The first point of discussion was Psychoanalysis. Welcome to the early 1900s and Sigmund Freud. In the most basic sense, I'd say that what I like about psychoanalysis is that there are so many "gems" of information to be uncovered. Certainly, I do not support Psychoanalysis or Psychodynamic theory in full (just my personal preference), but that does not mean that there isn't anything valuable in the theories. Psychoanalysis offers a great deal of insight into the realm of the unconscious, or what is working behind the scenes that we are not pro-actively aware of. Of course, Freud was not 100% correct, no one ever is, but he certainly gave us a lot of possibilities to consider for the past 100 years and counting. On a comical note, my colleague who gave a presentation on the topic, described the Id (part of the psyche) as a tiger. I could barely control my laughter because I have always thought of the impulsive ans reckless Id as being epitomized by Charlie Sheen. If you the blanks filled in, let youtube take you back a couple years:
Perhaps my most adamant critique against this model is (please, correct me if I'm wrong) the denial of responsibility. Allow me to elaborate. Nevermind the nonesense that our psyche is entirely developed during childhood; but even if it were, suppose that all of our present adult issue can be traced back to something that happened during our childhood... a deficit or surplus somewhere or another. I take no alliance with this inherent "blame game." Blame my parents, or blame this series of random events to which I've attributed the meaning of causation of my current phobia... pick your poison, I'm not buying any. This seems lazy in my opinion. It is lacking responsibility and ownership. Not that we can control every aspect of our lives, but this theory inherently denies responsible ownership of our present state and thereby demands that we succumb to the whim of our past. Perhaps an early childhood trauma did contribute to your irrational fear of X, indeed that is insightful, but I doubt its helpfulness. What do you plan on doing about it now? I don't know that I'd go as far as to say that insight without action is useless, but it doesn't seem to help having a flashlight in the dark if you don't know how to turn it on. Nevertheless, I stumbled upon a Freud quote the other day that was very much to my liking: "No one who... conjures up... those half-tamed demons that inhabit the human beast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect to come through the struggle unscathed" Think about that for a good long while... Here are some links for more information on psychoanalysis, psychodynamic theory, Freud, and Jung.
On to the Adlerian theory. Again, this will be just a brief commentary, for more information about Adler, have a look here. I have never thought of myself as an Adlerian, but what I was quite surprised and impressed with during this class lecture was how much more "contemporary" styles of therapy owe to Adler. For example, the notion of the therapist not being an expert, therapy being a collaborative arrangement based on mutual respect, emphasis on choice and responsibility, emphasis on meaning making, and interests in family constellations. If you've read any of my writing before, some of that should sound pretty familiar. The one bone I have to pick with Adler is his optimism that people will be willing to change. His theories seem to assume that people will desire a stance of activism. For my personal interests and opinions, this is true. However, it is certainly not a blanket effect. It is pretty safe to say that a large number of people are perfectly content with... well... being content. Which, then, kind of puts a buger in the whole "superiority striving" notion. (And yes, I am aware that that phrase does not necessarily mean being better than everyone else, but closer to being your 'best self' - Maslow and Self-Actualization?).
That brings me to the last tag in the title. When contemplating parts of the psyche, various terms are used by Freud and Jung, but I've also heard comparisons with terms such as "should-self", "ought-self", and "actual-self". Similarities exist, for example, the "should-self" closely resembles Freud's Superego in the sense that social-moral-cultural standards suggest you "should" do/be this. The "ought-self" (if my memory is correct) is somewhat of an expectation of the Ego, I "ought to" do this or be this way. We can see, then, some correlation starting to develop from Adler's notion of superiority-striving. Once this was mentioned in class and the connections made in my memory, I couldn't help but continuously think of one thing.... "Is that what a man looks like?"
