Question

What are some similarities between the traditional psychodynamic theories? Which do you believe has had the greatest effect on studying personality? Why?

Answer 1

The similarities between the traditional psychodynamic theories involves that they see human functioning based upon the interaction of drives and forces within the person, particularly unconscious and between different structures of personality, for eg. for freud it was the id, ego and superego, for jung it was the collective unconscious and for adler it was the need to fight feelings of inferiority while for horney it was moving towards, against or away from others. they all focus on how our behaviour and feelings as adults are rooted in our childhood experiences. the basic assumptions of these theories focus on psychic determinism or how all behaviour has a cause/reason. different parts of the unconscious mind are in constant struggle. these approaches take into account both sides of the nature/nurture debate and ignore mediational processes. they are based on case studies where generalization can get difficult.

Freud could be said to have the greatest effect on studying personality because his was the original psychodynamic theory. he developed a collection of theories which formed the basis of psychodynamic theory to psychology.