Neo-Freudian Personality Theory

The Neo-Freudian is a group of psychiatrists and psychologists that constituted the followers of Sigmund Freud. Freud is popularly known as the father of psychiatry, and by many, father of modern personality theory.

Because Sigmund had always been very stubborn and rigid about his ideas and theories, hence his members and followers began to break from the Freudian camp. These neo-Freudians extended Freud’s theory in social and cultural directions, and came up with theories that were well received in their own right.

These newly emerged theories, however, held the same underlying beliefs and ideas of psychoanalysis- a popular Freudian theory of personality. Other than that, these theories also maintained other ideas of Freud, like defense mechanisms related to unconsciousness, and role of unconsciousness in important drive in human emotions, cognitions, thoughts and behavior.

The main disagreements revolved around his failure to incorporate social and cultural influences, his belief that adult personality is shaped by early childhood experiences, and last but not the least, the negativity in Freud’s theories.

In simple words, those who left the psychoanalytical society to form their own schools of thoughts are known as Psychodynamic or Neo-Freudians. These Neo-Freudians believed that social relationships are fundamental to the formation and developmental of personality.

Among these, we will discuss Carl Jung’s Individual psychology, Alfred Adler’s Individual psychology, Erik and Erickson’s Ego psychology, Karen Horney, Stack Sullivan and Erik Fromm.

Alfred Adler believed that we are born with a sense of inferior. He placed much stress on a human being’s efforts in overcoming the feelings of inferiority by concluding that we are born as weak and helpless and strive to become strong and superior. Alfred also gave in the idea of parenting by highlighting two major situations he called over-pampering or completing neglecting a child. He believed both played a negative role in damaging the personality of an individual as an adult. All in all, he viewed human beings as seeking to attain various rational goals, which he called style of life.

As per Adler’s birth order theory, he believed that the order in which you born into a family greatly influences his personality. For instance, the oldest kid of the family might be the too spoilt and later have a poorly develop personality due to all the attention he got being the oldest one and so on.

Carl Jung on the other hand represented his theory called the collective unconscious according to which a person’s fears, thoughts, behavior exhibited by children and adults are significantly similar across times and cultures. In his newly develop school of thought known as Analytical psychology, he discussed how collective unconsciousness influenced personality. In light of his theory he spoke of how the young developed inevitable fear of the dark, how infants develop immediate attachment to their mothers and certain images like that of sun, moon, angels and demons predominate themes since the beginning of times.

[large]Erik Erikson, another psychodynamic came up with new ideas on ego criticizing that ego Freud described was far more than just a relationship between superego and the id. Considering ego as a positive driving force in development, he said that ego aimed at maintaining and establishing a good identity. Conversely, those with poor egos suffer what we call identity crises. In contrast to Freud’s psychosexual stages, Erik came up with his theory of individuals psychosocial developmental stages. This theory constitutes 8 significant stages, each with two possible outcomes. These stages are labeled as:

1. Trust VS Mistrust

2. Autonomy VS Shame and Doubt

3. Initiative VS Guilt

4. Industry VS Inferiority

5. Identity VS role Confusion

6. Intimacy VS Isolation

7. Generativity VS Stagnation

8. Ego Integrity VS Despair

Harry Stack Sullivan, another Neo-Freudian, laid importance on the fact that people always establish relationships with others so as to gain positivity and develop a healthy acquaintance. He was particularly concerned with the individual’s efforts to reduce tensions, such as anxiety.

Karen Horney a neo-Freudian was also interested in anxiety. She engrossed on the impact of child-parent relationships and the individual’s desire to overcome feelings of anxiety. Horney classified the individuals into three groups of personality:

1. Compliant individuals: are those who seek others. These individuals desire to be loved, feel wanted and appreciated.

2. Aggressive individuals: are those who move along others. These individuals desire to excel, irrespective of consequences and win admiration.

3. Detached individuals: are those who resent others. These individuals wished to be independent and self-reliant. They exhibit characteristics like self-sufficiency, individualism and freedom from obligations.