Theories of Personality

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Theories of Personality

• Freud Psychoanalysis
• Rogers Person-Centered

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What is a Personality Theory?

• An attempt to construct
• a comprehensive explanation
• of complex human behavior

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Sigmund Freud

• An anecdote the forgotten word
• What does the aliquis story tell us about
  Freuds ideas?
• Psychic Determinism
• Unconscious Determinants
• Controversy and Threat

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Freuds Life

• Trained as a neurologist
• A hard-core scientist of his day
• Went into the practice of medicine to earn a
  living
• Many of his patients were neurotic, with
  symptoms that made no physical sense
• Freud tried to explain normal and abnormal
  phenomena by neurology

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Human Development

• Early experience affects later personality
• Each stage of life presents us with issues that
  we must resolve
• How others respond to us and how we respond
  generates a tendency to respond with similar
  tactics in the future
• As we mature we tend toward greater organization
  and effectiveness

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Oral Stage

• 0-2 years, undifferentiated response, It (Id)
• Primary process, Pleasure Principle
• Will the world provide for my needs?
• Locus of interaction feeding, mouth
• Overindulgence
• Underindulgence
• Optimal Indulgence

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Anal Stage

• 2-4 Years, Self, I (Ego) develops
• Secondary Process, Reality Principle
• How do I respond to demands that I control
  myself?
• Locus of Interaction Toilet Training
• Overindulgence
• Underindulgence
• Optimal Indulgence

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Phallic, Latent, Genital Stages

• Phallic
• 4-6, Awareness of Gender Differences
• Model same-sex parent
• Incorporate Societys Norms, Rules
• Conscience Over-I (Super-Ego)
• Genital
• At adolescence mature sexuality

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Adjustment

• We resolve the stages imperfectly
• We remain uncertain about some issues
• The self or I (Ego) must address
• Needs, desires, impulses, wishes
• Reality of the external world
• Social demands and constraints

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Defense Mechanisms

• Conflict between our wishes and reality
• Compromise, protect against anxiety
• Denial
• Displacement
• Projection
• Reaction Formation
• Sublimation work, love, play

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Psychopathology

• Ineffective and repetitive patterns of behavior
• Unconscious (person remains unaware of the
  reasons)

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Psychoanalytic Therapy

• Topic for April 21st

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Carl Rogers

• Developed Person-Centered Theory
• Studied Ministry, Trained as a Psychologist
• Worked in Child Guidance Clinic
• Began to Help Adults
• Over time, Realized he had a New Approach

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Actualizing Tendency

• Each Person Born with
• An Inherent Tendency
• To Actualize
• A Unique Potential
• To develop all of our capacities in ways that
  maintain and enhance our organism

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Bodily Wisdom

• We have an inherent ability to differentiate
  between experiences that actualize and those that
  do not actualize our potential
• We know what feels good and what doesnt
• We can differentiate and monitor varying degrees
• We must be fully open to all of our experience
  (Use it or Lose it)

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Others Can Help Us

• Significant people in our lives can help us to
  experience fully
• Differentiate and identify our bodily senses
• However, we need proper balance
• Overindulgence
• Underindulgence
• Optimal Indulgence

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Organismic Valuing Process

• Experiencing becomes more than just bodily
  sensing
• More differentiated
• More mental discriminations , labeling
• Cognitive, analytical skills

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The Concept of Self

• Experience a self separate from the environment
• Me and Not-Me are separate experiences
• Self-Concept, a social concept, of the kind of
  person we imagine ourselves to be

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Need for Positive Regard

• Important to have Positive Self Regard
• We develop our Concept of Self from our
  interactions with others
• For Positive Self Regard we need Positive Regard
  from Others
• Ideal Unconditional Positive Regard
• Accepted regardless of whether we meet
  expectations of the other person

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Potential Conflict

• We often experience Conditions of Worth
• When we are only accepted and valued by others
  when we meet their expectations
• Leads to Conditional Self Regard
• That can lead to a Rift between
• Our own experience (valuing process)
• A concept of who we think we should be

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Maladjustment

• How do we deal with experiences that conflict
  with our self concept?
• Denial or Distortion of our own experience
• Experiences not integrated into self concept
• Such experiences threaten, disturbing to our
  personality organization
• Use defense mechanisms to distort the experience,
  maintain self concept

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Rigidity, Defenses

• Gap between self concept and experience leads to
  rigidity of perception, behavior
• In addition to Freuds mechanisms, Rogers
  emphasized
• Fantasy
• Compensation
• Identification

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Person-Centered Therapy

• Topic for April 21st