Index Characteristics of Freud's psychoanalytic statements and theory Humanistic Maslow: a person-centered theory Concluding thoughts There have been countless studies and theories that attempt to define the mental processes that occur in different phases of our lives, as well as explaining the causes of certain behaviors and psychopathologies. The attempt to discover why human beings are the way they are and why each individual has their own unique personality has led to several approaches; all doable and containing valuable information. Each theory, no matter how different, contributed to the greater goal of ultimately understanding the human mind. It is useful to discuss approaches such as Freud's psychoanalysis and Maslow's theory of holistic dynamics which appear very different on the surface but can be explored to find similarities that aid further research. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Characteristics of Freud's Psychoanalytic Claims and Theory Sigmund Freud is known as the founder of psychoanalysis; the most famous of all personality theories. Essentially, psychoanalysis is a patient-centered approach, which Freud based largely on his experiences with patients, the analysis of his own dreams, and his extensive readings in the various sciences and humanities (Feist, Feist, & Roberts, 2018) . Freud considered mental life divided into conscious (what we know), unconscious (what we don't know we know) and preconscious (what we don't know but can be remembered). the way these three levels interact. The conscious is everything the mind is aware of and plays a much smaller role than the unconscious and preconscious. Our unconscious drives impulses and instincts that go beyond awareness. The unconscious fuels behaviors and is largely responsible for what a person does or how they feel. Freud believed that critical moments of development occurred during childhood. According to him, the way in which developmental stages unfold from infancy to childhood shapes how an individual thinks and behaves in adulthood. He described children as going through five stages of sexual development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital). During each stage, a child will move from enjoying sucking and biting with the mouth (oral) to toilet training (anal), genital stimulation, or the phallic stage (at this stage, Freud believed the child would turn his interest and love towards the parent of the opposite sex and resentment towards the parent of the same sex), followed by a period of non-existent sexual impulses (latency) and finally turned to adult sexual interests (genitals). What a child experiences during the early stages can alter his or her development as an adult and therefore lead to healthy, normal behaviors or certain psychopathologies. As these phases occurred, Freud theorized what he called the three provinces of the mind; The id, ego and superego also play an important role in the background. The id is known as the pleasure principle of the mind; his only motive is to seek pleasure without regard for what is appropriate or right. Freud believed that a child was the embodiment of an id free from the restrictions of the ego and superego (Feist, Feist, & Roberts, 2018). A baby will suck his thumb even if he receives nourishment only by sucking his mother's nipple because he fails to realize that thumb sucking does not provide nourishment; the id is not logical and is not changed by experiences. After childhood, the ego comes into play, responsible for facing reality; it is essentially what prevents the Idand for the Superego to take over. For Freud, the ego differentiates itself from the id when children learn to distinguish themselves from the external world. While the idryman remains unchanged, the ego continues to develop strategies to manage the id's unrealistic and relentless demands for pleasure (Feist, Feist, & Roberts, 2018). The superego, or the ideal self, arises from the ego and works at a conscious level where it strives for perfection, sometimes being unrealistic. The ideal self is largely determined during childhood by parental values ​​and how an individual was raised (McLeod, S.A., 2007). Freud spent his time studying patients to gain more information about the human personality. He worked on extracting repressed childhood memories from his patients through suggestive procedures and later aimed to discover them through dream analysis and free association. He worked individually with his patients in typical therapy sessions. For Freud, dreams were the window into the unconscious and so he used his patients' dreams to learn more about any unconscious processes that may be occurring. Essentially, Freud believed that the core of our personality is defined by the three provinces of the mind, and is critically shaped by the experiences that occur during the five stages of sexual development. During each stage, the child is presented with conflicts between biological drives and social expectations, and success in addressing each will lead to a fully mature personality (Wolberg, 1974). Most of the important milestones that determine who an individual becomes occur in the early years of life, and what one sees in adulthood is the product of those experiences. Humanistic Maslow: A Person-Centered Theory Abraham Maslow took a humanistic “person-centered” approach to defining personality. Maslow called his approach a holistic-dynamic theory because it assumes that the whole person is constantly motivated by one need or another and that people have the potential to grow toward psychological health, or “self-actualization” (Feist, Feist and Roberts, 2018). Maslow believed that there could be too much focus on biological factors and that a person had all the potential to grow throughout their life. To achieve this significant growth and ultimately achieve happiness, or “self-actualization,” certain needs must be met. To explain the “steps” an individual takes in life to achieve desired self-realization, Maslow created a hierarchy of needs. In this whole hierarchy, which he depicted as a ladder, the most basic needs are at the bottom, and must be satisfied for any other “higher level” needs. The most basic needs begin with physiological needs. A human being needs food, water, oxygen, etc., which are the most important of all. This is a very primitive need and is usually satisfied in wealthy societies, so individuals do not actively suffer these “needs” and can move up the hierarchy. Physiological needs are followed by safety needs; security, stability, dependence, protection and freedom from threatening forces. Unlike physiological needs, safety needs cannot be oversatisfied, as people can never be fully protected from meteors, fires, floods, or the dangerous acts of others (Feist, Feist, & Roberts, 2018). Love and belonging must follow in the hierarchy, as an individual needs to feel loved and establish meaningful relationships. Children must satisfy this need to grow psychologically. This is followed by esteem needs, such as self-respect, trust, competence, etc. And finally, the hierarchy ends with self-realization. Maslow implies that in the enda human being strives for self-realization in a natural way, even if not all individuals achieve it. Every person is capable and has the desire to move up the hierarchy towards a level of self-actualization, but unfortunately, progress is often interrupted by the inability to satisfy lower level needs (Mcleod, S., 2007). To find individuals who Maslow believed were “self-actualized,” he began searching among people he had met throughout his life, such as colleagues. If someone is already self-fulfilling, he then asked himself what motivates that person. In searching for an answer he found motivation through intrinsic values ​​such as "truth, goodness, beauty, perfection, excellence, simplicity, elegance and so on". (Guest, H.S., 2014). He had certain criteria for self-actualization, primarily that they were free from psychopathology, had progressed through the hierarchy of needs, and had full use of their talents, abilities, and potential. Maslow implemented a type of patient-centered therapy where the goal would be for clients to embrace values ​​such as justice, goodness, simplicity, etc. And free themselves from dependence on others. His form of psychotherapy aimed to help people achieve self-realization, many times developing a warm, loving, interpersonal relationship with the therapist, which would then lead to the needs for love, belonging, and esteem being met. This healthy form of therapy would then allow the client to establish these relationships in their life outside of therapy, thus bringing them closer to achieving self-realization. In contrast to what can be considered Freud's rather pessimistic approach, Maslow appears to have a more hopeful view of human experience. While Freud believes that most of an individual's development occurs in the early stages of life, during childhood, Maslow considers the fact that humans do not have a finite amount of time to fully develop. He theorizes that human beings strive to “self-actualize” throughout their lives and have the opportunity to do so even as adults. Freud's psychoanalytic approach largely suggests that an individual does not have complete control over how they reveal themselves later in life. If certain delays occurred during any of the psychosexual phases, it would lead to more severe anxieties, neuroses, repressed emotions, or psychopathology. Maslow, on the other hand, does not address any particular point in an individual's life that would directly lead to permanent damage in adulthood. If you look at Freud's theory of personality, you recognize that human beings are almost primitive in nature, constantly subjected to a battle of the id and the superego to control animalistic pleasure-seeking impulses. From childhood, humans work on autopilot to seek pleasure, until they reach a point in their growth where the ego develops and essentially mediates actions to meet social expectations. Observing the actions of a human being seen during childhood, Maslow would define such behaviors as satisfying physiological, or most basic, needs. This need must be met in order for the person to move on to more complex needs higher up the hierarchy. For Maslow, these needs are all rooted in the human species (Guest, HS, 2014). Concluding Thoughts The forces that motivate individuals in psychoanalytic theory are sexual in nature, as Freud believed that most observed development occurs through a gradual process. movement of sexual energy through the provinces of the mind. In contrast, the holistic-dynamic theory described by Maslow leaves motivation entirely up to the individual. While Freud defines the.