Psychoanalysis.
Publié le 10/05/2013
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A cornerstone of modern psychoanalytic theory and practice is the concept of anxiety, which institutes appropriate mechanisms of defense against certain dangersituations.
These danger situations, as described by Freud, are the fear of abandonment by or the loss of the loved one (the object), the risk of losing the object's love,the danger of retaliation and punishment, and, finally, the hazard of reproach by the superego.
Thus, symptom formation, character and impulse disorders, andperversions, as well as sublimations, represent compromise formations—different forms of an adaptive integration that the ego tries to achieve through more or lesssuccessfully reconciling the different conflicting forces in the mind.
III PSYCHOANALYTIC SCHOOLS
Various psychoanalytic schools have adopted other names for their doctrines to indicate deviations from Freudian theory.
A Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung, one of the earliest pupils of Freud, eventually created a school that he preferred to call analytical psychology.
Like Freud, Jung used the concept ofthe libido; however, to him it meant not only sexual drives, but a composite of all creative instincts and impulses and the entire motivating force of human conduct.According to his theories, the unconscious is composed of two parts; the personal unconscious, which contains the results of the individual's entire experience, and thecollective unconscious, the reservoir of the experience of the human race.
In the collective unconscious exist a number of primordial images, or archetypes, common toall individuals of a given country or historical era.
Archetypes take the form of bits of intuitive knowledge or apprehension and normally exist only in the collectiveunconscious of the individual.
When the conscious mind contains no images, however, as in sleep, or when the consciousness is caught off guard, the archetypescommence to function.
Archetypes are primitive modes of thought and tend to personify natural processes in terms of such mythological concepts as good and evilspirits, fairies, and dragons.
The mother and the father also serve as prominent archetypes.
An important concept in Jung's theory is the existence of two basically different types of personality, mental attitude, and function.
When the libido and the individual'sgeneral interest are turned outward toward people and objects of the external world, he or she is said to be extroverted.
When the reverse is true, and libido andinterest are centered on the individual, he or she is said to be introverted.
In a completely normal individual these two tendencies alternate, neither dominating, butusually the libido is directed mainly in one direction or the other; as a result, two personality types are recognizable.
Jung rejected Freud's distinction between the ego and superego and recognized a portion of the personality, somewhat similar to the superego, that he called thepersona.
The persona consists of what a person appears to be to others, in contrast to what he or she actually is.
The persona is the role the individual chooses to playin life, the total impression he or she wishes to make on the outside world.
B Alfred Adler
Alfred Adler, another of Freud's pupils, differed from both Freud and Jung in stressing that the motivating force in human life is the sense of inferiority, which begins assoon as an infant is able to comprehend the existence of other people who are better able to care for themselves and cope with their environment.
From the momentthe feeling of inferiority is established, the child strives to overcome it.
Because inferiority is intolerable, the compensatory mechanisms set up by the mind may get outof hand, resulting in self-centered neurotic attitudes, overcompensations, and a retreat from the real world and its problems.
Adler laid particular stress on inferiority feelings arising from what he regarded as the three most important relationships: those between the individual and work,friends, and loved ones.
The avoidance of inferiority feelings in these relationships leads the individual to adopt a life goal that is often not realistic and frequently isexpressed as an unreasoning will to power and dominance, leading to every type of antisocial behavior from bullying and boasting to political tyranny.
Adler believedthat analysis can foster a sane and rational “community feeling” that is constructive rather than destructive.
C Otto Rank
Another student of Freud, Otto Rank, introduced a new theory of neurosis, attributing all neurotic disturbances to the primary trauma of birth.
In his later writings hedescribed individual development as a progression from complete dependence on the mother and family, to a physical independence coupled with intellectualdependence on society, and finally to complete intellectual and psychological emancipation.
Rank also laid great importance on the will, defined as “a positive guidingorganization and integration of self, which utilizes creatively as well as inhibits and controls the instinctual drives.”
D Other Psychoanalytic Schools
Later noteworthy modifications of psychoanalytic theory include those of the American psychoanalysts Erich Fromm, Karen Horney, and Harry Stack Sullivan.
Thetheories of Fromm lay particular emphasis on the concept that society and the individual are not separate and opposing forces, that the nature of society is determinedby its historic background, and that the needs and desires of individuals are largely formed by their society.
As a result, Fromm believed, the fundamental problem ofpsychoanalysis and psychology is not to resolve conflicts between fixed and unchanging instinctive drives in the individual and the fixed demands and laws of society,but to bring about harmony and an understanding of the relationship between the individual and society.
Fromm also stressed the importance to the individual ofdeveloping the ability to fully use his or her mental, emotional, and sensory powers.
Horney worked primarily in the field of therapy and the nature of neuroses, which she defined as of two types: situation neuroses and character neuroses.
Situationneuroses arise from the anxiety attendant on a single conflict, such as being faced with a difficult decision.
Although they may paralyze the individual temporarily,making it impossible to think or act efficiently, such neuroses are not deeply rooted.
Character neuroses are characterized by a basic anxiety and a basic hostilityresulting from a lack of love and affection in childhood.
Sullivan believed that all development can be described exclusively in terms of interpersonal relations.
Character types as well as neurotic symptoms are explained asresults of the struggle against anxiety arising from the individual's relations with others and are a security system, maintained for the purpose of allaying anxiety.
E Melanie Klein
An important school of thought is based on the teachings of the British psychoanalyst Melanie Klein.
Because most of Klein's followers worked with her in England, thishas come to be known as the English school.
Its influence, nevertheless, is very strong throughout the European continent and in South America.
Its principal theorieswere derived from observations made in the psychoanalysis of children.
Klein posited the existence of complex unconscious fantasies in children under the age of sixmonths.
The principal source of anxiety arises from the threat to existence posed by the death instinct.
Depending on how concrete representations of the destructiveforces are dealt with in the unconscious fantasy life of the child, two basic early mental attitudes result that Klein characterized as a “depressive position” and a“paranoid position.” In the paranoid position, the ego's defense consists of projecting the dangerous internal object onto some external representative, which is treatedas a genuine threat emanating from the external world.
In the depressive position, the threatening object is introjected and treated in fantasy as concretely retained.
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