Eras, Life Histories, and Personalities of Freud and Rogers

Eras, Life Histories, and Personalities of Freud and Rogers

Introduction

This paper focuses over the great personalities of Freud and Rogers. Sigmund Freud was born in Austria. He is known as the father of psychoanalysis. Carl Rogers developed the humanistic approach to psychology. The paper defines the psychoanalytic construct of Sigmund Freud and the humanistic construct of Carl Rogers.

Discussion

Summary - Psychoanalysis: Freud's theory and ideas that have followed

Freud believed that there are some unconscious forces which have a great influence on our lives. As a neurologist, Freud realized that psychologically people do not operate or act as they should be according to the prescribed anatomy. According to him, conflicting thoughts creates stress in our minds, thus generating unusual symptoms physically (Leader, 2009). The conscious thoughts we have is just a very small percentage of what exactly is going on in our minds unconsciously, and these unconscious thoughts have a very strong impact on our lives.

Repression is an important factor of Freud's theory. Any intolerable or irrational thought we have towards, or loved ones, we repress them. These repressed or unfinished thoughts show themselves either by a slip of or tongue or in our dreams (Leader, 2009). Freud formulated a technique in order to make a link to our unconscious mind in which the individual is required to make conversations to a person that he cannot see. Then the stream of his thoughts is very closely observed no matter how odd or purposeless it sounds. Gradually, small particulars and specifics will materialize which will help in making connections to the unconscious (Leader, 2009).

Later, another analyst, Jung, worked on different levels of the unconscious mind and categorized them as archetypes' and also concluded that we could never identify these levels exactly or precisely (Leader, 2009). Jung focused on the practicing of a theory based on an organic process which he termed as individuation'. After that, many analysts gave their view on unconsciousness. According to Klein, the unconscious mind is a mixture of different modes of introjections and projections. While according to Lacan, the unconscious is a result of those expressions or memories which were introduced to us in our childhood (Leader, 2009). Thus, after all these years of research, the concept of unconsciousness is still vague.

Summary - Carl Rogers: Person centered therapy

Carl Rogers presented a very simple theory known as the 'Person Centered Therapy' or 'Client Centered Therapy'. According to him, it would be more appropriate for the clients if, instead of others perception of the situation, the clients would put much emphasis on their current subjective understanding (McLeod, 2008). He believed that if the therapists want to improvise the state or situation of their clients then they should be more understanding, positive, pleasant, true and loyal towards them. He discarded the earlier believes of psychoanalysis and behaviorism and suggested that the reason of the way we behave is due to the way we comprehend and acknowledge our surroundings and situations (McLeod, ...