Freud and Jung: Early Psychoanalytic Theories Essay Example

Freud's focus on sexual issues and conflict, such as the Electra complex and Oedipus complex, where girls compete with their mothers for their father's attention.

The text discusses how Freud used various techniques to explore the unconscious minds of his patients. One such method was free association, where patients would freely express their thoughts and memories. This allowed them to recall suppressed events and achieve catharsis. Freud also utilized hypnosis in his early therapy sessions. Additionally, he conducted dream analysis by interpreting individual dreams to gain insight into the unconscious. These assessment methods helped Freud uncover hidden conflicts and provide psychoanalytic therapy to his patients (Garcia, 1995; Macmillian, 2001; Schept, 2007).

In Jungs psychoanalytic approach to psychology, the unconscious was a significant area of focus. However, Jung held differing views from Freud on three key aspects (Bergmann, 2008). Firstly, Jung rejected the notion that sexual anxiety held primary importance in his theory. Instead, he emphasized that sexual tension was a broader aspect impacting a person's psychic energy, while also considering other factors. Secondly, Jung believed that individuals were influenced by both past and future events, whereas Freud only believed in the impact of events in an individual's life. Lastly, Jung attributed greater significance to the unconscious and introduced the concept of the collective unconscious, which encompassed both retrospective and prospective elements. In fact, Jung further extended the idea of the unconscious itself (Leader, 2009).

He posited the existence of a collective unconscious that encompasses the entirety of humankind's past experiences. This reservoir of knowledge accumulates over generations, aiding in the overall development of the species. Additionally, he believed that every individual possesses a personal unconscious, which houses repressed

memories to shield them from painful recollections.
The collective unconscious comprises various archetypes, such as the persona archetype, which disguises one's true self when interacting with others. Conversely, the shadow archetype represents the darker aspects of human nature for which individuals bear responsibility. Moreover, there exist archetypes like anima, animus, and self.

According to Dolliver (1994), Jung believed that personality was influenced by psychological types based on individuals' attitudes and functions. These types, including extraverted (thinking, feeling, sensing, intuiting) and introverted (thinking, feeling, sensing, intuiting), determined how individuals behaved and interacted with others and their environment. These eight psychological types can be seen as an early version of trait theory and later personality theories. Unlike Freud's belief that unresolved childhood conflicts shaped personality, Jung argued that personality developed throughout life. To learn about the


negative effects of unresolved conflict at work or at home


individuals were constantly striving for self-realization and individuation. This perspective makes Jung's psychoanalytic approach more positive compared to Freud's more pessimistic view of human development (Leader, 2009).

Jung's assessment practices were similar to Freud's methods, but also different. Firstly, Jung employed a word-association test where patients responded to a word given by the therapist with the first word that came to mind (Jung, 1907). This test aimed to access the complexes of his patients. Additionally, Jung utilized symptom analysis to interpret the free associations made by patients. Like Freud, Jung employed dream analysis but used a series of dreams instead of individual ones to develop a thematic interpretation based

on free responses (Schept, 2007).

Both Freud and Jung's theories contributed to the development of psychology as a scientific field, but neither of these theories relied on systematic experimentation. Instead, they were based on case studies of individual clients (Thompson, 2002). The patient interviews were not recorded word-for-word and were conducted with a limited number of patients. While these theories were not highly reliable for generalizing to society as a whole, they stimulated modern scientists to develop research questions that have been tested through empirical research methods. These early ideas and theories have also paved the way for the development of more contemporary theories of behavior and personality. Without Freud and Jung's earlier contributions, the field of psychology would likely appear quite different today.