Freud And Jung's Theories example essay topic

Both Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung are famous psychoanalysis ts with unique approaches to personality. At one point they shared many of the same theories and had a deep friendship. In fact, Jung was to be heir to Freud's position as president of the International Psychoanalytic Association. However, Jung developed several new theories and disagreements with Freud.

After years of friendship the pair parted in 1913. There were three main areas of personality which Jung disagreed with Freud on -- the role of sexuality, temporal forces that influence personality, and the unconscious. The role of sexuality in personality differed greatly in Freud and Jung's theories. Freud felt that sex was the single most important force that shaped and guided personality.

His preoccupation with sex may have developed from his own personal experiences with it. As a child, Freud developed a sexual attachment to his mother. Through this experience Freud developed the Oedipus complex -- a boy's longing for his mother and desire to replace his father in the phallic stage of development. Furthermore, Freud believed that sex was the basis of most emotional problems. He felt that a normal, healthy sex life was essential to emotional happiness. It is odd, however, that Freud based so much importance in sex when his sex life was very unsatisfactory.

Freud became resentful after his wife terminated their sexual relationship due to poor birth control. Freud felt that libido was the form of psychic energy that motivates a person to seek out pleasure. He also felt that our stages of development were guided by impulses of the id; the pleasure seeking part of personality. In analyzing dreams, Freud interpreted most symbols in a sexual manner. On the other hand, Jung was not so preoccupied with sex in his theories.

Jung's childhood and personal development may explain his feelings on sex as part of personality. Jung never developed any sort of sexual longing for his mother and was actually repulsed by her unattractiveness and mental instability. Furthermore, Jung had a healthy and satisfying sex life devoid of Freud's disappointments and frustrations. Jung felt that libido had a broader meaning than Freud's definition. He defined libido in two ways: as a general life energy, and as a psychic energy that fuels the personality. Unlike Freud, Jung felt that libido was not primarily a sexual energy but a more generalized psychic energy.

In analyzing dreams Jung did not look for sexual symbolism, but instead looked for relationships to types of dreams and the dreamer's archetype. The direction of the forces that influence personality was another disagreement between Jung and Freud. Freud believed that personality was developed and set in stone by age five. In this theory we are more or less slaves to the past -- what happened in childhood determines your personality for life. On the other hand, Jung believed that the future and the past are important. Personality is shaped by events that happened in the past and by what we hope to do in our future.

Freud and Jung also had different opinions about the role of the unconscious. Freud felt the unconscious was very important and defined it as a deep hidden part of personality beneath the reality of the conscious. The unconscious is the uncontrolled home to the instincts which motivate us to behave in a certain manner. Jung placed more emphasis on the unconscious than Freud and even added a new dimension to it.

Therefore, in Jung's system there is a personal and a collective unconscious. The personal unconscious contains memories which have been forgotten by us because they were inconsequential or unpleasant. The collective unconscious is deeper and less accessible than the personal unconscious. It contains inherited experiences of human and prehuman species.

These experiences are universal ones which happen to most people at sometime in their lives. For example, when we are born we assume that our mothers will act in a caring and supportive way. Jung associated ideas from anthropology, history, and religion to form his theory on the collective unconscious. There are many more differences and similarities between Freud and Jung.

However, these three aspects created the most distance between the two men and eventually led to the end of their relationship. Both Jung and Freud's theories have been important and beneficial to understanding personality. Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and brief colleague of Sigmund Freud who parted ways over a personal dispute over the unconscious mind. Jung was a rarely understood independent thinker who rejected Freud's deduction that the primary motivation behind behavior was sexual urges such as that all women have penis envy. Jung instead believed that people are motivated by a psychological energy that inspires people to achieve psychological growth, self-realization and harmony. I honestly agree with Jung more than I do Freud.

To me Freud was a megalomaniac who saw women as inferior beings. All I have to say to that, women are capable of having several orgasms for every one their male partner has, given that he's considerate. Freud experimented in drugs and homosexuality and I assume that his obsession with behavior being driven with sexual energies was probably fueled by his erectile dysfunction and / or him being trapped in that 4-5 boy mind set where, according to Freud, boys reject their father for their mother but for Fred it was most likely in a sexual manner. The collective unconscious (universally innate knowledge) is a part of the psyche is inherited and not acquired through life experience. Jung presented this universal knowledge in the form of motifs, which he referred to as archetypes. We often encounter these archetypes in dreams i.e. the shadow is the natural self untarnished by society and anima and animus the male / female counterpart of ourselves which represent our ideal mate.

I remember being 13 years old and waking from a dream where I found a person who was the perfect complement to myself and even... well cried a little after waking for fear of never finding that someone in reality. We encounter these archetypes in dreams hence the reason why many cultures that have had little contact with one another share certain similarities in their myths and legends. Examples of this are evident in many pagan religions such as the God of war, a symbol military dominance: the Vikings Thor, the Romans Mars, and the Greeks Aries. Some Native American tribes believe that dreams are the conscious mind trying to solve what the subconscious mind can't, which I believe the answers come to you in the forms of Jung's archetypes. Imagine a yin yang, on one side you have your personal conscious which is knowledge acquired through ones life span which distinguishes you as an individual and on the other side you have collective nature identical to all individuals.

The uniting or integration of the conscious (thinking) and Unconscious (instinctual) creates the bases for Jungian Psychology. These two forces are in constant conflict. The beliefs that every person starts out as a canvas ready to be molded and shaped by the world and that everything has an explanation has created this conflict. An example is the destruction of the pagan religions with the expansion of Christianity, which is symbolized in the story of David and Goliath and are apparent historically ages of enlightenment (science / mathematical ) and renaissance's (art / history ). "Every advance in culture is, psychologically, an extension of consciousness, a coming to consciousness that cant take place only through discrimination" (Carl Jung). Robertson, Robin "Beginners Guide to Jungian Psychology".