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Chapter 5
The Psychoanalytic Approach:
The Neo-Freudians
Alfred Adler (1870-1937)
 Was born in Vienna in 1870, the third of six
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children
Had a series of childhood illnesses, including
pneumonia and rickets, and was nearly run
over twice by carts in the streets
Was first pampered by his mother, then
“dethroned” when his younger brother was
born
Strove to overcome his sense of inferiority by
studying furiously
Earned his medical degree in 1895
Became interested in Freud’s ideas, defended
Freud in 1902, and was invited to join Freud’s
inner circle
Split with Freud in 1911 and form his own
Society for Free Psychoanalytic Research,
later named the Association of Individual
Psychology
Key concepts introduced by Adler
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Striving for superiority
Inferiority complex
The social interest
Parental influences on personality development
– The optimal parenting style
– Problematic parenting styles
• Pampering
• Neglect
 Birth order influences on personality
– First borns: “problem children, neurotics, criminals, drunkards, and
perverts”?
– Middle borns: “de-throned” and therefore motivated to strive for
superiority?
– Last borns: pampered throughout their childhoods to the point of being
spoiled?
Birth order differences: What the research
findings actually show
 Firstborns work hard to meet adult standards from an early age. They
tend to achieve more in life and assume positions of greater
responsibility, but they also tend to be more anxious and stressed.
 Middle borns don’t stand out as a group. They tend to be more like
firstborns, however, when the age gap between them and their older
sibling(s) is large, rather than small.
 Lastborns tend to be charming, sociable, and relatively popular with
their peers. They can also be somewhat rebellious and unsatisfied with
the existing “social order.”
 Only children tend to resemble firstborns in many respects. They often
feel particularly burdened by the responsibility of fulfilling their
parents’ hopes and dreams for them.
Design of the study by Ickes and Turner
(1983)
LB ♂ with older sister(s)
FB ♂ with younger sister(s)
LB ♀ with older brothers
♂ with OS ─ ♀ with OB
♂ with YS ─ ♀ with OB
FB ♀ with younger brothers
♂ with OS ─ ♀ with YB
♂ with YS ─ ♀ with YB
Birth order influences in mixed-sex dyads
(Ickes & Turner, 1983)
Amount of talking
120
100
80
Men
60
Women
40
20
0
Firstborn male
dyads
Lastborn male
dyads
Birth order influences in mixed-sex dyads
(Ickes & Turner, 1983)
Number of questions asked
8
7
6
5
Men
4
3
Women
2
1
0
Firstborn male
dyads
Lastborn male
dyads
Birth order influences in mixed-sex dyads
(Ickes & Turner, 1983)
Amount of looking at partner
120
100
80
Men
60
Women
40
20
0
Firstborn male
dyads
Lastborn male
dyads
Birth order influences in mixed-sex dyads
(Ickes & Turner, 1983)
Amount of smiling
12
10
8
Men
6
Women
4
2
0
Firstborn male
dyads
Lastborn male
dyads
Birth order influences in mixed-sex dyads
(Ickes & Turner, 1983)
Liking for partner
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Men
Women
Firstborn male
dyads
Lastborn male
dyads
Carl Jung (1875-1961)
 Was born in a small Swiss canton
 As a child, he was a loner who was
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extremely introspective
Earned his medical degree in 1900
Began a correspondence with Freud,
whom he met in 1907
Became Freud’s disciple and heir
apparent, and accompanied Freud on
his 1909 trip to the US
Broke with Freud in 1914 and spent the
next seven years in virtual isolation
Emerged from this period with a new
view of personality that built on many
of Freud’s ideas but added many new
and unique elements
Key concepts introduced by Jung
 Identification of introversion–extraversion as a fundamental dimension
of human personality
 The collective unconscious
– complemented the personal unconscious
– represents the collective experience of the human species
 Archetypes: primordial images found in all cultures at all times
 Primary archetypes
– The self
– The shadow: the dark side of the self
– The anima: the feminine aspect of the male
– The animus: the masculine aspect of the female
Jungian archetypes
Primary
Archetypes
Primary
Characters
Primary
Characters
Women
Figures
Primary
Situations
Symbols
and
Associations
The Self
The Hero
The Woman
Figure
The Great
Mother
The Quest
LightDarkness
The Shadow
The
Scapegoat
The Child
The
Temptress
The Task
Water-Desert
The Anima
The Outcast
The Eternal
Boy
The Platonic
Ideal
The
Initiation
Heaven-Hell
The Animus
The Devil
Figure
The
Superman
The
Unfaithful
Wife
The Journey
The Wise
Old Man
The Divine
Couple
The Fall
The Trickster
God (or The
Gods)
Death and
Rebirth
Jungian archetypes in the movie Star Wars
Jungian archetype
Character
The Hero
Luke Skywalker
The Father
Ben Kenobi
The Anima
Princess Leia
The Wise Old Man
Yoda
The Shadow
Darth Vader
The Trickster
Han Solo
Erik Homberger Erikson (1902-1994)
 Erik Erikson was born in Frankfurt, Germany in
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1902. His Danish father abandoned the family
before he was born.
Three years later, his mother married Dr.
Theodor Homberger, whom Erik believed to be
his real father.
He had identity problems that led him to resist
becoming a physician and wander about Europe
instead during the late 1920s.
He met Anna Freud and her colleagues,
acquired a Montessori teaching credential, and
learned about the psychoanalytic approach.
He fled the Nazis in 1933 and moved to the US,
where he published on ego psychology and
proposed a psycho-social stage theory of
personality development.
Key concepts introduced by Erikson
 Ego psychology: emphasized the important functions of the ego
– Acts as the mediator between the id, the superego, and the
demands of external reality
– Works to establish and maintain a sense of identity
• Stable sense of identity (successful outcome)
• Identity crisis (unsuccessful outcome)
– Works to establish and maintain mastery over the environment
 A psychosocial stage model of personality development
– Viewed the conflicts at each stage as primarily psychosocial
conflicts, rather than psychosexual conflicts
– Added stages that extended throughout the entire lifespan, from
infancy through old age
Key concepts introduced by Erikson
 Ego psychology: emphasized the important functions of the ego
– Acts as the mediator between the id, the superego, and the
demands of external reality
– Works to establish and maintain a sense of identity
• Stable sense of identity (successful outcome)
• Identity crisis (unsuccessful outcome)
– Works to establish and maintain mastery over the environment
 A psychosocial stage model of personality development
– Viewed the conflicts at each stage as primarily psychosocial
conflicts, rather than psychosexual conflicts
– Added stages that extended throughout the entire lifespan, from
infancy through old age
Erickson’s psychosocial stage theory
Karen Horney (1885-1952)
 Born in Hamburg, Germany in 1885
 Resented her authoritarian father’s sexist
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attitudes
Determined to always be first in her class,
to go to college, and then to medical school
Earned her medical degree in 1915
Studied to become a psychoanalyst and
found much to criticize in Freud’s writings
Joined the New York Psychoanalytic
Institute in 1934 but split with them in 1941
over differences of opinion
Established the American Institute for
Psychoanalysis
Key concepts introduced by Horney
 Neurotic adaptation styles
– Moving toward others
– Moving away from others
– Moving with others
– Moving against others
 Neurotic shoulds: neurotic demands placed on oneself
 Feminine psychology
– Countered Freud’s concept of penis envy with her own concept of
womb envy
– Pointed out the more sexist aspects of Freud’s theorizing and
called for a greater emphasis on social and cultural factors
Key concepts introduced by Horney
 Neurotic adaptation styles
– Moving toward others
– Moving away from others
– Moving with others
– Moving against others
 Neurotic shoulds: neurotic demands placed on oneself
 Feminine psychology
– Countered Freud’s concept of penis envy with her own concept of
womb envy
– Pointed out the more sexist aspects of Freud’s theorizing and
called for a greater emphasis on social and cultural factors
Two ways to better integrate the real self and
the ideal self in response to “neurotic shoulds”
real
self
ideal
self
real
self
ideal
self
Key concepts introduced by Horney
 Neurotic adaptation styles
– Moving toward others
– Moving away from others
– Moving with others
– Moving against others
 Neurotic shoulds: neurotic demands placed on oneself
 Feminine psychology
– Countered Freud’s concept of penis envy with her own concept of
womb envy
– Pointed out the more sexist aspects of Freud’s theorizing and
called for a greater emphasis on social and cultural factors
Views of religion held by psychoanalytic
theorists
 Sigmund Freud was an atheist who thought that religion
was “the opiate of the masses,” and viewed it as a type of
collective wish fulfillment.
 The son of a minister, Carl Jung struggled with religious
issues throughout his life but felt that the universality of
the God archetype attested to its importance.
Jung’s eight psychological types
Attitude
Function
Extraversion
Introversion
Thinking
Focus on learning about the external
world. Practical, objective thinker.
Interested in facts.
Interested in understanding own ideas.
Reflective. Interested in philosophical
issues and the meaning of one’s own life.
Feeling
Likely to be moody, capricious. Easily
conforms to a group. Likes to follow
fads and fashions. Can be highly
emotional at times.
Has deep emotional experiences, but
keeps them to himself or herself. Often a
nonconformist.
Sensing
Interested in experiencing the external
world. Often sensual, and can become
obsessed with pleasure seeking. May
live for the moment.
More interested in own thoughts and
inner sensations than in external objects.
May express self through art or music in
idiosyncratic ways.
Intuiting
Constantly seeking new challenges and
interests in the external world. Gets
bored easily. Enjoys novel situations.
Likes to explore new and different ideas
but has difficulty developing insights or
communicating them to other people.
Optimal career settings for personality types
Type
Career Setting
Extraverts
Work requiring group interactions, meeting with people
Introverts
Quiet, solitary desk work with few interruptions
Thinking
Work involving a lot of problem solving, especially requiring logic
Feeling
Service jobs, especially those benefiting underprivileged groups
Sensing
Work requiring attention to details, with immediate goals and relevance
Intuiting
Non-repetitive tasks with new challenges, requiring insight
Judging
Highly organized and structured work, requiring fact-based decisions
Perceiving
Work requiring the ability to adapt to new circumstances
Strengths and criticisms of neo-Freudian
theories
 Strengths
– Elaboration of important concepts that Freud ignored or deemphasized
– Introduction of many new and useful concepts
– Set the stage for the humanistic approach
– Made the psychoanalytic approach more widely acceptable
 Criticisms
– Sometimes lacking in research support
– Patient samples make it difficult to generalize to all people
– None dealt with so many topics in so much depth as Freud
– As with Freud, the tone and emphases of the neo-Freudians’
theories reveal their personal biases