Neo-Analytic Personality Perspective:

1. Neo-Analytic Personality Perspective: Because “Freud Did Enough Coke to Kill a Small Horse” (Goodwill Hunting)

2. Definition of Neo-Analytic Personality Perspective • Primary goal of neo-Freudians was to establish psychoanalysis as legitimate, scientific psychology • “They did so by translating, simplifying, and operationally defining Freudian notions, by encouraging the experimental investigation of psychoanalytic hypotheses and by modifying psychoanalytic psychotherapy” (Steele, 1985).

3. Belief Regarding Basic Nature • Largely instinctual, including both life (Libido) and death (Thanatos) instincts • Based on aggressive and sexual impulses • Presupposes a negative view of human beings – human beings are something to be fixed

4. Choice vs. Determinism • Both choice and determinism play roles • Determinism- associated with unconscious actions (e.g., dreams, defense mechanisms) to protect the individual • Choice- clients must be willing participants in therapy in efforts to uncover subconscious conflicts

5. Structures • Id, ego, superego (as just discussed by Yi and Mike)

6. Notable Neo-Analysts • Anna Freud (1895-1982) • Carl Jung (1875-1961) • Alfred Adler (1870-1937) • Karen Horney (1885-1952) • Erik Erikson (1902-1994)

7. Anna Freud • Applied Freud’s theories to working with children • Utilized play materials and observations of children in the home setting

8. Carl Jung • The yodeling Hugh Hefner of Psychoanalysis • Once good friends with Sigmund Freud, he developed analytical psychology (which opposed many of Freud’s ideas) after their falling out • Collective Unconscious • Archetypes • Extraversion and Psychological Types

9. Alfred Adler • Individual Psychology and Social Interest • Inferiority Feelings • Style of Life • Creative Power of the Self • Birth Order

10. Karen Horney • Basic Anxiety • Disagreements with Freud • Neurotic Needs • Idealized Self-Image

11. Erik Erikson • Identity Crisis • Psychosocial Stages of Development • Male-Female Personality Differences

12. Guidelines for Assessing Personality • Therapeutic case studies • “Data” collected largely based on self-report

13. Guidelines for Intervention • Therapy • Later Neo-analysts (Horney, Erikson) supported more of a “client-controlled” form of therapy, in which the client’s thoughts and actions are not determined • Growth is directed by the individual

14. Assets • Work of Jung on personality types used in developing the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator • Freud, along with the neo-analysts, provided much “food for thought” and motivated much psychological research, even if it was simply in efforts to prove them wrong

15. Limitations • Attempts to make psychoanalysis a more legitimate, scientific discipline largely a failure • Hypotheses generated from theories are untestable

16. Case Study • Anna Freud • According to herself – dreams of incestuous father-daughter love relationship definitely suggest an Electra Complex • According to Jung – there is no Oedipus/Electra complex; her persona is one which shows support for her father’s theories; her dreams and self-reports are manifestations of the shadow

17. Case Study cont. • According to Adler – early in her life, she was the least-favored girl in her family; she suffered from an inferiority complex, which was set in place at or before the age of 4-5, and determined her style of life • According to Horney – she suffered from basic anxiety caused by an insecure attachment to her parents at a young age • According to Erikson – she was stuck at a psychosocial stage – Intimacy vs. Isolation (she never married, never had children, and fixated on her father throughout her life)

18. References • Schultz, D.P., & Schultz, S.C. (2000). A History of Modern Psychology (7th ed.). Philadelphia: Harcourt College Publishers. • http://carlisle.unn.ac.uk/CHP/Psychology/Year1/personality/persona4.htm