Analytical Evaluation of Freud

Based on the past information and the information I acquired during the duration of this course I chose to do my evaluation on Erik Erikson using the classical psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud and Carl Rogers using the non-Freudian / interpersonal approach from Adler and Jung. Since there is no way to tell if either theory is right or wrong it is imperative that we discover our own theory among the popular ones and derive our own method of practice based on our current knowledge. This is done by comparing and evaluating each psychologist and their own theories to derive a common ground among each of them.

In response to Erik Erikson and his approach on ego psychology he was an insecure child growing up who had problems with identity confusion. According to Freud and the classical psychoanalysis, this could possibly be a reflection of his Oedipus complex in where he can not identify with his father nor can he get close to his mother. Since he is dealing with his own confusion of his own identity he can no longer have feelings of closeness with either parent causing him to feel abandoned. His father abandoned him at an early age and so he never had that feeling of closeness with his father. Being as though he did not have that male role during his growing up he can not feel that sense of love coming from either parent which caused him to come up with the ego identity model in his own practices.

Freud didn't exactly invent the idea of the conscious versus unconscious mind, but he certainly was responsible for making it popular. The conscious mind is what you are aware of at any particular moment, your present perceptions, memories, thoughts, fantasies, feelings, what have you. Working closely with the conscious mind is what Freud called the preconscious, what we might today call "available memory:" anything that can easily be made conscious, the memories you are not at the moment thinking about but can readily bring to mind. Now no-one has a problem with these two layers of mind. But Freud suggested that these are the smallest parts!

Freud created a sense of super ego where you internalize the parental standards, ideas, and prohibitions. Since Erikson had no parents to identify with his sense of standards were nonexistent. He had a feeling of inferiority in related to his childhood and adolescence. This can be attributed to the sense for love and Freud’s other drive models. In order to profoundly psychoanalyze Erikson and his feeling of ego and love we must first understand how his family was and how his parents treated him. He felt as though he was treated unfairly according to his siblings. He created a sense of feeling inferior to his other siblings and his parents did not react to that. He had no father and his mother was not really around for him either. This created a sense of not belonging to anything which provoked him to create his own theory about ego development.

Since it is important for a child according to Freud to develop with love, death, hate, hunger, sex, aggression, among other drive and Erikson was not surrounded by not many if any of these drives it also provoked him to analyze his own childhood and come up with his own theory.

In emergency situations, many people find them selves completely calm and collected until the emergency is over, at which point they fall to pieces. Something tells you that, during the emergency, you can't afford to fall apart. It is common to find someone totally immersed in the social obligations surrounding the death of a loved one. Doctors and nurses must learn to separate their natural reactions to blood, wounds, needles, and scalpels, and treat the patient, temporarily, as something less than a warm, wonderful human being with friends and family. Adolescents often go through a stage where they are obsessed with horror movies, perhaps to come to grips with their own fears. Nothing demonstrates isolation more clearly than a theater full of people laughing hysterically while someone is shown being dismembered.

I have to wonder if the reason Erikson created such a radical theory was because of his traumatic event of his father leaving when he was younger. He repressed that memory of his father leaving and in return repressed the feeling of wanting ness from both of his parents. This caused him to have a big drive to create something better in his life.

The second theorist I decided to look at was Carl Rogers. I looked at him from the perspective of the non-Freudian / interpersonal perspective. Carl Rogers also grew up with a sense of insecurity and inferiority on the basis of his parents and family life. According to such psychologists as Adler this is a case where he is striving to be superior but not succeeding in that department do to his own insecurities. He had anxiety in his own life which grew into adult hood forcing him to create his own theory