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Neo-Freudian Theories: Adler, Jung, Horney and Erikson

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Please explain the differences and commonalities between Adler, Jung, Horney and Erikson.

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This solutions examines the differences and commonalities between Adler, Jung, Horney and Erikson.

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Let's move from the general differences and commonalities to some of the more specific unique aspects of these theorists' views.

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1. Differences and commonalities between Adler, Jung, Horney and Erikson- I am not looking for an in-depth answer about each individual, just a short general answer.

The Neo-Freudian psychologists are the followers of Sigmund Freud who accepted the basic tenets of his theory of psychoanalysis but altered it in some way. Jung, for example, de-emphasized the sexual nature of the libido and emphasized archetypes; Erik Erikson came up with de-sexualized stages psychosocial development roughly correlating to Freud's psychosexual stages. (URL: http://www.answers.com/topic/neo-freudian). De-emphasizing sexual drives and the unconscious, Alfred Adler postulates a single "drive" or motivating force behind all our behavior and experience, which, though years of refining his theory, that he called the striving for perfection. (URL: http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/adler.html). Horney also presented her major differences with Freud. While continuing to adhere to the fundamental importance of unconscious forces, inner conflicts, free association, dreams, the analytic relationship, and neurotic defenses in psychoanalysis, she rejected Freud's concepts of the role of instincts in health and emotional illness. She saw aggression and sexual problems as the result of neurotic development rather than its cause.(see more detail in URL: http://www.answers.com/topic/karen-horney).

Commonalities to New-Freudian theorists:

? relating to, or characterizing any psychoanalytic system based on but modifying Freudian doctrine
? by emphasizing social factors, interpersonal relations, or other cultural influences in personality development or in causation of mental symptoms and illnesses.(URL: http://www.answers.com/topic/neo-freudian)

1. Karen Horney (1885-1952):

Like Adler, Horney dealt with the conscious mind as opposed to the unconscious, like Freud and Jung. Horney's theory offered a different way of viewing neurosis. She saw it as much more continuous with normal life than previous theorists. Specifically, she saw neurosis as an attempt to make life bearable, as a way of "interpersonal control and coping." (URL: http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/horney.html)

Unique to Horney:

? In Self-analysis (1942) Horney indicated the possibilities, limitations, and specific ways in which people can change through increasing self-awareness.
? Horney focused on the central position of conflict and solutions to conflict in neurosis in Our Inner Conflicts (1945). She saw the neurotic child feeling helpless and isolated in a potentially hostile world, seeking a feeling of safety in compulsive moves toward, against, and away from others. Each of these moves came to constitute comprehensive philosophies of life and patterns of interpersonal relating. The conflict between these opposed moves she called the basic conflict and recognized that it ...

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