Psychoanalytic Approach vs. Humanistic Approach Essay

In the counseling world today understanding psychodynamic approaches is more crucial than ever in the assessment and treatment of any psychological issue. Psychodynamic approaches such as Individual therapy, analytical therapy and psychoanalysis are similar in many ways but also differ based on the individuals own perception and circumstances. I will discuss the similarities as well difference’s and why these forms of therapy are critical in the assessment and treatment of clients.

What makes us who we are, what drives our personality? Is it driven by deep seeded sexual desires or is it something a bit more mundane, something that while we still have no control over, is easily studied?

Maslow’s theory of motivation is called the “hierarchy of needs”. Maslow believes that people have five main needs in the following order of importance;

Humanistic conceptions of personality focus on our own natural progression towards achieving one’s full potential, having a holistic approach. Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) believes that growth and behaviour is motivated by a number of needs ranging from basic to psychological needs. He uses a hierarchy, commonly depicted as a five-tier pyramid in which the bottom 4 levels represent our deficit needs, shown in figure 1 below. Once the individual’s physiological needs are met, they may move to the next and so on. After all deficit needs have been met, an individual is capable of achieving self-actualisation. According to Maslow, fulfilling this need means reaching one’s highest potential and truly understanding one’s self.

This essay is about comparing and contrasting two out of the eight personality theories commonly used to decipher one’s personality. Those two are the psychoanalytic perspective and the existential/humanistic perspective. Both perspectives are equally important as they play a major role in understanding personality in different ways and explaining them as well. Freud’s psychoanalysis helps us to understand the individual’s personality from its early years right up to adulthood while existential and humanistic theorists postulate the interpretation that personality changes throughout the lifetime. The contents of this essay include the comparing and contrasting between the structure, concepts, methods, theorists, and strengths

Psychologist Abraham H. Maslow is the developer of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The theory covers human behavior in terms of basic requirements for survival and growth (Cengage, 2002). The theory was developed in the early 1960’s. During this time psychology was taken over by two different views. One side was the human behavior and the other one was the behaviorist. Maslow explained that psychoanalysts had not accomplished the task to consider the behavior of healthy humans. He also mentioned that many subjective experiences that related with human behaviors were being ignored by behaviorist. In the beginning Maslow examined motivations and experience of many healthy individuals. He recognized that there are many requirements in this theory that are important for human survival and to help motivate individuals. He conceptualized different human needs as a pyramid with five levels in

With these few thoughts in mind Abraham Maslow made up a hierarchy of needs. (Boeree, Page 2) The hierarchy of needs has five levels: the bottom one is Physiological Needs, the next one up is Safety needs, the next one is Belonging needs, the next one is Esteem Needs and finally the last one is Self-actualization needs. As Maslow thought he “saw human beings needs arranged like a ladder”, the most basic needs at the bottom and at the top the need to fulfill yourself. (pbs.org, Page 1) Below is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Abraham Maslow’s theory, Theory of Hierarchy Needs, is a motivational theory in psychology that has a tier model of the five things a human needs. Maslow stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs and that some needs take precedence over others. The five stages, from bottom to top, include Physiological needs( food, water, warmth, and rest), the second stage: Safety Needs ( security and safety), third stage: Belongingness and love needs ( intimate relationships and friends), the fourth stage: Esteem Needs (prestige and feeling of accomplishment), and finally the last stage: Self-actualization ( achieving one’s full potential, including creative potential). The five stage model can be divided into

Maslow’s Theory is separated into five different categories of needs. These include physiological needs, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. (“Maslow, Abraham”). Maslow categorized these needs into a pyramid structure. At the base of Maslow’s Pyramid are physiological needs which need to be met before a person can go higher up on the pyramid. Once these needs are met, then a person can begin fulfilling other needs such as safety, love and so on. Physiological needs include the basic needs of oxygen, food, water, sleep, proteins and minerals. Another part of these needs include being active, avoiding pain and removing waste from your body. As the physiological needs are meet, safety and security needs begin to dominate behavior (Boeree). Safety and security needs have to do with the natural desire for a predictable, orderly world that is somewhat within our control. This also includes protection, and safe

Abraham Maslow was an American theorist that was one of the advocates of humanistic psychology. He believed that self-actualization is “a situation that exists when a person is acting in accordance with his or her full potential” (Hergenhahn & Olson, 2011). I will illustrate the key concepts of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs of humans, research the methodologies of his concept, and address how self-actualization has conceptualized on this type of personality development. His contribution

Mental Health Issues and the Psychodynamic Approach The psychodynamic approach highlights the importance of the unconscious mind and early childhood experiences, therefore practitioners of this approach will attempt to deal with the mental health issues of their patients by incorporating these ideas and creating ‘therapies’ using these bases. The basic concept behind psychoanalysis is that a patient that suffers from mental health problems such as depression can address any regressed feelings thus, the patient gains insight of and can learn to work through their emotional ‘baggage’. It is a generalised notion that if the cause of the symptoms were tackled it would only be logical that the

Compare and contrast how the psychodynamic and person-centred approaches to counselling understand the person, and how these two approaches explain psychological distress experienced by individuals. In part 2 reflect on and write about which of the two models appeals most to you and why?

The focus of this paper is the person-centered approach, which is the understanding of personality and human relationships in psychotherapy and counseling in the areas of client-centered therapy, education of student-centered learning, organizations, and other group settings. Even though psychoanalysis and behaviorism have made major contributions to psychology, it has influenced the understanding and practices of the humanistic movement, specifically with the therapies for the different mental disorders. Psychoanalysis understands the unconscious behavior, behaviorism focuses on the conditioning process that produces behavior. Humanistic psychology focuses on the person's potential to act as a whole person in a nurturing environment by

Psychoanalysis is a therapy and also a theory which was produced by Sigmund Freud. This therapy stress that human behavior and emotion are unconsciously cause by their past experience and drive in the unconscious part and the client doesn’t know them. The therapist always uses this therapy to help the client understand more emotion and

In the field of Psychology, there are many theories and techniques that can be utilized. Some counselors might choose to use one or more of these theories and techniques, but some will choose to use only one. After learning about the different theories and techniques, I have chosen the Psychoanalytic Theory as my personal theoretical orientation. The reason I chose Psychoanalysis is because I feel that it best suits me. What seems to be most intriguing to me about Psychoanalysis is that its main focus is on your conscious and unconscious mind. I enjoy using techniques in order to find out what information lies within your conscious and unconscious and for this reason, I feel Psychoanalysis best fits my personality.