Sunday, September 25, 2005

In this weeks psychology class we talked about Erich From's theory of character orientation. Fromm found that peoples personalities are greatly influenced by a culture and the cultures objectives, which is why people of a certain culture have similar personality characteristics. Fromm found that there were five basic character orientations that are seen in western society: receptive, exploitative, hoarding, marketing, and productive. Fromm also believed that these five character orientations have negative and positive sides and that the positive sides of these character orientations are composed of humanistic ethics. Fromm believed that some people have a biophilous character quality, which would mean that person with the biophilous trait will be positive about life and try do well for him or herself. A necrophilous character would be a person who looks at things negatively and seeks to destroy life. I have found it very interesting reading about Fromm's theories of character orientation because it offers a better understanding of the different needs and perspectives of people that can come from an individual's culture. Also in class I enjoyed doing the writing activity because it was interesting listening to people talk about Fromm's theory of the being and having mode, which are the two modes that say whether a person is content or wanting more in life.

Sunday, September 18, 2005

In this weeks Personality Psychology class we covered information from chapter five of the Personality Theories textbook and I found it interesting because I am not that familiar with the work of Karen Horney. I have found that Karen Horney has an in depth and interesting theory on the idealized self. Horney found that the real self is what is actually true about ourselves and she believed that the idealized self is what we think we should be. The idealized self helps people to develop their abilities and the process of self actualization. In a normal person the ideal and real self are closeley related because the idealized self is created through ones own evaluation of capabilities and possibilities. But in some neurotic people the real and ideal self are separated because the neurotic person does not understand their ideal self and they only acknowledge their real self. Horney referred to this situation also known as isolation or the "devils pact" when a person in neurosis lets go of their real self to create a glorified self by only acknowledging their idealized self. Horney also refereed to certain neurotic people who create their own genuine needs or feelings as going through a process known as the "tyranny of the should". It is interesting to understand more about the idealized self because it is an essential concept in psychology that is a characteristic of all people. I think that Horney's idealized self is an interesting concept that helps to gain insight into how people perceive their realty.

Sunday, September 11, 2005

In last weeks psychology and theories class I found it interesting to hear about the various dreams people had talked about in the classroom. Dream work is known as the process of trying to understand the meaning or significance of a dream. Freud believed that dreams were the key to getting inside the unconsciousness. Freud believed that children tend to dream of the pleasure that could possibly come from an unsatisfied wish from an earlier time, because they do not have defenses that protect their motives. Adult dreams also reveal unsatisfied wishes, but often the adult self concept hides the meaning of dreams, because the self concept believes the dream is not tolerable. Because of these factors that effect dreams Freud developed the idea of the manifest and latin dream. The manifest dream is the dream as it recollected or remembered the following morning and it contains a certain story. The latent dream is the meaning or motive within the manifest dream. Freud believed it was important to understand the latent dream. I think that dreams are interesting to understand because when people are asleep they are relaxed and psychological resistance is "caught off guard" and wishes or desires are let loose. It often takes me a while to begin to put together in my head where some of dreams come from, but eventually I begin to realize what influenced or motivated most of my dreams.

Monday, September 05, 2005

Freud's classification of ego defense mechanisms is very interesting, because he has classified 3 different kinds of anxiety known as realty, neurotic and moral anxiety. Freud found that these 3 forms of anxiety are often dealt with through many ego defenses that I have seen in many every day situations. Freud believed that defense mechanisms occur on an unconscious level and also that they deny or distort realty to make a situation less intimidating. Repression, denial, projection, reaction formation, regression, rationalization, identification, displacement and sublimation are the 9 ego defenses that Freud established. From studying these ego defense mechanisms I have realized that it is important to understand these defense mechanisms because they are associated with an individual's emotional and psychological growth.
Google