Theories of Personality

• Carl Gustav Jung


  Psychiatrist from University of Bassel who proposed and developed the concepts of the extraverted and the introverted personality, archetypes, and the collective unconscious

  
• Ego


  • Represents the conscious mind, comprises the thoughts, memories, and emotions a person is aware of, largely responsible for feelings of identity and continuity
• Unconscious (according to Jung)


  Consists of two layers: Personal Unconscious and Collective Unconscious
• Personal Unconscious


  Essentially the same as Freud's version of the unconscious, contains temporarily forgotten information and repressed memories
• Complexes


  A collection of thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and memories that focus on a single concept, the more elements attached to the complex, the greater its influence on the individual
• Jungian therapy is less concerned with repressed childhood experiences, it is the present and the future which is the key to both the analysis of neurosis and its treatment
• Archetypes


  Images and thoughts which have universal meanings across cultures and may show up in dreams, literature, art or religion
• Persona (mask)


  • The outward face we present to the world, conceals our real self, the "conformity" archetype, the public face or role a person presents to others as someone different to who we really are
• Anima/Animus


  • The mirror image of our biological sex, the unconscious feminine side in males and the masculine tendencies in women
• Shadow


  • The animal side of our personality, the source of both our creative and destructive energies
• Self


  • Provides a sense of unity in experience, the ultimate aim of every individual is to achieve a state of selfhood
• Introvert-Extrovert Theory


  Jung's theory of personality types based on whether a person is oriented towards the inner world (introvert) or the outer world (extrovert)

  
• MBTI


  A self-report questionnaire based on Jung's work, indicating differing psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions, attempts to assign four categories: introversion or extraversion, sensing or intuition, thinking or feeling, judging or perceiving

  
• Karen Horney


  German-born American psychoanalyst who, departing from some of the basic principles of Sigmund Freud, suggested an environmental and social basis for the personality and its disorders
• Stages of Development (according to Jung)

  1. Childhood - Ego begins to develop, personality reflects parents' influence

  2. Young and early years - Maturing sexuality, growing consciousness, realization that carefree days of childhood are gone

  3. Middle life - Realization of mortality, tendency towards introverted and philosophical thinking

  4. Old age - Consciousness reduced, acquisition of wisdom
• Karen Horney

  • Founded Feminist psychology
  • Disagreed with Freud's Penis envy
  • Neo-Freudian
  • Neurotic
  • Basic Anxiety/ Basic Hostility
• Horney's criticisms of Freudian theory

  • Its rigidity toward new ideas
  • Its skewed view of feminine psychology
  • Its overemphasis on biology and the pleasure principle
• The Impact of Culture

  Horney insisted that modern culture is too competitive and that competition leads to hostility and feelings of isolation. These conditions lead to exaggerated needs for affection and cause people to overvalue love.
• The Importance of Childhood Experiences

  Neurotic conflict stems largely from childhood traumas, most of which are traced to a lack of genuine love. Children who do not receive genuine affection feel threatened and adopt rigid behavioral patterns in an attempt to gain love.
• Basic Hostility and Basic Anxiety

  All children need feelings of safety and security, but these can be gained only by love from parents. Unfortunately, parents often neglect, dominate, reject, or overindulge their children, conditions that lead to the child's feelings of basic hostility toward parents. If children repress feelings of basic hostility, they will develop feelings of insecurity and a pervasive sense of apprehension called basic anxiety.
• Humanistic psychoanalysis


  Looks at people from the perspective of psychology, history, and anthropology
• Erich Fromm's humanistic psychoanalysis


  • Influenced by Freud and Horney
  • Developed a more culturally oriented theory than Freud
  • Developed a much broader theory than Horney
• Human dilemma


  Humans have been torn away from their prehistoric union with nature and left with no powerful instincts to adapt to a changing world
• Uniquely human or existential needs

  • Relatedness
  • Transcendence
  • Rootedness
  • Sense of identity
  • Frame of orientation
• Protective devices people use to protect themselves from basic anxiety


  • Affection
  • Submissiveness
  • Power, prestige, or possession
  • Withdrawal
• Relatedness


  • Can take the form of submission, power, or love
  • Love is the only relatedness need that can solve the human dilemma
• Transcendence


  • Humans have to transcend their nature by destroying or creating people or things
  • Can destroy through malignant aggression or create and care about their creations
• Rootedness


  • Need to establish roots and feel at home in the world
  • Productively enables growth beyond mother's security
  • Nonproductively leads to fixation and fear of moving beyond mother's security
• Sense of identity


  • Awareness of ourselves as a separate person
  • Expressed nonproductively as conformity to a group
  • Expressed productively as individuality
• Frame of orientation


  • A road map or consistent philosophy by which we find our way through the world
  • Expressed nonproductively as a striving for irrational goals
  • Expressed productively as movement toward rational goals
• Burden of freedom


  • As people gained more political freedom, they began to experience more isolation and feel free from the security of a permanent place in the world
  • Freedom becomes a burden, and people experience basic anxiety
• Mechanisms of escape


  • Authoritarianism
  • Destructiveness
  • Conformity
• Positive freedom


  The spontaneous activity of the whole, integrated personality, achieved when a person becomes reunited with others
• Character orientations


  • Nonproductive: Receptive, Exploitative, Hoarding, Marketing
  • Productive: Work, Love, Reasoning
• Biophilia


  Productive love that necessitates a passionate love of all life
• Personality disorders


  • Necrophilia
  • Malignant narcissism
  • Incestuous symbiosis
• Fromm's theory is high on organizing knowledge, low on guiding action, internal consistency, and parsimony, and very low on generating research and falsifiability
• Normal people vs Neurotics

  Normal people have the flexibility to use any or all of the protective devices, but neurotics are compelled to rely rigidly on only one.
• Neurotic Needs


  • The neurotic need for affection and approval
  • The neurotic need for a partner
  • The neurotic need to restrict one's life to narrow borders
  • The neurotic need for power
  • The neurotic need to exploit others and get the better of them
  • The neurotic need for social recognition or prestige
  • The neurotic need for personal admiration
  • The neurotic need for personal achievement
  • The neurotic need for self-sufficiency and independence
  • The neurotic need for perfection and unassailability
• Neurotic Trends


  • Moving toward people - "I should be sweet, self-sacrificing, saintly"
  • Moving against people - "I should be powerful, recognized, a winner"
  • Moving away from people - "I should be independent, aloof, perfect"