Ch.14 Psychoanalysis: After the Founding

A Lost, Lonely Little Boy

  • Introduction to Maslow's life and early experiences.

    • Gathering stray kittens for companionship reflected his need for love.

    • Mother's abusive behavior reinforced Maslow's feelings of rejection.

  • Childhood observations: Maslow felt unloved, isolated, and unwanted.

    • Father’s alcoholism and neglect further complicated his home life.

    • Mother's favoritism towards siblings led to Maslow's hostile feelings (“God would punish him”)

    • Inferiority Complex - tried to compensate for his feelings (athletics) - but found peace in books - led to creation of his own approach to human nature

  • Maslow’s Perspective: Strong aversion towards parental figures due to mistreatment influenced his psychological theories.

Competing Factions in Psychoanalysis

  • Freud's influence diminished as psychoanalysis branched into various schools of thought.

    • Freud rejected dissenting opinions and distanced himself from his former followers.

    • Anna Freud: expanded on her father’s work, but remained loyal to him

  • Understood key figures: Anna Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, and Karen Horney.

    • Each contributed uniquely to psychological analysis, moving either in agreement or opposition to Freud’s ideas.

  • Humanistic Psychology: Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers

  • Positive Psychology: Martin Seligman

The Neo-Freudians and Ego Psychology

  • Neo-Freudians maintained core of psychoanalysis while adapting fundamental ideas:

    • Ego's Role: Viewed as an independent entity, not just a servant to the id.

    • Ego possesses its own energy and can function without id conflicts.

    • Personality Development: Emphasized socio-psychological factors over biological instincts.

    • Focus Shift: Prioritized social interactions over infantile sexual experiences and Oedipus complex

Anna Freud

  • Early Life: Born into Freud's family, experienced a lonely childhood.

    • leader of Neo-Freudian Ego Psychology

    • Symbolism of Birth: the beginning of psychoanalysis

    • Attached to her father, interested in his work at 14yrs., entered the field of analysis at 22 yrs. of age.

    • Controversy of Anna’s analysis with Freud

    • Identity Crisis:

      • “Beating Fantasies and Daydreams” - paper describing dreams involving beating, masturbation, and incestuous father-daughter relationship (received well)

      • Rejected marriage and parenthood — long-term relationship with a women (argued to be emotional, not sexual)

      • Devoted to apply psychoanalytic theory to treatment of emotionally disturbed children.

  • Contributions: Child Analysis +Ego Functionality

    • Developed child psychoanalysis, emphasizing children's limited verbal skills and immaturity.

    • Pioneered the use of play therapy and observed children in natural settings.

    • Anna Freud Centre in London

    • Revised orthodox Freudian concepts to highlight the ego’s functions and defense mechanisms.

      • gave more precise meanings to mechanism and applied her analyses with children.

Carl Jung

  • Freud “my successor and crown prince” - heir to psychoanalytic movement

  • 1914 - Jung developed own theory: analytical psychology

  • Early Life:

    • Childhood marked by isolation and emotional instability, affecting his analytical psychology.

    • Learned to not trust or confide in his parents; turned away from conscious world of reason to inward world of his dreams/visions.

    • relied on unconscious forces to make decisions (e.g. dreamed of prehistoric animals = study science in college)

    • Interested in psychiatry; practice did not use Freud’s habit of asking patients to lie on bed.

  • Relationship with Freud:

    • 1900, The Interpretations of Dreams - Jung called it a masterpiece

    • Jung initially admired Freud and formed a close, almost father-son relationship with him, but deep psychological conflicts—including past trauma and a desire for independence—eventually led to their estrangement.

    • Though Jung was respected in his own right, his growing theoretical differences with Freud and tensions within the psychoanalytic community culminated in a final break by 1914.

  • Emotional Crisis:

    • Thought he was going insane; considered suicide, kept a gun by his bed.

    • Had vivid, disturbing visions and dreams (e.g., apocalypse, talking to the dead, being squeezed by a serpent).

    • The Red Book - Private journal with dreams, visions, and drawings (~200 pages).

    • Resolved crisis by confronting his unconscious through dreams and fantasies (unlike Freud, didn’t analyze systematically)

    • Believed middle age (not childhood) is the most important stage for personality development.

    • Leading to his own personality Theory

Analytical Psychology

  • Oedipus Complex: Jung did not discuss Oedipus complex; not relevant

  • Sexual Restrain: Did not find importance in limiting his sexual activities; unlike Freud, sex was not central to human motivation

  • Relationships: Being socially isolated in childhood — did not place importance on interpersonal relationship like Freud did — instead, emphasized inner growth

  • Altered Definition of Libido: a general life energy, sex was a mere part of it.

  • Forces of Personality: Freud believed personality was driven by childhood events (before age 5). Jung believed personality was also driven by future goals/aspirations — it was subject to change

  • Added Collective Unconscious: Jung dived deeper into unconscious.

The Collective Unconscious

  • Personal Unconscious: beneath conscious awareness

    • memories - impulses - experiences, once a part of conscious but forgotten or repressed

    • not deep, and these events can be easily recalled to consciousness

  • Collective Unconscious: below personal conscious

    • deepest level of the psyche, consisting of inherited experiences of human and prehuman species

    • we do not remember these or have images of them

Archetypes

  • inherited tendencies withing collective unconscious

  • makes us behave in similar ways to ancestors who were in similar situations

  • linked to life events like: birth, marriage, death

  • the “gods” of unconscious

  • Some Directly Shape Our Personality:

    • Persona: the social mask we present to the world, conceals true personality (role play in differing situations)

    • Anima (feminine) and Animus (masculine): display characteristics of opposite sex, arising from primitive past

    • Shadow: dark, animalistic part of personality, inherited from lower life forms, immoral/unacceptable desires, urges us to do things we typically wouldn’t allow ourselves to do.

      • has positive (emotions, creativity) sides as well

    • Self: the core of our identity that integrates all parts of unconscious , embodying our true essence and individuality.

      • provides stability — driving to self-actualization that is not realized until middle age (time for personal change)

Introversion and Extraversion

  • Extravert - outward libido, direct energy toward external events/people

    • sociable and self-confident

  • Introvert - inward libido, direct energy toward inner thoughts

    • introspective, resistant to external influences, contemplative

  • Jung recognized opposite attitudes: no one is complete extravert or introvert - dominate trait determined by circumstances

Psychological Types

  • Personality’s function + attitudes

    • thinking - rational, provides meanings + understanding

    • feeling - rational, judgement; weighing + valuing

    • sensing - non-rational, perception of physical reality

    • intuiting - non-rational, perception that is unconscious

  • Pairs of Function: (thinking + feeling) & (sensing+intuiting) — one dominates at given time

  • Dominant function + dominant attitude = 8 psychological types, e.g. extraverted thinking type

Contributions

  • “source of inspiration”

  • ignored largely by scientific psychology, less appealing than Freud

  • Received Well:

    • Word-association Test - Jung invented in 1900s

    • 8 Psychological Types = Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, popular personality test to measure psychological types

    • Introversion-Extraversion = Maudsley Personality Inventory

    • pathway for Maslow’s work in self-actualization

  • Criticized:

    • theory of complexes

    • archetypes

    • collective unconscious