Psychoanalytic Theory by Sigmund Freud Essay Example

Sigmund Freud was a neurologist who ultimately developed psychoanalysis in the 1890s. Psychoanalysis is the belief that everyone possesses thoughts, feelings, desires, and memories unconsciously. Freud believed everything that stimulates a person is out of their direct awareness. A person’s past experiences unconsciously are what Freud based his theory on and he believed the past is what causes us to feel or desire certain things. Sigmund Freud based the roots of our behavior and feelings as adults on our childhood experiences. This thought caused Freud to come up with psychosexual stages and with these, he believed if we as humans had challenges during the psychosexual stages then it would have a long-term impact on our personalities. Contrasting Sigmund Freud’s belief that all psychological issues related to sexual problems during childhood, Carl Rogers researched personality in the experience of how a person’s personality is related to their self-worth and their environment. 

Carl Rogers was a humanist psychologist that founded person-centered psychotherapy. He originally went to school for agriculture, but eventually changed his path and got a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. Carl Rogers based his theory on Abraham Maslow’s humanism and believes a person’s internal growth is based on the environment. He focused his work on the psychological conditions enabling the person to communicate and empower themselves openly. The person-centered theory is based on an individual’s personality rather than behavior, which makes this theory stand out above many of the others. Roger’s theory is extremely popular today and is used throughout education, nursing, and many other professions. 

Sigmund Freud Overview

Psychoanalysis was founded back between 1856-1939 by Sigmund Freud. Freud ultimately believed a person could make conscious of their unconscious thoughts and motivations and it would cure all negative emotions or feelings that they had. Events that happened in our childhood are what influences our personality and how we react to situations in adulthood according to Freud. For example, anxiety originating from traumatic experiences in a person’s past is hidden from consciousness and may cause problems during adulthood. (McLeod, 2018). During the explanation of our feelings or behaviors, we tend to cover up the truth of our motivations. This is because as humans we are great at self-deception and even though we don’t intend to lie about the reality behind our reasons, it is an instinct. Freud’s vocabulary was affected by western society and many of the words he introduced in his theories are still used today, including libido, denial, repression, neurotic, and Freudian slip. 

During the early 1900s, Freud developed a topographical model of the mind. In this model, he explained how the mind is structured and functions and this is where he started the iceberg relation describing the three levels of how the mind works. The tip of the iceberg is explained as consciousness because it is what retains the ideas of what we are engaged in now in reality. The preconscious consists of feelings that we are not aware of currently but can be brought to consciousness with much ease. The last of the three levels is the unconscious mind and is the part that Freud thought was the most important. It is seen as the bottom of the iceberg, underwater because you cannot see it like how the unconscious mind works. It is something that we are completely unaware of what information is stored there. 

Freud has seen this as what caused most of our behavior and consists of the unsettled or substantial information that we must keep out of awareness because acknowledging them fully can be threatening. For example, Freud (1915) found that some events and desires were often too frightening or painful for his patients to acknowledge, and believed such information was locked away in the unconscious mind. This can happen through the process of repression. (Mcleod, 2018). Freud wanted to make the unconscious mind conscious and made this the goal of psychoanalysis. 

Sigmund Freud also developed a model that included Id, Ego, and superego. These conceptions are what Freud saw as essential to the human personality. Id was involving the unconscious level and insisted on two instincts, the Eros and Thanatos. The Eros is described as the life instinct and is crucial to our survival. Sex, eating, and respiration are activities that arise during this principle. Libido, a popular term created by Freud, is the energy that is created by Eros. Thanatos is the opposite and is known as the death instinct. Aggression and violence occur when our energy is outwardly directed to others. Freud believed Eros is stronger than Thanatos, which allows us to survive instead of being self-destructive. Ego comes from Id in the early stages of life and its main goal is to fulfill the requirements of the id in a publicly appropriate way. The superego develops in early childhood and is where our moral standards evolve from. It is what makes us feel guilty, or bad about not doing the socially right thing. 

The psychosexual development was originated from Freud trying to understand the nature of our illnesses by looking at the sexual history of his patients. 

He believed during childhood, a child seeks pleasure from different objects and those stages included oral, anal, phallic, latent, and genital stages. To be psychologically healthy, each of these stages must be completed and if it isn’t metal abnormality takes place. The last thing that Freud focused on was dream analysis. Freud considered dreams to be the royal road to the unconscious (Das, 2016). Dreams are seen as a valuable clue in how the unconscious mind works. The manifest content is based on daily events during reality while the latent content is seen as the symbolic meaning. We usually remember the manifest content, while latent content is our inherent wish. Like his personality development, his dream theory is also based on id. It is also rooted in sex and believed to express our unfulfilled sexual desires. 

Carl Rogers Overview

Carl Rogers was a humanistic and founder of the person-centered approach during the 1940s. Rogers became one of the first therapists to record his sessions and do research based on the results. He believes that everyone is capable to change, and clients don’t have the need to be “fixed” by therapists but directed to make a positive change in themselves. The starting point of the Rogerian approach was originally stated by Rogers as: "It is that the individual has within himself or herself vast resources for self-understanding, for altering his or her self-concept, attitudes and self-directed behavior - and that these resources can be tapped if only a definable climate of facilitative psychological attitudes can be provided" (Mcleod, 2019). Carl Rogers focused on self-actualization and trusted that we as humans can self-heal and that we know ourselves better than anyone else. The center of the person-centered theory is self-concept which is the organized, consistent set of perceptions and beliefs of oneself. 

There are three basic principles that Rogers’s theory correlates with, the therapists being congruent with the client, therapists providing unconditional positive regard, and being empathetic to better understand the client. Being congruent with the client is simply being authentic with how the therapist approaches a client. They are open to the client about themselves and do not have a façade. For a person to completely fulfill their potential, a person must value themselves according to Rogers. In Person-centered therapy, the therapists might disprove a client’s actions but accept them for whom they are using unconditional positive regard. Using empathy in therapist-client settings was huge for Rogers because he felt that following how the client feels and for the therapist to be understanding of their feelings what help focus the client on the here and now. 

What makes them different?

Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic therapy is known to be very costly and can take much time, focusing on solving a problem with the patient. On the other hand, Rogers’s therapy is less expensive and quickly done, he focused on finding a solution to the problem. Another major difference is how each theorist viewed client vs patient. Rogers focused on the person being a client because he was helping them find themselves, while Freud saw them as patients because he was fixing the person and all their problems. Freud was very cold approached and worried about finding treatment for the patient instead of being warm, understanding, and communicating with the client as Rogers did. The therapists are often more involved in expressing their personality and feelings during a session in a person-centered approach to help be more genuine toward the client and help them reach their best potential. In psychoanalytic therapy, the therapists go back into the past to determine problem areas that might cause the client to perceive themselves negatively, while person-centered therapy wanted to focus on now and how to grow from where they are today.