Introduction
This paper, divided into two parts, is intended to understand April’s case in a “thoughtfully eclectic” way from a social work perspective by applying human behavior theories. The first part shows the use of Ego Psychology to illustrate how loss from April’s father’s death interrupted her development by disrupting her ego function. The second part shows the assessment of April’s biological, psychological, and social-emotional development, the ecological factors which affected her development, and the cultural stereotype expectation on normal development.
Question One:
April’s arrival was not expected by her mother; this unexpected pregnancy may have caused stress to the mother (Joy) while she carried April. This was
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Bowlby pointed out that if children are not given accurate information about a death, they cannot grieve appropriately. The family did not give April a chance to explore and express her grief over the loss. These choices would impact her ego function. Since she could not make sense of the situation, she could not modulate her affect and behavior in order to cope with the pain of loss. She automatically and unconsciously used one of the most important ego functions – defense mechanism – to cope with the trauma. She went into denial, which interfered with her reality testing.
She was told that her father “went to heaven,” which, to her, meant that he was in a distant place. As Silverman, Nickman, and Worden (1992) stated, April, as other children typically display, developed an inner construction of her father that assisted her in coping with her losses and with all of the ensuing changes in her life. She even developed “magic thinking”: a fantasy that her father would return as shown in the picture she drew of her father coming in and out of the house by using the ladder. But with time passing, the reality of her father’s absence becoming increasingly permanent was reinforced. She could not always hold her sadness and fear as shown through her nightmares, crying, or screaming. Sometimes, she regressed to earlier developmental stages, as manifested in her toddler-like behavior, for
Psychological egoism is the interpretation that humans are always inspired by self-interest, even in what seem to be acts of altruism. It claims that, when people choose to help others, they do so ultimately because of the personal benefits that they themselves expect to obtain, directly or indirectly, from doing so. Psychological egoism, which was widely recognized by psychologists and philosophers states that all human actions are motivated by selfish needs to benefit themselves. According to psychological egoists true altruism does not exist because the consequence of such an act leads to an increase in personal happiness. However, Joel Feinberg does not agree with that theory and in his essay he disagreed with the thesis that altruism
Chapter 10 is over personality. Personality is described as a pattern of enduring, distinctive thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that characterize the way an individual adapts to the world. The book goes over psychodynamic perspectives, trait perspectives, personological and life story perspectives, social cognitive perspectives, and biological perspectives.
The Ego Centric Problem states that the knowledge we have gained over the period of our lives in entrenched so deep that it prevents us from learning new things. Descartes states that “if we can only be certain of the contents of our consciousness, then how are we ever to gain knowledge of the world that lies beyond our minds. This brings up a good point, if we already have knowledge, does that knowledge have any influence on us that would hinder us to learn new things.
Anna is Alice’s oldest daughter; she’s a successful lawyer and is married to Charles, also a lawyer. Anna is strong and fiercely independent just like her mother. Anna deals with her mother’s disease by suggesting that if her mom “thinks for a second” then maybe she’ll be able to remember things (p. 173). Anna, however still makes time to care for her mom when her dad is away.
She struggled to overcome these tragic parental issues every day with her aunt Addie. To begin with, Hope got through these trying times by holding on to her aunt Addie. On page six Hope says, “Addie’s been my number-one constant. She stood by me in the hospital at my little oxygen tent telling me to come on and get strong.” Furthermore, on pages 140 and 141, Braverman gives Hope a clown nose that helps her stay positive when her mother comes to visit. After all the time Hope spent without her mother, her being there again was very upsetting for Hope. Braverman helped Hope when her mother came and helped her overcome the struggle of her being there so she did not break down. Finally, on pages 171-172 Hope gets over the fact of her not having a father. On these pages G.T. wants to adopt her and Hope shows him the scrapbooks of her life that she wanted to show her father. G.T. being a fatherly figure in Hope’s life helped her defeat the struggle of not having a father. These astounding constants and kind people in Hope’s life helped her banish the cruelties brought upon her by her mother and overcome the absence of her father thus vanquishing these
When James’ stepfather died Ruth was overcome with grief, so James avoided spending time at home because of the emotional impact he would encounter while watching mommy
Being brought into the world as a savior sister and having to undergo countless surgeries so that her older sister can fight leukemia, has an impact on Anna’s psychosocial development. Psychosocial development focuses on the development of the personality. It refers to how a persons mind, emotions and maturity level develop throughout the course of their lifespan (McLeod, 2010, p 4 ). Well known psychologist Erik Erikson gave an insightful theory of how personality develops based on his experience when working in psychotherapy, with children and adolescents from low, upper and middleclass background (Personality development, 2009, p 6). According to Erikson, the socialization process of an individual refers to eight stages, each stage is accompanied by a “psychosocial crisis” that needs to be solved in the
The descriptive claim made by Psychological Egoists is that humans, by nature, are motivated only by self-interest. Any act, no matter how altruistic it may seem on the outside is actually only a disguise for a selfish desire such as recognition, avoiding guilt, reward or sense of personal ‘goodness’ or morality. For example, Mother Teresa is just using the poor for her own long-term spiritual gain. Being a universal claim, it could falter with a single counterexample. And being that I believe this claim to be bunk I will tell you why!
“People act for many reasons; but for whom, or what, do or should they act—for themselves, for God, or for the good of the planet?” (Moseley) An egoist would argue that one acts for one’s own self. More specifically, an ethical egoist is one who thrives to improve ones own self being, with much respect to morality. Ethical Egoism is the theory that one should pursue his or her own interest above all the rest. It is the idea that all persons should act from their own self interest in relation to morality.
Psychological egoism is the view that everyone always acts selfishly. It describes human nature as being wholly self-centered and self-motivated. Psychological egoism is different from ethical egoism in their “direction of fit” to the world. Psychological ego-ism is a factual theory. It aims to fit the world. In the world is not how psychological ego-ism says it is because someone acts unselfishly, then something is wrong with psycho-logical egoism. In my opinion this argument is completely wrong and unsound.
There is a certain innate desire to help others, just as others will feel that same fulfillment for returning that aid. At the same time, however, there is also an inherent yearning to seek out one’s own best interest. This brings about a discussion regarding the difference between psychological egoism and ethical egoism. To understand the similarities and differences, one must first understand the two concepts including their natures, as well as their doctrines of motivation.
Without a distinct framework, ethical egoism fails as a moral theory to assist moral decision making because it endorses the animalistic nature of humanity, fails to provide a viable solution to a conflict of interest, and is proved to be an evolutionary unstable moral strategy.
In this essay I am going to show my understanding of a child's early emotional development based on the psychoanalytical view of child development. I will show how emotional skills gained in the early years can be of a significant relevance to later life. I will show my understanding by illustrating it with the clinical material. Although I am focusing on the psychoanalytical approach to child development I believe that it is beneficial to present also some general background knowledge of child development.
The theory of psychological egoism is indeed plausible. The meaning of plausible in the context of this paper refers to the validity or the conceivability of the theory in question, to explain the nature and motivation of human behavior (Hinman, 2007). Human actions are motivated by the satisfaction obtained after completing a task that they are involved in. For example, Mother Teresa was satisfied by her benevolent actions and activities that she spent her life doing. As Hinman (2007) points out, she was likely to reduce in activity if she experienced any dissatisfaction in her endeavors.
Psychological egoism is the belief that a person’s actions are prompted by their own selfishness. If every action in the world was done, only to fulfill one’s own selfish aspirations, then there would be no purely altruistic deeds. Moral egoism is the belief that people should do what is in their best self-interest; however, they have a tendency to carry out actions due to their genuineness. Based on its definition, morality is doing something because it is the “right” thing to do. Psychological egoism creates a threat to morality, because if a person is acting kindly, not because it is right, but because he seeks self-gain, then morality is non-existent.