Feminist and Other Psychoanalytic Trends Essay

The contributions of the socio-cultural approaches to personality, by theorists like K ben Horney, Nancy Chodorow and Margaret Mahler, snap on social and cultural variables, are compared with that of biologically driven theories. Freud had go away psychoanalysis focused on the role played by biology in personality festering. While biology is important to individual biography, so, too, are an individuals life history and the presiding cultural and historical consideration (Kroger, 1996, p. 16).Karen Horney departed from some of the basic principles of Sigmund Freud and suggested social and cultural factors for neuroses and personality disorders. She differed from Freuds view of female psychology and his inferior portrayal of women. Horneys actualisation that, Freudian female psychology was only an offshoot of male psychology, to be expected in a male-oriented culture, came when she experienced childbirth (Foty, 2008, para. 1). She gave the concept of uterus envy, opposite to the theory of penis envy, given by Freud.In her book, The psych onenessurotic Personality of Our Time (1937), Horney phrased that emphasis is put on the actually lively conflicts and the neurotics attempts to solve them, in the treatment of neurosis. (p. vii). She did not deduction the importance of childhood experiences, as theorized by Freud, but disliked the bleached fascination that childhood held for psychoanalysts (p. vii). According to Freud the tussle among id, ego and superego be given to care.However, Karen Horney in her book, Self Analysis (1942), said that, Freuds disbelief in a wish for self development is linked up with his use up that the ego is a weak agency tossed about among the claims of instinctual drives, of the outside instauration and of a forbidding conscience (p. 23). She disagreed with this analysis and theorized that the infants disturbance is caused when the child feels isolated and alone in a hostile world. She argued that, maternal indifference, a lack of warmth and affection in childhood causes anxiety (as cited in Boeree, 2006, Development section, para. 2).According to Horney, children have two basic needfully need for affection and approval, and need for safety. These two needs are the roughly important amongst the ten needs that she gave for transaction with anxiety and they emerge overdue to indifference or lack of warmth from parents. She gave three coping strategies for dealing with these needs moving-toward, which is compliant type, similar to Adlers getting or canted approach moving-against, which is the hostile type, similar to Adlers ruling or rife type moving-away, which is the detached type, similar to Adlers avoiding type ( Boeree, 2006, Theory section).Freud brought aside the individual from the 19th-century family with his concept of the personal unconscious mind, reformulating ideas about sexual activity and sexuality. thenceforth feminism gained support from psychoanalysis, which was itself tran sformed by war, revolution, socio-cultural change, and theories given by Horney and Melanie Klein (Lieberman, 2004). Melanie Kleins Object Relations Theory emphasized the ego development of the children, during their early eld, as being related to parts of objects rather than the whole.Margaret Mahler conducted colossal observations of healthy arrive-infant and mother-toddler dyads in a naturalistic setting to delineate the treat by which the child differentiates itself from its primary care-taker and becomes an autonomous person(Kroger,1996, p. 51). According to Mahler, musical interval and individuation are the processes used by infants in the early years of life. Separation is the childs emergence from a symbiotic coalescency with the mother, whereas individuation is those achievements marking the childs assumption of his induce individual characteristics (p.51). Mahler gave four stages of separation- individuation process Differentiation (5 to 10 months), which is the st arting line of the difference between self and the primary caregiver Practicing (10 to 16 months), which tag the emergence of motor abilities Rapprochement (16 to 24 months), during which, children first get a real sense that they are individuals, separate from their mothers (Mahler, 2007) Consolidation and object attention (24 to 36 months), in which the kids know that their mother will be screen and are not anxious in their absence.Two processes take government agency at this last phase The achievement of a definite indistinguishability, and the attainment of a certain degree of object constancy(Kroger, 1996, p. 53). In her book The Reproduction of Mothering, Nancy Chodorow (1978), another Object Relations theorist, pointed out, women experience a sense of self-in-relation that is in contrast to mens creation of a self that wishes to deny relation and connection(p. viii). Mothers by virtue of their gender, experience daughters like them and sons unlike.Consequently, girls and boys internalize these differences and transform these unconscious maternal communications through their own intra-psychic capacities. (p. viii). This leads to men being to a greater extent independent and women more empathetic. The girls attachment to her mother is preoedipalconcerned with early mother-infant relative issues and issues of dependence and individuation. A Boys attachment to his mother is oedipal, expressing his sense of difference and masculine oppositeness to her. (p. 97).Freuds Oedipus complex was to let off sexual identity whereas the individuation process explains the childs gender identity. Separation-individuation theory outlines the importance of nurture in human development (Edward, Ruskin & Turrini, 1991, p. 3). The race between mother and child during infancy plays an integral role in the childs growth in later years. separation-individuation assumes different developmental pathways for men and women, with men cultivating a personality style that emphasi zes autonomy and women cultivating one in which attachment needs take precedence(Gnaulati & Heini, 2001).References Boeree, C. G. (2006). Personality theories. In Shippensburg University my website. Retrieved butt 10, 2008, from http//webspace. ship. edu/cgboer/perscontents. html. Chodorow, N. (1978). The reproduction of mothering Psychoanalysis and the sociology of gender. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press. Edward, J. , Ruskin, N. , Turrini, P. (1992). Separation/ identity Theory and application. (2nd ed. ). New York Brunner-Routledge. Foty, G. R. (1988). A Mind of Her Own The Life of Karen Horney.Smithsonian, 19, n5. p. 127(2). Retrieved work on 15, 2008, from British Council Journals Database via Gale http//find. galegroup. com/ips/start. do? prodId=IPS Gnaulati, E. , & Heine, B. J. (2001). Separation-individuation in late adolescence an investigation of gender and ethnical differences. The Journal of Psychology, 135, 1. p. 59(12). Retrieved Ma rch 15, 2008, from British Council Journals Database via Gale http//find. galegroup. com/ips/start. do? prodId=IPS Horney, K. (1942). Self analysis. London Routledge & Kegan capital of Minnesota Ltd. Horney, K. (1937). The neurotic personality of our time.London Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. , Ltd. Kroger, J. (1996). Identity in adolescence The balance between self and other. London Routledge. Lieberman, E. J. (2004). Zaretsky, Eli. Secrets of the Soul A Social and Cultural recital of Psychoanalysis. Library Journal, 129, 10. p. 162(1). Retrieved March 15, 2008, from British Council Journals Database via Gale http//find. galegroup. com/ips/start. do? prodId=IPS Mahlers Theory of Development. (2007). KidsDevelopment. Retrieved March 15, 2008, from http//www. kidsdevelopment. co. uk/MahlersDevelopmentTheory. html