While most people are familiar with a number of leading theorists in psychoanalysis, particularly Sigmund Freud, and possibly Adler and Jung, most people would not be familiar with Karen Horney, considered to be the “fist psychoanalytic feminist” (Hergenhahn & Henley 525). Horney disagreed with several concepts introduced by Freud, especially his focus on unconscious sexual motivation and the division of the self into 3 parts: id, ego, and superego. She believed that social experiences had a greater influence on the creation of self. During the Depression, she found that her clients’ problems were caused by unemployment and the inability to provide for the basic needs of their families (524).
Horney’s theories centered on social relationships, beginning with those between the child and parents. Healthy relationships would be formed between the child and parent if the parents were caring and children felt safe from harm. Indifference, inconsistency, or hatred towards the child could create a negative worldview for the child, and is required for someone to become neurotic (525). Neurotic individuals, or those with “basic anxiety,” would develop one of three major patterns in order to cope with their feelings: moving toward people, moving against people, and moving away from people.
The complaint type, those moving toward people, would look for love, acceptance, and protection from others. The hostile type, those moving against people, operates in the interest of power and prestige, in order to avoid being hurt. The detached type, those moving away from people, protects themselves from being hurt by withdrawing and avoiding emotional attachment. Each of these patterns is also used by healthy individuals when the situation or relationship requires it, but neurotics use one pattern and apply it in all situations (525).
Horney also rejected Freud’s notion that women felt inferior due to penis envy, and instead examined the impact of cultural stereotypes on female personality development. She asserted that women who appear to wish to be masculine, are actually seeking cultural equality. It is an expression of the desire to possess the privileges our culture regards as masculine, particularly independence and freedom. While she agreed with his focus on the importance of childhood experiences, she disagreed with his focus on biological motivation and believed people could solve many of their own problems (526), unlike Freud. In fact, it seems as though she disagreed with almost all of his theories regarding the formation of personality development in women.
Many people may also be surprised to learn that Jung and Adler were earlier followers of Freud, especially because they formed theories that were very different. Adler’s theories were so different from Freud’s, primarily because he believed that humans created their own destiny while Freud focused on the determinist aspects of the self. Their theories were so different that Freud said, “The world really rewarded him richly for his service in having contradicted psychoanalysis” (522).
It is also surprising that Anna Freud, daughter of Sigmund Freud was Erik Erikson’s analyst prior to him become an analyst himself. Anna Freud’s theories began as an extension of her father’s theories, but focused on the analysis of ego for its own sake, and was known as ego psychology. She also focused most of her work on the analysis of children and adolescents.
Third force psychology was started to address the human attributes that behaviorism and psychoanalysis did not address. While some of Adler’s theories had things in common with humanistic theories, Abraham Maslow is considered the one responsible for making humanist psychology a formal branch of psychology (547). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is one of the most recognizable theories in psychology. Basic needs are lower in the hierarchy and similar to those of animals, but higher needs are those which make us distinctly human (550). Basic needs are those which are physiological, such as hunger and thirst. Once those are satisfied, we move to the next needs, those concerned with safety, such as shelter and avoiding pain. The next level concerns love and belonging, such as the need to love and be loved. Next are esteem needs, such as recognition of achievements. Finally, one reaches the level of self-actualization or reaching one’s potential (551). Maslow believed that all humans were driven by self-actualization, and being true to their own nature. Because self-actualization is not a biological need like those at the lower levels of the hierarchy, it is more fragile and more difficult to achieve. This is why it is so rare. He also believed that humans are afraid of true self-knowledge.
Maslow identified a number of characteristics for self-actualizing people. They are creative, spontaneous, and have a strong ethical sense, although they do not necessarily accept conventional ethics. They perceive reality fully and accurately. They demonstrate great acceptance of themselves and others but tend to have only a few friends. They are concerned with all humans, not just those they know personally. The most interesting of the characteristics is that they have, what Maslow calls, “mystic or peak experiences” (552). The idea that they are simultaneously powerful and insignificant in the world and transformed by such experiences.
Maslow used two concepts to describe the motivations of humans. Those who are not self-actualized demonstrate deficiency motivation. These people seek to meet the needs which are not currently being met. Those who are self-actualized demonstrate being motivation and embrace higher values such as beauty and justice, rather than specific needs (553). Maslow also introduced another type of psychology later in his life, called transpersonal psychology. Transpersonal psychology was centered in needs beyond those of humans and has more in common with Eastern philosophy and religions than other Western theories of psychology (553).
Many of the humanistic psychologists were loners growing up and seemed to form their theories based on their experiences, particularly those which asserted their independence from their parents. Perhaps these needs helped to form the theories of Maslow and Carl Rogers. Both departed from the ideas that shaped earlier psychology, such as experiments on non-human subjects used in behaviorism and sterile case histories used in psychoanalysis. Humanistic psychology seeks to understand human behavior by observing humans and their interactions, as well as using narratives that the clients feel are important in shaping their senses of self. Rogers, for instance, would not call disturbed individuals patients, but referred to them as clients. He also did not label disorders and eliminated the need for diagnosis. He believed that a positive environment would help clients solve their problems for themselves.
Rogers, like Maslow, believed in the concept of self-actualization. Those who are self-actualized are motivated by their own true feelings and living an authentic life. Rogers called these people “fully functioning.” These people have experienced unconditional positive regard and do not experience conditions of worth on themselves. Those who do live with conditions of worth Rogers called an incongruent person, or one who is not living according to their true self (557). He believed this was the cause of mental disorders, and sought to help clients overcome these conditions. He also recognized that human growth could be encouraged by relationships other than that between client and therapist.
Phrenology is the analysis of bumps and depressions on the skull to determine behavior, personality traits, and their relation to specific brain functions. It was very popular in the early 1800’s because it seemed to offer practical information. While phrenology has since been rejected and is now called pseudoscience or pseudomedicine, it changed the general understanding of learning. It suggested that brain functions could be improved by practicing educational activities associated with them. This is called formal discipline and shapes most classroom learning throughout the world. We practice mathematical problems to develop reasoning, respond to questions and have conversations to develop language and speech, and read to develop literacy skills.
Paul Broca used clinical observations and autopsy examinations to identify the brain area related to a disorder. While Broca is not the first to provide evidence for cortical localization, he is credited as such. This is primarily because Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud, who identified it before Broca, was associated with phrenology, which had fallen out of favor in the scientific community. Broca identified part of the left cortical hemisphere as the area responsible for speech, now called Broca’s area. Broca believed that brain size and intelligence are related despite facts that contradicted his theory.
Karl Lashley originally tried to show that the brain worked like a switchboard connecting sensory impulses to motor reactions; however, he made two observations that were contrary to this theory. First, mass action indicated that the cortex worked as a unified whole, and the loss of ability following damage to parts of the cortex had more to do with the amount of damage than the location. Second, any part of a functional area can perform the function. A brain function can only be destroyed if the entire functional area is destroyed. He called this equipotentiality (568). Much of Lashley’s research focused on the pursuit of the engram, the “neurophysiological locus of memory and learning” (569), but was unable to locate it.
Donald Hebb believed that neurons in the brain that are consistently active together form a cell assembly. Cell assemblies that are consistently active together form phase sequences. Childhood learning occurs as cell assemblies and phase sequences build up and become connected through experiences (572). Although he was originally a student of Pavlovian psychology, his work with Lashley after completing his master’s degree shaped the rest of his research and theories.
Roger Sperry examined the way information was transferred between the two sides of the cerebral cortex and found two possible routes: the corpus callosum and the optic chiasm. The elimination of one or the other would not interfere with the transfer of information from one side to the other of the cerebral cortex, but the blocking of both routes would. This led to the discovery that split-brain preparation could be used to reduce the severity of epileptic seizures by preventing them from beginning in one hemisphere of the brain and connecting to the other. Sperry examined the functions of each hemisphere, which led to the concept that people were right- or left-brained. This concept is still popular in educational theory, but it is thought that the two hemispheres operate together, rather than only on one side. There are still many tests to determine which side of the brain is more dominant, suggesting that right-brain thinkers are more creative and left-brain thinkers are more logical, but it has been found that abilities related to one hemisphere are stronger when both sides of the brain work together. The idea is still beneficial in some ways, if it is viewed as a way to help develop the brain’s functions as a whole.
Works Cited
Hergenhahn, B. R., and Henley, Tracy B. An Introduction to the History of Psychology. 7th ed. Belmont: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2014. Print.
