Humanist Perspective

1004 Words5 Pages
The essay below discusses the psychoanalytic and humanist perspectives. The essay will look at the key concepts, the major causal factors responsible for the perspectives and the methods of discovery used to the explore behaviours. The psychoanalytic theory explains personality development and personality growth. It also explained psychological disorders and unconscious motives and ways in which the people deal with their sexual urges. (Weiten, 1995, pg 473). Freud claims that sexual urge is crucial in understanding the human psyche after birth onwards. Freud structured personality into three categories: the id, the ego and the superego. These components drove humans that are always engaging with each other in order to regulate the behaviour…show more content…
The conscious consists of awareness, the preconscious consists of everything under awareness and these are things that can easily be retrieved. For example, you could recall what you ate for dinner last night, what car you drive etc. The unconscious consists of a person’s thoughts, sexual urges. The unconscious has an influence on behaviour. Development: Psychosexual stages. “Psychosexual stages are developmental periods with a characteristics sexual focus that leave their mark on adult personality” (Weiten, 1995, pg 477). Freud emphasises the role of oral, anal and genital influences on personality growth of children. The challenges faced in the psychosexual stages shape the personality of children. The stages include the oral stage, anal, phallic and latency and genital stage. The development progresses from the oral through to the anal then phallic stage. The oral stage: Fixation arises from weaning and gives rise to characteristics of “dependency and optimism” (Lloyd,…show more content…
Many criticised Freud’s theory as they felt that he was being pessimistic. Humanism emphasises the qualities of people and their ability to grow spiritually, emotionally and psychologically. Humanists such as Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow( the founders of humanism) focused on self-concept and self-actualization. They stressed “empathy and self” (Kahn,n/d,pg 294) self-realisation and emphasised that humans were not slaves to “deterministic forces”. (Weiten, 1995, pg346). The techniques used in this theory were sensitivity training, Gesalt therapy, creative therapies and self-therapy. These techniques intended to promote personal growth. (Scholl, Ray, Brady-Amoon, 2014,
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