psychodynamic approach has a very overly optimistic view of human nature. The psychodynamic approach has a very male-centred approach and does not adequately account for females. On a more positive level both approaches to personality have assisted on highlighting various factors of personality. The psychodynamic approach to personality has produced many groundbreaking insights in relation to the unconscious and the role of internal conflict. It has also produced groundbreaking insights about the importance of childhood experiences in the development of the personality. A single-case study done by Hingley also supports an integrated psychodynamic approach in enabling a positive personality to develop (Hingley: 2001). Humanistic theory has highlighted the importance of subjective views of oneself. It has also helped to lay the foundation for positive psychology. Both theories have produced many new insights and ideas to do with personality but there are also many downfalls and gaps in each of the two approaches (Weiten: 2007).

The humanistic and psychodynamic approaches to personality have both differences and consistencies in each approach. Each approach also offers some very good looks into different aspects of personality and personality development. There are however still gaps in each theory. The central focus of the psychodynamic and humanistic approaches to personality differs but there are still consistencies between the two theories. There are also differences in the

humanistic and psychodynamic approaches to the structure of personality. The humanistic approach sees only one major construct, the while the

psychodynamic approach sees three distinct constructs, the conscious, the preconscious and the subconscious. Psychodynamic and Humanistic theories both attribute personality development to childhood experiences with caretakers. Psychodynamic theory sees it as how challenges are dealt with in each psychosexual stage of development of personality while the humanistic approach leaves it to whether the child received conditional or unconditional love. Both approaches offer groundbreaking insights into the development of personality but both approaches also have downfalls such as the poor testability of each approach. Future research should cover the humanistic approach to personality, as there is little material that already thoroughly covers this topic. There is also insufficient material, which deals with the testing of each of the two theories, but this could also be put down to their poor testability.

References Hingley, S. M. (2001). Psychodynamic theory and narcissistically related personality problems: Support from case study research. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 74, 57-72. Lemma-Wright, A. (1995). Invitation to Psychodynamic Psychology. London: Whurr Publishers Ltd. Mayer, J. D. (2001). Primary Divisions of Personality and their Scientific Contributions: From the Trilogy-of-Mind to the Systems Set. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 31 (4), 449-477. Revelle, W. (1995). Personality Processes. Annual Review of Psychology, 46, 295-328. Thorne, B. (1992). Carl Rogers. London: Sage Publications. Weiten, W. (2007). Psychology: Themes & Variations, 7th Edition. California: Thomson Wadsworth. Westen, D. (1998). The Scientific Legacy of Sigmund Freud: Toward a Psychodynamically Informed Psychological Science. Psychological Bulletin, 124 (3), 333-371.