The History and Theory of Personality

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Let me throw out a few ideas on both questions as they concern both S. Freud and C. Rogers. I'll try to fit all three topics below in my own views on the question, especially since the questions you pose overlap quite a bit.

Discuss one aspect of their theory that would be different if they were alive and working today.
Discuss the impact society and culture made on each theorist's theory.
Discuss whether the current global situation and culture would have influenced Freud and Rogers' theories.

Let's look at SF first:
Freud might be one example where his approach to the world might change very little if he were alive in 2012.
A few differences might be this:

1. He might be more sensitive to cultural and regional differences. We might say that, given our sensitivity to cultural differences, Freud might today modify his theory to reject a complete and universal view of human nature. This might be part of the impact of early 20th century culture on Freud - there was one 'human nature' that was inherently neurotic.

2. He might (as later writers like Adorno and Marcuse claimed) hold that sublimation is less necessary in 2012 then it was before. Why? Because technology makes production so much easier than before that the amount of id sublimation at any given time might be minimal. Hence, the present amount of id sublimation is unnecessary and hence pathological (that was Marcuse's position in the 1960s).

3. I wonder about the superego - in an age of radical moral relativism, what function would this have at all? How would a superego be formed in today's rapid fire media society? In other words, under a regime of relativism, how important will the superego be?

4. I think his focus on childhood trauma would remain unchanged.

5. More speculatively, SF might conceded, had he been alive ...