CHAPTER 1 - Introduction to Personality Theory

What Is Personality?
Word stems from “persona”
 Latin for “mask”
Personality Defined:
 A pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that give both
consistency and individuality to a person’s behavior
Traits
 Consistency of behavior over time
 Individual differences in behavior
 Stability of behavior across situations
Characteristics
 Unique qualities (e.g., temperament, physique, and intelligence)
What Is a Theory?
Theory Defined
 A set of related assumptions that allows scientists to use logical deductive reasoning to
formulate testable hypotheses.
Theory and Its Relatives
Philosophy
 Broader than theory, nature of knowledge
Speculation
 Theories rely on speculations but must be tied to empirical data and science using
observations testing hypothesis
Hypothesis
 educated guess that can be tested using scientific method
Taxonomy
◦ Classification according to natural relationships
Why Different Theories?
Different Personal Backgrounds
◦ Childhood experiences
 ◦ Interpersonal relationships
Different Philosophical Orientations Unique Ways of Looking at the World Data Chosen to
Observe is Different
Perspectives on Theories of Personality
Psychodynamic theorists
 Freud, Adler, Jung, Klein, Horney, Fromm, and Erikson.
Humanistic-existential theorists
 Maslow, Rogers, and May.
Dispositional theorists
 Allport, and McCrae and Costa,
Biological-evolutionary theorists
 Eysenck and Buss
Learning (social)-cognitive theorists
 Skinner, Bandura, Rotter, Mischel, and Kelly.
Theorists’ Personalities & Their Theories of Personality
Psychology of Science
 The empirical study of scientific thought and behavior (including theory construction) of
the scientist
The personalities and psychology of different theorists influence the kinds of theories that they
develop
What Makes a Theory Useful: Criteria for Evaluating a Theory
 Generates Research from the hypotheses
 Is Falsifiable (Verifiable), either confirming or disconfirming
 Organizes Known Data
 Guides Action (Practical), provide good structure for finding answers to problems.
 Is Internally Consistent- logically compatible, concepts and terms are operationally
defined
 Is Parsimonious, simple and straightforward are more useful than complicated
concepts
Dimensions for a Concept of Humanity
 Determinism v. Free Choice
 Pessimism v. Optimism
 Causality v. Teleology
  Conscious v. Unconscious Determinants of Behavior
 Biological v. Social Influences on Personality
 Uniqueness v. Similarities
Research in Personality Theory
Must Generate Research
 Theory gives meaning to data
 Data comes from experimental research designed to test hypothesis generated by the
theory
Systematic observations
 Predictions are consistent and accurate
Two Empirical Criteria for Instruments
 Reliability
 Consistency of Measurement

 Validity:
 Construct Validity
 Convergent
 Divergent
 Discriminant
 Predictive Validity
CHAPTER 2 – Sigmund Freud: Psychoanalytic Theory
Overview of Psychoanalytic Theory
• What Made This Theory Interesting?
 Cornerstones: Sex and aggression
 Spread by a dedicated group
 Brilliant language (Goethe Prize in Literature)
Biography of Freud
 Born in Freiberg Moravia (now the Czech Republic) in 1856
 Spent most of life (80 years) in Vienna, Austria
 Was the eldest son of eight
 Studied Medicine, specializing in psychiatry; interested in science
 Studied hysteria with Charcot & Breuer
 Studies on Hysteria (1895)
 Abandoned seduction theory in 1897 and replaced it with Oedipus Complex
 In 1900 wrote Interpretation of Dreams
 After 1900 developed international circle of followers (Adler, Jung, and others)
 Was driven out of Austria by Nazis in 1938
  Died in London in 1939
Level of Mental Life
• Unconscious
– Beyond awareness
• Includes drives, urges, or instincts
• Is known only indirectly
• Can become conscious by dreams, slip of tongue, neurotic symptoms
(primary and final censor)
– Two sources of unconscious processes
• Repression-blocking of anxiety filled experiences (punishment and
suppression)
• Phylogenetic Endowment-inherited experiences that lie beyond an
individual's personal experience (Jung’s collective consciousness)
(Oedipus complex and castration anxiety)
• Preconscious
– Not in conscious awareness, but can be
– Content may come down from conscious or up from unconscious
• Conscious
– Mental life that is directly available, plays a minor role
– From either the perception of external stimuli; that is, our perceptual conscious
system, or from unconscious and preconscious images after they have evaded
censorship.
Provinces of the Mind
• The Id
– Pleasure Principle-Seeks constant and immediate satisfaction of instinctual needs
– Primary Process
• The Ego
– The Reality Principle-responsible for reconciling the unrealistic demands of both
the id and the superego with the demands of the real world
– Secondary Process
• The Superego
 – The Idealistic Principle - What we should do/Moralistic (dived into two sub-
systems)
– Conscience - results from punishment for improper behavior and tells us what we
should not do
– Ego-Ideal - stems from rewards for socially acceptable behavior and tells us what
we should do
Dynamics of Personality
• People are motivated to seek pleasure and reduce tension and anxiety
• The term dynamics of personality refers to those forces that motivate people
• Drives
– Libido or Sex Drive (seek pleasure, which can be gained through the erogenous zones,
especially the mouth, anus, and genitals.)
• Thanatos or Aggression/Destructive Drive (aims to return the person to an inorganic state
or death, but it is ordinarily directed against other people and is called aggression. )
• Anxiety
– Neurotic Anxiety-apprehension about an unknown danger and stems from the
ego's relation with the id
– Moral Anxiety-similar to guilt and results from the ego's relation with the
superego
– Realistic Anxiety-similar to fear and is produced by the ego's relation with the real
world
Defense Mechanisms
• Repression
 Involves forcing unwanted, anxiety- loaded experiences into the unconscious. Most basic
of all because it is an active process in the rest.
• Reaction Formation
 marked by the repression of one impulse and the ostentatious expression of its exact
opposite.
Ex. For example, a teen age boy may have deep-seated unconscious sexual feelings for a
teacher, but on the surface level he expresses exaggerated animosity toward that teacher.
• Displacement
 The redirecting of unacceptable urges and feelings onto people and objects in order to
disguise or conceal their true nature.
 Ex. A woman greatly dislikes her boss but takes her anger out on her husband and
children.
• Fixation
 Fixations develop when psychic energy is blocked at one stage of development, making
psychological change difficult.
• Regression
 Regressions take place when a person reverts to earlier, more infantile modes of behavior.
• Projection
 Is seeing in others those unacceptable feelings or behaviors that actually reside in one’s
own unconscious. When carried to extreme, projection can become paranoia, which is
characterized by delusions of persecution.
• Introjection
 Introjection involves the incorporation of positive qualities of another person in order to
reduce feelings of inadequacy.
Ex. Hero worship might be a good example.
• Sublimation
 Contributes to the welfare of society. They involve elevating the aim of the sexual
instinct to a higher level and are manifested in cultural accomplishments, such as art,
music, and other socially beneficial activities.
Stages of Development
• Infantile Period (Birth-5)
– Oral Phase -infant is primarily motivated to receive pleasure through the mouth.
Weaning is the principal source of frustration during this stage.
– Anal Phase -second year of life, when toilet training is the child's chief source of
frustration. If parents use punitive training methods, a child may develop the anal
triad of orderliness, stinginess, and obstinacy, all of which mark the anal
character. However, most children escape the detrimental effects of this stage.
– Phallic Phase
• Male Oedipus Complex -sexual feelings for one parent and hostile feelings for the
other
– Castration Complex - castration anxiety or fear of losing the penis, breaks
up the male Oedipus complex and results in a well-formed male superego
• Female Oedipus Complex (Electra)-Same
 – Penis Envy - a situation that leads to only a gradual and incomplete
shattering of the female Oedipus complex and a weaker, more flexible
female superego
– Latency Period (5-puberty) - Freud believed that psychosexual development goes through
a latency stage — from about age 5 years until puberty—in which the sexual instinct is
partially suppressed.
– Genital Period (puberty-adulthood) -The genital period begins with puberty when
adolescents experience a reawakening of the genital aim of Eros, and it continues
throughout adulthood. (the desire to be with a loved one)
– Maturity -the ego would be in control of the id and superego and in which consciousness
would play a more important role in behavior.
Applications of Psychoanalytic Theory
• Free Association (patients are required to say whatever comes to mind, no matter how
irrelevant or distasteful)
– Transference (patient transfers childhood sexual or aggressive feelings onto the
therapist and away from symptom formation
– Resistance
• Dream Analysis
– Manifest(conscious) and latent(unconscious) content
• Freudian or Unconscious Slips (Parapraxes)
Related Research
• Unconscious Mental Processing
– Automatic, implicit, nonconscious processing
• Inhibition and the Ego
– Limbic system and Dopamine
• Defense Mechanisms
– Neuropsychological underpinnings of repression
• Research on Dreams
Critique of Freud
• Did Freud Understand Women?
• Was Freud a Scientist?
– Theories are difficult to test
 – Generated considerable research
– Difficult to falsify
– Very loose organizational framework
– Not a good guide to solve practical problems
– Internally consistent theory
Freud’s Concept of Humanity
• Deterministic and Pessimistic
• Causality(past) over Teleology(future goals)
• Unconscious over Conscious
• Biology over Culture
• Equal emphasis on Uniqueness and Similarity
CHAPTER 3 – Alfred Adler: Individual Psychology
 The individual psychology presents an optimistic of people while resting heavily in the
notion of social interest.
Differences between Freud and Adler
FREUD ADLER
People as being motivated mostly by social
Reduce all motivation to sex and
influences; by their striving for superiority
aggression.
and success.
Assumed that people have little or no Believed that people are largely responsible
choice in shaping their personality, for who they are.
Assumed that present behavior us caused by Present behavior is shaped by people’s view
past experiences. of the future.
Placed very heavy emphasis in unconscious Psychologically are usually aware of what
component of behavior. they are doing and why they are doing it.

Biography of Alfred Adler

 Born January 7, 1870
 Grew up weak and sickly and nearly dies of pneumonia at the age of 5.
Introduction to Adlerian Theory
3 Reasons why Adler is less known than Freud and Jung:
1. Adler did not establish a tightly run organization to perpetuate his theories.
2. He was not a particularly gifted writer, and most of his books were compiled by a
series of editors using Adler’s scattered lectures.
 3. Many of his views were incorporated into the works of such later theories. (Maslow,
Rogers, and Ellis)
The Six Tenets of Adlerian Theory
1. The dynamic force behind people’s behavior is the striving for success or superiority.
 reduced all motivation to a single drive – the striving for success and superiority
 Psychologically unhealthy individual strives for personal superiority
 Psychologically healthy people seek success for all humanity.

Aggression Masculine Protest Striving for Superiority Striving for Success

dynamic power behind will to power or a striving for personal motivated by highly
all motivation domination of others superiority over others developed social interest

 regardless, of the motivation for striving, each individual is guided by a final goal

 The Final Goal

 people strive toward a final goal or either personal superiority or the goal
success for all humankind.
 it is fictional and has no objective existence
 it unifies personality and renders all behavior comprehensible.
* creative power – people’s ability to freely shape their behavior and create their own
personality.
 If children feel neglected or pampered,  If children feel loved and security,
 goals remain largely unconscious  goals are largely conscious and
 will compensate for feelings of clearly understood
inferiority in devious ways that have  strives toward superiority defined
no apparent relationship to their in terms of success and social
fictional goal interest
  Striving Force as Compensation
 people strive for superiority or success as a means of compensation for feelings
of inferiority or weakness.
 Striving force itself is innate, nature and direction due to both
feeling of inferiority to the goal of superiority. Without the innate
movement toward perfection, children would never feel inferior
without feelings of inferiority. They would never set a goal of
superiority or success.
 The goal provides guidelines for motivation, shaping psychological
development and giving it to aim. (CHANGE)

 Striving for Personal Superiority

 people strive for superiority with little or no concern for others.
 goals are personal ones, and their strivings are motivated largely by exaggerated
feelings of personal inferiority – inferiority complex.
 Some may disguise their personal striving and may consciously or
unconsciously hide their self-centeredness behind the cloak of social concern.

 Striving for Success

 Strive for personal gain and physically motivated are motivated by social
interest and the success of all humankind, goals and beyond themselves.
 Capable of helping others without demanding or expecting a personal payoff,
able to see others not as opponents but as people with whom they can cooperate
for natural tendency to move toward completion or perfection.
 Strive for success rather than personal superiority, sense of self, daily problems
from the view of society's development rather than from a strictly personal
vantage point. Personal worth is tied closely to their contributions to human
society. Social progress is more important to them than personal credit.
(CHANGE)

2. People’s subjective perceptions shape their behavior and personality.

 compensates for feelings of inferiority, but their strive is not shaped by reality but by
their subjective perceptions of reality – fictions or expectations of the future

 Fictionalism
 subjected, fictional final goal guides our style of life, gives unity to our
personality.
 Adler’s ideas on fictionalism originated in Hans Vaihinger’s book The
Philosophy of “As If” - Fictions are ideas that have no real existence, yet they
influence people as if they really existed
 People are motivated by what is true but by their subjective perception of
what is true.
 Whether true or false, fictions have a powerful influence on people’s life.
 * teleology – explanation of behavior in terms of its final purpose or aim; concerned with
future goals or ends.
* causality – deals with past experiences that produce some present effect.
 Physical Inferiorities
 People may still act as weak and inferior even if they become big and superior
because people begin life as like that so they develop a fiction or belief system
about how to overcome these physical deficiencies.
 Physical handicaps have little or no importance by themselves but become
meaningful when they stimulate subjective feelings of inferiority
 Physical deficiencies alone don’t cause a particular style of life; they simple
provide present motivation for reaching future goals.

3. Personality is unified and self-consistent.

 Fundamental unity of personality and the notion that inconsistent behavior does
not exist.
 Behaviors may appear inconsistent, when they are viewed from the perspective
of a final goal, they appear clever but probably unconscious attempts to
confuse and subordinate other people.

 Organ Dialect
 disturbance of one body part of the body cannot be viewed in isolation; it affects
the entire person; deficient organ expresses the direction of the individual’s
goal.
 the body’s organs “speak a language which is usually more expressive and
discloses the individual’s opinion more clearly than words are able to do”.
e.g. Man suffering from a rheumatoid arthritis in his hands. His stiff and
deformed joints voice his whole style of life.

 Conscious and Unconscious

 Harmony between conscious and unconscious actions – unified personality.
 part of the goal that is nether clearly formulated nor completely understood by
the individual – unconscious
 Adler saw both the conscious and the unconscious as two cooperating parts of
the same unified system: Conscious thoughts understood and regarded by the
individual as helpful in striving for success, whereas unconscious thoughts are
those that are not helpful.
 People’s behavior leads to a healthy or an unhealthy style of life depends on
the degree of social interest that they developed during their childhood.

4. The true value of all human activity must be seen from the viewpoint of social interest.
 Gemeinschaftsgefühl
English Definition Other Definition
Social feeling or community feeling Feeling of oneness with all humanity; membership
in the social community of all people
 The natural condition of the human species and the adhesive that binds society
together.
 Necessity for perpetuating the human species.

 Origins of Social Interest

 It is rooted as potentiality to everyone, but it must be developed before it can
contribute to a useful style of life.
 Originates from the mother-child relationship during the early months of
infancy.
 Adler believed that marriage and parenthood is a task for two. However, the
two parents may influence a child’s social interest in somewhat diff. ways:
Mother’s job: develop a bond that encourages the child’s mature social
interest and foster a sese of cooperation.
Father’s job: must demonstrate a caring attitude toward his wife as well as
to other people; cooperates on an equal footing with the child’s mother in
caring for the and treated the child as a human being.

 Importance of Social Interest

 Adler’s yardstick for measuring psychological health; only gauge to be used in
determining the usefulness of a life; “the sole criterion of human values”.
 People possess social interest are psychologically mature.
 Immature people lack Gemeinschaftsgefühl, are self-centered, strive for
personal power, and superiority over others.
 Psychologically unhealthy people develop exaggerated feeling of inferiority;
attempt to compensate by setting a goal of personal superiority; motivated by
personal gain > social interest.
 Psychologically healthy people are motivated by normal feelings of
incompleteness and high levels of social interest.

5. The self-consistent personality structure develops into a person’s style of life.

 Flavor of a person’s life: person’s goal, self-concept, feelings for others and attitude
toward the world; product of the interaction of hereditary, environment and a person’s
creative power.
 Person’s style of life is fairly established by age 4 or 5. After that, all our actions
revolve around our unified style of life.
 Psychologically unhealthy individuals often lead rather inflexible lives that are
marked by an inability to choose new ways of reacting to their environment.
 Psychologically healthy people behave in diverse and flexible ways with styles of
life that are complex, enriched and changing.
  People with a socially useful style of life represent the highest form of humanity in the
evolutionary process and are likely to populate the world of the future.
* three major problems in life – neighborly love, sexual love, and occupation.

6. Style of life is molded by people’s creative power.

 Their creative power places them in control of their own lives: responsible for their
final goal, method of striving; contributes to the development of social interest.
 Dynamic concept implying movement – most salient characteristic in life.
 People are much more than a product of hereditary and environment but rather are
creative beings who not only react to their environment but also act on it and cause it
to react to them.
Abnormal Development
 People are what they make of themselves. The creative power endows human, with
certain limits, with the freedom to be either psychologically healthy/unhealthy and to
follow either a useful/useless style of life.
General Description
 One factor underlying all types of maladjustments is underdeveloped social interest.
 Three characteristics from a lack of social interest:
1. Set their goals too high.
2. Live in their own private world.
3. Have a rigid and dogmatic style of life.
 People become failures in their life because they are overconcerned with themselves
and care little about others.
External Factors in Maladjustment
 There are three contributing factors why some people create maladjustments:
 Exaggerated Physical Deficiencies
 Subjective feelings may be greatly encouraged by a defective body, but they are
the progeny of the creative power.
Characteristics of People with Exaggerated Physical Deficiencies
Develop exaggerated feelings of inferiority Feel as if they are living in enemy country.

Overly concerned with themselves Fear defeat more than they desire success

Lack consideration for others Convinced that life’s major problems can be
solved only in a selfish manner

 Pampered Style of Life

 Have weak social interest but a strong desire to perpetuate the pampered,
parasitic relationship they originally had with one or both of their parents.
 Characteristics of a Pampered Child
Indecisiveness Pampered and spoiled

Oversensitivity Sees the world with private vision

Impatient Believed that they are entitled to be first in

everything
 Have not received too much love but rather feel unloved; parents have
demonstrated a lack of love by doing too much for them and by treating them as
if they were incapable of solving their own problems.

 Neglected Style of Life

 Children who feel unloved and unwanted are likely to borrow heavily from
these feelings in creating a neglected style of life.
 Abused and mistreated children develop little social interest and tend to create a
neglected style of life.
Characteristics of a Neglected Child
Distrustful or other people Feel alienated from all other people

Unable to cooperate for the common welfare Experience a strong sense of envy towards
success of others
See society as enemy country
 Neglected children have many of the characteristics of pampered ones, but
generally they are more suspicious and more likely to be dangerous to others.

Safeguarding Tendencies
 Enables people to hide their inflated self-image and to maintain their current style of
life.

Adlerian Freudian
Largely conscious and shield a
person’s fragile self-esteem from Symptoms are formed as a Defense mechanism operate
public disgrace; discussed only w/ protection against anxiety. unconsciously to protect the ego
reference to the construction of against anxiety; common to
neurotic symptoms. everyone.

 Excuses
 Most common safeguarding tendencies; typically expressed in the:
“yes, but” – people state what they claim they would like to do – something
that sounds good to others – then they follow if an excuse.
“If only” – the same excuse phrased in a different way.
 Excuses protect a weak – but artificially inflated – sense of self-worth; deceiving
people into believing that they are more superior than they really are.
 Aggression
 To safeguard theirs exaggerated superiority complex to protect their fragile
self-esteem.
 Aggression may take form of:
Depreciation
 tendency to undervalue other people’s achievements and to overvalue
one’s own; evident in criticism and gossip.
 intention of depreciation is to belittle another so that the person, by
comparison, will be placed in a favorable light.
Accusation
 tendency to blame others for one’s failures and to seek revenge;
safeguarding one’s own tenuous self-esteem
Self – Accusation
 marked by self-torture and guilt; means of hurting people who are close
to them
 With depreciation, people who feel inferior devalue others to make
themselves look good. With self-accusation, people devalue themselves
in order to inflict suffering on others while protecting their own
magnified feelings of self-esteem.

 Withdrawal
 People run away from difficulties; people unconsciously escape life’s problems
by setting up a distance between themselves and those problems.
 Four modes of safeguarding through withdrawal:
Moving backward
 tendency to safeguards one’s fictional goal of superiority by
psychologically reverting to a more secure period of life
 designed to elicit sympathy, the deleterious attitude offered so generously
to pampered children.
Standing still
 people who stand still simply do not move in any direction; thus, they
avoid all responsibility by ensuring themselves against any threat or
failure.
 by doing nothing, people safeguard their self-esteem and protect
themselves against failure.
Hesitating
 people hesitate or vacillate when faced with difficult problems.
 Hesitating may appear to other people to be self-defeating, it allows
neurotic individual to preserve their inflated sense of self-esteem.
Constructing Obstacles
 they protect their self-esteem and their prestige; if they fail to hurdle the
barrier, they can always retort to an excuse.
 Masculine Protest
 cultural and social practices influence many men and women to overemphasize the
importance of being manly.
Application of Individual Psychology
Family Constellation
 In therapy, Adler almost always patients about their family constellation: their birth
order, gender of their siblings, and the age spread between them.
 General hypotheses about birth order:
 Firstborn children, likely to have intensified feelings of power and superiority; high
anxiety, and overprotective tendencies.
 Second born children, shaped by their perception of the older child’s attitude towards
them.
 Youngest children, likely to have strong inferiority and to lack a sense of
independence; highly motivated to exceed older siblings.
 Only children, develop an exaggerated sense of superiority and an inflated self-
concept; lack well- developed feelings of cooperation and social interest.
Early Recollections
 (CHANGE)
Dreams
 (CHANGE)
Psychotherapy
 (CHANGE)

CHAPTER 4 – Carl Jung

CHAPTER 5 – Melanie Klein: Object Relation Theory
Biography of Melanie Klein
 Born in 1882
 Unplanned birth & rejection by parents
 Physician, Pioneer of Object Relation Theory
 Depression due to missing life goals & Self – analysis-
 Changing direction from adults to analyzing children directly
 Nurturing r/ship btw parent & child
 Her daughter Melitta, Competition w/ her mother
  Opponent to Anna Freud

Overview of Object Relations Theory

 Based on observations of children
 children internalize both positive & negative feelings toward their mother
 develop a superego much earlier than Freud had believed.
 Importance of 4-6 months after birth
 Drives reflected to an object
 R/ship btw the breast & children as a prototype for future r/ships
 Therefore, focuses the role of early fantasy in the formation of relationships rather
than focus on stages of development

 Object Relations Theory (ORT) is an offspring of Freud’s instinct theory but ORT
differs in at least three general ways:

1. ORT places less emphasis on biologically based drives & more importance on
consistent patterns of interpersonal relationship.
2. Rather emphasizing the power and control of the father, ORT tends to be more
maternal, stressing the intimacy and nurturing of the mother.
3. ORT generally see human contact and relatedness- not sexual pleasure- as a prime
motive of human behavior.
Introduction to Objective Relations Theory
 Drives are the source, aim and object
 Aim is to reduce tension
 In Freudian terms, the object of the drive is any person, part of a person, or thing through
which the aim is satisfied.
 Accept the basic assumption of Freud’s and then speculate on how the infant’s real or
fantasized early relation with mother or the breast become a model for all later
interpersonal relationships.
Psychic life of the infant
 Importance of the first 4 or 6 months.
 infants do not begin life with a blank slate but with an inherited predisposition to reduce
the anxiety
 Experience as a result of the conflict produced by the forces of the life instinct and the
power of the death instinct.
  The infant’s innate readiness to act or react presupposes the existence of phylogenetic
endowment

Fantasies
 the infant, even at birth, possesses an active fantasy life.
 fantasies are psychic representations of unconscious id instincts
 they should not be confused with the conscious fantasies of older children and adults.
 unconscious images of “good” and “bad.”
E.g., a full stomach is good, an empty one is bad
 As the infant matures, later unconscious fantasies are shaped by both reality and by
inherited predispositions
 One of these fantasies involves the Oedipus complex, of the child’s wish to destroy of
parent and sexually possess the other

Objects
 Agreed with Freud
- humans have innate drives or instincts, including a death instinct.
- Drives must have some object.
- the hunger drive has a good breast as its object,
- the sex drive has a sexual organ as its object

 Klein believed that from early infancy children relate to these external objects, both in
fantasy and in reality
 In their active fantasy, infants introject external objects

Positions
 Infants as constantly engaging in a basic conflict between the life instinct and the death
instinct
- btw good and bad, love & hate, creativity & destruction.
- the ego moves toward integration and away from disintegration, infants naturally
prefer gratifying sensations over frustrating ones

 infants organize their experiences onto ,

- ways of dealing with both internal and external objects
- the term “position” rather than “stage of development”
- positions alternate back and forth
- not periods of time of phases of development through which a person passes.

1. Paranoid-Schizoid position
 The infant desires to control the breast by devouring and harboring it

 At the same time, the infant’s innate destructive urges create fantasies of damaging the
breast by biting, tearing, or annihilating it

 To tolerate both these feelings toward the same object at the same time, Ego splits itself

- Retaining parts of its life and death instincts while reflecting parts of both instincts
into the breast

 Now, rather than fearing its own death instinct, the infant fears the persecutory breast

 develops a relationship with the ideal breast, which provides love, comfort, and
gratification.

 The infant desires to keep the ideal breast inside itself as a protection against annihilation
by persecutors

 Position is developed during the first 3 or 4 months of life

 A way of organizing experiences including both paranoid feelings of being persecuted

and a splitting of internal & external objects into the good & the bad

 the ego’s perception of the external world is subjective and fantastic rather than objective
and real.

 the persecutory feelings are considered to be paranoid

- not based on any real of immediate danger from the outside world.

2. Depressive Position

 Beginning at about the 5th or 6th month

 Infant begins to view external objects as a whole

 Good and bad can exist in the same person

 the infant develops a more realistic picture of the mother and recognizes that she is an
independent person who can be both good and bad

 The ego is beginning to mature and can tolerate some of its own destructive feelings
rather than projecting them outward
  the infant also realizes that the mother might go away and be lost forever

 Fearing the possible loss of the mother, the infant desires to protect her

 Keep her from the dangers of its own destructive forces, those cannibalistic impulses
that had previously been projected on her

 the infant’s ego is mature enough to realize that it lacks the capacity to protect the
mother

 experiences guilt for each previous destructive urge toward the mother

 The feelings of anxiety over losing a loved object coupled with a sense of guilt for
wanting to destroy

Defense Mechanism

 Psychic defense mechanisms to protect their ego against the anxiety

 Oral - sadistic anxieties concerning the breast

- the dreaded, destructive breast vs. the satisfying, helpful breast

1. Introjection

 Infants fantasize taking into their body those perceptions and experiences that they have
had with the external object, originally the mother’s breast

 Introjected objects are not accurate representations of the real objects but are colored by
children’s fantasies

2. Projection

 as infants use introjection to take in both good and bad objects, they use projection to
get rid of them

 the fantasy that one’s own feelings and impulses actually reside in another person and
not within one’s body
  By projecting unmanageable destructive impulses onto external objects, infants
moderate the unbearable anxiety of being destroyed by dangerous internal forces

 Projection allows people to believe that their own subjective opinions are true

3. Splitting

 Keeping apart incompatible impulses

 Splitting as good and bad & splitting ego

- ‘good me’ vs ‘bad me’

 Infants develop a picture of both the “good me” and the “bad me” that enables them to
deal with both pleasurable and destructive impulses toward external objects

 Denial & Repression of ‘bad me’

4. Projective Identification

 Infants split off unacceptable parts of themselves

 Project them onto another object

 Introject them back into themselves in a changed of distorted form

 By taking the object back into themselves, infants feel that they have become like that
objects, that is, they identify with that object.

 Exerts a powerful influence onadult interpersonal relations

 Unlike simple projection, which can exist wholly in fantasy, projective identification
exists only in the world of real interpersonal relationships

Internalizations

 Person takes in (introjects) aspects of the external framework & organizes in a

meaningful manner
 3 important internalizations:

1. Ego
 The ego, of one’s sense of self, reaches maturity at a much earlier stage that
Freud had assumed
 Freud hypothesized that the ego exists at birth, he did not attribute complex
psychic functions to it until about the 3rd to 4th year
 To Freud, the young child is dominated by the id
 Klein largely ignored the id
 The ego’s early ability to sense both destructive and loving forces and to
manage them through splitting, projection, and introjection
 The ego is mostly unorganized at birth
 But strong enough to feel anxiety, to use defense mechanisms, and to form
early object relations in both fantasy and reality
 The ego begins to evolve with the infant’s first experience with feeding
- When the good breast fills the infant not only with milk but with love
and security
- the bad breast - the one that is not present or does not give milk, love,
or security
 All experiences are evaluated by the ego in terms of how they relate to the
good breast and the bad breast.
 When the ego experiences the good breast, it expects similar good
experiences with other objects,
Ex. its own fingers, a pacifier, or the father.
 Thus, the infant’s first object relation (the breast) becomes the prototype
not only for the ego’s future development but for the individual’s later
interpersonal relations

2. Superego
 Emerges much earlier in life
 Not an outgrowth of the Oedipus complex
 Harsher & cruel
 Produces not quilt but terror
 Why so harsh?
Ex. fear of cut up by his/her parents
  This dual image of self allows them to manage the good and bad aspects
of external objects.
 As infants mature, their perceptions become more realistic
 They no longer see the world in terms of partial objects, and their egos
become more integrated
 Terror turns into feeling of guilt
 This early ego defense lays the foundation for the development of the
superego
 Harsh & cruel superego is responsible for many antisocial and criminal
tendencies in adults.

3. Oedipus complex
 Begins during the earliest months of life, overlaps with the oral and the
anal stages, reaches its climax during the genital stage (instead of phallic
stage) at around age 3 or 4
 Children’s fear of retaliation from their parent for their fantasy of
emptying the parent’s bod
 Stressed the importance of children retaining positive feelings toward both
parents during the Oedipal years
 During its early stages, the Oedipus complex serves the same need for
both sexes
- Children are capable of both homosexual and heterosexual relations
with both parents

a. Male Oedipal Development

 During the early months of Oedipal development, a boy shifts some of his
oral desires from his mother’s breast to his father's penis.
 At this time the little boy is in his feminine position
- he adopts a passive homosexual attitude toward his father
 he moves to a heterosexual relationship with his mother
- but bc of his previous homosexual feeling for his father, — he has no fear
that his father will castrate him.
 this passive homosexual position is a prerequisite for the boy’s development
of a healthy heterosexual relationship with his mother
 the boy must have a good feeling about his father’s penis before he can
value his own.
  As the boy matures, develops oral-sadistic impulses toward his father and
wants to bite off his penis and to murder him.
 These feelings arouse castration anxiety and the fear that his father will
retaliate against him by biting off his penis.
 This fear convinces the little boy that sexual intercourse with his mother
would be extremely dangerous to him
 The boy’s Oedipus complex is resolved only partially by his castration
anxiety
- his ability to establish positive relationships with both parents at the same
time
- boy sees his parents as whole objects, a condition that enables him to
work through his depressive position

2. Female Oedipal Development

 Like the young boy, a little girl first sees her mother’s breast as both good and bad.
 Then around 6 months of age, she begins to view the breast as more positive than
negative.
 Later, she sees her whole mother as full of good things, and this attitude leads her to
imagine how babies are made.
 She fantasizes that her father’s penis feeds her mother with riches, including babies.
 Because the little girl sees the father’s penis as the giver of children, she develops a
positive relationship to it and fantasizes that her father will fill her body with
babies.
 If the female Oedipal stage proceeds smoothly, the little girl adopts a “feminine”
position and has a positive relationship with both parents.
 However, under less ideal circumstances, the little girl will see her mother as a rival
and will fantasize robbing her mother of her father’s penis and stealing her mother’s
babies.
 Just as the boy’s hostility toward his father leads to fear of retaliation, the little
girl’s wish to rob her mother produces a paranoid fear that her mother will retaliate
against her by injuring her or taking away her babies.

— The little girl’s principal anxiety comes from a fear that the inside of her body has been
injured by her mother, an anxiety that can only be alleviated when she later gives birth
to a healthy baby.
 According to Klein, penis envy stems from the little girl’s wish to internalize her
father’s penis and to receive a baby from him.
  This fantasy precedes any desire for an external penis contrary to Freud’s view,
Klein could find no evidence that the little girl blames her mother for bringing her
into the world without a penis.
 Instead, Klein contended that the girl retains a strong attachment to her mother
throughout the Oedipal period.
 For both girls and boys, a healthy resolution of the Oedipus complex depends on
their ability to allow their mother and father to come together and to have sexual
intercourse with each other.
 No remnant of rivalry remains. Children’s positive feelings toward both parents
later serve to enhance their adult sexual relations

Psychotherapy
 Klein substituted play therapy for Freudian dream analysis and free association,
believing that young children express their conscious and unconscious wishes through
play.
 It is to foster negative transference and aggressive fantasies., she provided each child
with a variety of small toys, pencil and paper, paint, crayons , and so forth.
 In addition to expressing negative transference feelings through play, Klein’s young
patients often attacked her verbally, which gave her an opportunity to interpret the
unconscious motives behind these attacks.
 The aim of Kleinian therapy is to reduce depressive anxieties and persecutory fears and
to mitigate the harshness of internalized objects.
Critique of ORT
 Low falsifications,
 Low in research
 Generates few testable hypothesis
 High in organizing information about behavior of infants
 Moderate as a guide to the practitioner
 Low on the criterion of parsimony
 High internal consistency

Concept of Humanity
 High on determinism
 Both optimistic and pessimistic
 High on Causality
 High on unconscious determinants of behavior
 Social determinants over biological bases
  Emphasis on similarities

Contemporary views of Object Relations theory

 Margaret Mahler
 psychological birth during the first 3 years of life, a time when a child gradually
surrenders security for autonomy.
 psychological birth -the child becomes an individual separate from his or her primary
caregiver, an accomplishment that leads ultimately to a sense of identity.

Three Major developmental stages

 Normal autism, which spans the period from birth until about age 3 or 4 weeks.
 Newborn infant satisfies various needs within the all-powerful protective orbit of a
mother’s care. Neonates have a sense of omnipotence, because, like unhatched
birds, their needs are cared for automatically and without their having to expend
any effort.
 Period of absolute primary narcissism in which an infant is unaware of any other
person.

 Normal symbiosis -4th or 5th week until 4th or 5th month.

 During this time, “the infant behaves and functions as though he and his mother
were an omnipotent system—a dual unity within one common boundary”
 Infant can recognize the mother’s face and can perceive her pleasure or distress.
 Older children and even adults sometimes regress to this stage, seeking the strength
and safety of their mother’s care.
 separation-individuation, from 4th or 5th month until 30th to 36th month.
 During this time, children become psychologically separated from their mothers,
achieve a sense of individuation, and begin to develop feelings of personal identity.
 Differentiation - 5th month until the 7th to 10th month of age and is marked by a
bodily breaking away from the mother-infant symbiotic orbit.
 Practicing - 7th month -15th or 16th month
 children easily distinguish their body from their mother’s,
 establish a specific bond with their mother, and begin to develop an autonomous
ego.
 Rapprochement 16 -25 months-they desire to bring their mother and themselves
back together, both physically and psychologically.
 libidinal object constancy -25 months- 3rd year of life. During this time, children
must develop a constant inner representation of their mother so that they can
tolerate being physically separate from her.
 Heinz Kohut
 emphasized the process by which the self evolves from a vague and
undifferentiated image to a clear and precise sense of individual identity.
 Kohut believed that human relatedness - the core of human personality.
 Self objects, treat infants as if they had a sense of self.
 Infants are narcissistic — two basic narcissistic needs:
 the need to exhibit the grandiose self
 the need to acquire an idealized image of one or both parents

John Bowlby
 Bowlby firmly believed that
 the attachments formed during childhood have an important impact on adulthood.

- Three stages of separation anxiety

 Protest stage - When their caregiver is first out of sight, infants will cry, resist
soothing by other people, and search for their caregiver.
 Despair stage - infants become quiet, sad, passive, listless, and apathetic
 Detachment stage- infants become emotionally detached from other people,
including their caregiver.
 a responsive and accessible caregiver (usually the mother) must create a secure base
for the child. The infant needs to know that the caregiver is accessible and
dependable and they develop confidence and security in exploring the world.
 bonding relationship- becomes internalized and serves as a mental working model on
which future friendships and love relationships are built.

Mary Ainsworth –Strange situation

 secure attachment, when their mother returns, infants are happy and
 enthusiastic and initiate contact
 anxious-resistant attachment style, infants are ambivalent. When their mother leaves
the room, they become unusually upset, and when their mother returns they seek
contact with her but reject attempts at being soothed.
 anxious-avoidant. With this style, infants stay calm when their mother leaves; they
accept the stranger, and when their mother returns, they ignore and avoid her.

CHAPTER 6 – Karen Horney: Psychoanalytic Social Theory

  The psychoanalytic social theory built on the assumption that social and cultural
conditions, especially childhood experiences, are largely responsible for shaping
personality.

Biography of Karen Horney

 Born on September 15, 1885, in Eilbek, a small town near Hamburg, Germany.
 The only daughter of Berndt Danielsen (father) and Clothilda van Ronzelen Danielsen
(mother); having 4 older half-siblings from her father’s earlier marriage.
 Developed a hostility towards her father regarding him as a hypocrite who turned against
her mother whom she idolized due to protecting her against her father.
 Horney decided to become a physician at the age of 13, but at that time no university in
Germany admitted women. By the time she was 16, this situation had changed.
 By 1917, she had written her first paper on psychoanalysis, “The Technique of
Psychoanalytic Therapy”, which reflected the orthodox Freudian view and gave little
indication of Horney’s subsequent independent thinking.
Introduction to Psychoanalytic Social Theory
 Culture, especially early childhood experiences, plays a leading role in shaping human
personality, either neurotic or healthy.
 Agrees with Freud that early childhood traumas are important, but she differed from him
in her insistence that social rather than biological forces are paramount in personality
development
Horney and Freud Compared
 Horney criticization on Freud’s Theories:
4. She cautioned that strict adherence to orthodox psychoanalysis would lead to
stagnation in both theoretical thought and therapeutic practice.
5. She objected to Freud’s ideas on feminine psychology.
6. She stressed the view that psychoanalysis should move beyond instinct theory and
emphasize the importance of cultural influences in shaping personality. This
wilderness is created by society and not by instincts or anatomy.
Horney Freed

An optimistic concept of humanity and is A pessimistic concept of humanity based

centered on cultural forces that are on innate instincts and the stagnation of
amenable to change personality

The Impact of Culture

 - Didn’t overlook the importance of genetic factors; emphasized cultural influences as
the primary bases for both neurotic and normal personality development; and modern
culture, she contended, is based on competition among individuals
- Believed that culture was responsible for psychic differences between men and women
– not anatomy

Competitiveness and
Leads to an intensified Causes people to
basic hostility Feelings of isolation
need for attention overvalue love
spawns

The Importance of Childhood Experiences

- Childhood is the age from which the vast majority of problems arise. A variety of
traumatic events, such as sexual abuse, beatings, open rejection, or pervasive neglect,
may leave their impressions on a child’s future development.
- Horney hypothesized that a difficult childhood is primarily responsible for neurotic
needs. These needs become powerful because they are the child’s only means of
gaining feelings of safety; the totality of early relationships molds personality
development.
Basic Hostility and Basic Anxiety
Basic Hostility Basic Anxiety
Feelings of rejection/neglect by parents
Parental threats or defense against basic
during childhood or defense against basic
hostility
anxiety
A feeling of being small, insignificant,
Development of basic hostility steams from
helpless, deserted, endangered, in a world
parents not satisfying the needs for safety
that is out to abuse, cheat, attack, humiliate,
and satisfaction of a child
betray, envy – graphic description
Doesn’t necessarily need any particular
Hostility that was repressed, leading to stimulus; is constant and unrelenting.
feelings of insecurity and a vague sense of Permeating its relationship with others that
apprehension contributes to an unhealthy coping
mechanism with people.
- basic hostility and basic anxiety are inextricably interwoven - hostile impulses are the
principal source of basic anxiety, but basic anxiety can also contribute to feelings of
hostility

 List of Defenses against Basic Anxiety

Affection – A strategy that does not always lead to authentic love. In their search for
affection, some people may try to purchase love with self-effacing compliance,
material goods, or sexual favors.

Submissiveness – Submit themselves either to people or to institutions such as an

organization or a religion. Neurotics who submit to another person often do so in
 order to gain affection.

3P’s – Power is a defense against the real or imagined hostility of others and takes the
form of a tendency to dominate others; Prestige is a protection against humiliation
and is expressed as a tendency to humiliate others; Possession acts as a buffer against
destitution and poverty and manifests itself as a tendency to deprive others.
Withdrawal – developing an independence from others or by becoming emotionally
detached from them. By psychologically withdrawing, neurotics feel that they cannot
be hurt by other people.
Compulsives Drives
- Neurotic individuals have the same problems that affect normal people, except neurotics
experience them to a greater degree. Everyone uses the various protective devices to
guard against the rejection, hostility, and competitiveness of others; normal individuals
are able to use a variety of defensive maneuvers in a somewhat useful way, neurotics
compulsively repeat the same strategy in an essentially unproductive manner.
Neurotic Needs
 10 Categories of Neurotic Needs: Characterize Neurotics in their Attempts to Combat
Basic Anxiety

1. Neurotic need for affection and approval: attempt indiscriminately to please others
(living up to expectations, dread self-assertion & uncomfortable feeling towards
hostility of others and oneself)
2. Neurotic need for a powerful partner: tries to attach themselves to a powerful
partner (lacks self-confidence, overvaluation of love & dread of being alone or
deserted)
3. Neurotic need to restrict one’s life within a narrow border: downgrades their own
abilities and dread making demands on others (strive remaining inconspicuous,
taking second place, & contented with very little.)
4. Neurotic need for power: needs for prestige and possession; control others and to
avoid feelings of weakness or stupidity (power & affection greatest neurotic needs)
5. Neurotic need to exploit others: frequently evaluate others on the basis of how they
can be used or exploited (fears being exploited by others)
6. Neurotic need for social recognition or prestige: combat basic anxiety by trying to
be first, to be important, or to attract attention to themselves
7. Neurotic need for personal admiration: self-esteem must be continually fed by the
admiration and approval of others (need to be admired for what they are rather
than for what they possess)
8. Neurotic need for ambition and personal achievement: strong drive to be the best
()must defeat other people in order to confirm their superiority
9. Neurotic need for self-sufficiency and independence: strong need to move away
from people, thereby proving that they can get along without others.
 10. Neurotic need for perfection and unassailability: striving relentlessly for
perfection, neurotics receive “proof” of their self-esteem and personal superiority.
(dread making mistakes and having personal flaws, and they desperately attempt to
hide their weaknesses from others)
Neurotic Trends
- Three basic attitudes towards self and others: (1) moving toward people, (2) moving
against people, and (3) moving away from people.

*basic conflict - very young children are driven in all three directions—toward, against,
and away from people.

 Moving Toward People: Compliant manner

- Neurotic need to protect oneself against feelings of helplessness - either or both
desperately strive for affection and approval of others, or they seek a powerful
partner who will take responsibility for their lives.
*morbid dependency - concept that anticipated the term “codependency”

 Moving Against People: Aggressive manner

- Move against others by appearing tough or ruthless - motivated by a strong need
to exploit others and to use them for their own benefit; seldom admit their
mistakes and are compulsively driven to appear perfect, powerful, and superior.
- Moving toward others and moving against others are polar opposites.

Moving Toward People: Moving Against People:

Compliant manner Aggressive manner 
Differences Similarities Differences M
Compelled to receive Sees everyone as a
affection from everyone potential enemy
Need others to satisfy their Both need other people Use others as a protection
feelings of helplessness against real or imagined
hostility
oving Away from People: Detached manner
- Behave in a detached manner - pression of needs for privacy, independence, and
self-sufficiency.
- However, develops neurotic needs when compulsively putting emotional distance
between themselves and other people; attain autonomy and separateness; builds a
world of their own and refuse to allow anyone to get close to them; elf-sufficiency
and often appear to be aloof and unapproachable.

Intrapsychic Conflicts
- Intrapsychic processes originate from interpersonal experiences; but as they become part of
a person’s belief system, they develop a life of their own—an existence separate from the
interpersonal conflicts that gave them life.
The Idealized Self-Image
- An attempt to solve conflicts by painting a godlike picture of oneself; As the idealized
self-image becomes solidified, neurotics begin to believe in the reality of that image.
They lose touch with their real self and use the idealized self as the standard for self-
evaluation.
*sense of identity - alienated from themselves, people creates an idealized self-image, an
extravagantly positive view of themselves that exists only in their personal belief system.

 The Neurotic Search for Glory

- Believes in the reality of their idealized self, they begin to incorporate it into all
aspects of their lives—their goals, their self-concept, and their relations with
others
- Three other elements:
Need for Perfection - mold the whole personality into the idealized self (not
content to merely make a few alterations; nothing short of complete perfection
is acceptable)

Neurotic Ambition – compulsive drive toward superiority (an exaggerated need

to excel in everything, they ordinarily channel their energies into those activities
that are most likely to bring success)

Drive toward a Vindictive Triumph - most destructive element of all; drive for
achievement or success (aim is to put others to shame or defeat them through
one’s very success; or to attain the power to inflict suffering on them—mostly
of a humiliating kind)

 Neurotic Claims
- Believing that something is wrong with the outside world, they proclaim that
they are special and therefore entitled to be treated in accordance with their
idealized view of themselves.

 Neurotic Pride
- A false pride based not on a realistic view of the true self but on a spurious
image of the idealized self. (imagine themselves to be glorious, wonderful, and
perfect, so when others fail to treat them with special consideration, their
neurotic pride is hurt)
Self-Hatred
- The realization that their real self does not match the insatiable demands of their idealized
self, they will begin to hate and despise themselves.
- Six Major Ways How People Express Self-Hatred:
Relentless Demands on the Self –
push themselves toward perfection
because they believe they should be
perfect

Merciless Self-Accusation –
constantly berate themselves

Self-Contempt – prevents people

from striving for improvement or
achievement
Self-Frustration – stems from self-
hatred and is designed to actualize an
inflated self-image

Self-Torment (self-torture) – inflict

harm or suffering on themselves

Self-Destructive Actions and

Impulses - either physical or
psychological, conscious or
unconscious, acute or chronic,
carried out in action or enacted only
in the imagination
Feminine Psychology
- Psychic differences between men and women are not the result of anatomy but rather of
cultural and social expectations. Men who subdue and rule women and women who
degrade or envy men do so because of the neurotic competitiveness that is rampant in
many societies
Oedipus Complex
- Recognized its existence, insisted that it was due to certain environmental conditions
and not to biology; it is found only in some people and is an expression of the neurotic
need for love.
Penis Envy
- Contended that there is no more anatomical reason why girls should be envious of the
penis than boys should desire a breast or a womb.
Masculine Protest
- Agrees with Adler that many women possess a masculine protest (pathological belief
that men are superior to women)
Critique of Horney
- Social psychoanalytic theory provides interesting perspectives on the nature of humanity,
but it suffers from lack of current research that might support her suppositions.
- Her references to the normal or healthy personality are general and not well explicated.
She believed that people by their very nature will strive toward self-realization, but she
suggested no clear picture of what self-realization would be.
- Falls short on its power both to generate research and to submit to the criterion of
falsifiability. Speculations from the theory do not easily yield testable hypotheses and
therefore lack both verifiability and falsifiability
- “neurotic needs” and “neurotic trends” sometimes separately and sometimes
interchangeably. Also, the terms “basic anxiety” and “basic conflict” were not always
clearly differentiated. These inconsistencies render her entire work somewhat
inconsistent.