Contemporary Psychodynamic Theories

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Chapter 11 Personality
The Latency Period As the phallic stage draws to a close and its conflicts are coped
with by the ego, there is an interval of psychological peace. During this latency period,
which lasts through childhood, sexual impulses stay in the background as the youngster focuses on education, same-sex peer play, and the development of social skills.
The Genital Stage During adolescence, when sexual impulses reappear at the conscious level, the genitals again become the focus of pleasure. Thus begins what Freud
called the genital stage, which lasts for the rest of the person’s life. The quality of relationships and the degree of fulfillment experienced during this final stage, he claimed,
are influenced by how intrapsychic conflicts were resolved during the earlier stages.
Variations on Freud’s Personality Theory
Freud’s ideas—especially those concerning infantile sexuality and the Oedipus complex—were, and still are, controversial. Even many of Freud’s followers did not entirely
agree with him. Some of these followers are known as neo-Freudian theorists, because
they maintained many of the basic ideas in Freud’s theory but developed their own
approaches. Others are known as ego-psychologists, because their theories focus more
on the ego than on the id (Larsen & Buss, 2005).
Jung’s Analytic Psychology Carl Jung (pronounced “yoong”) was the most
prominent of Freud’s early followers to chart his own theoretical course. Jung (1916)
argued that people are born with a general life force that, in addition to a sex drive,
includes a drive for creativity, for growth-oriented resolution of conflicts, and for the
productive blending of basic impulses with real-world demands. Jung did not identify
specific stages in personality development. He suggested instead that people gradually
develop differing degrees of introversion (a tendency to reflect on one’s own experiences) or extraversion (a tendency to focus on the social world), along with differing
tendencies to rely on specific psychological functions, such as thinking or feeling. The
combination of these tendencies and functions, said Jung (1933), creates personalities
that show distinctive and predictable patterns of behavior.
latency period The fourth of Freud’s
psychosexual stages, usually beginning
during the fifth year of life, in which
sexual impulses become dormant and
the child focuses on education and
other matters.
genital stage The fifth and last of
Freud’s psychosexual stages, which begins during adolescence, when sexual
impulses begin to appear at the conscious level.
Other Neo-Freudian Theorists Alfred Adler, once a loyal follower of psychoanalysis, came to believe that the power behind the development of personality comes
not from id impulses but from an innate desire to overcome infantile feelings of
helplessness and gain some control over the environment. Other prominent neoFreudians emphasized social relationships in the development of personality. Some,
including Erik Erikson, Erich Fromm, and Harry Stack Sullivan, argued that once biological needs are met, the attempt to meet social needs (to feel protected, secure, and
accepted, for example) is the main force that shapes personality. According to these theorists, the strategies that people use to meet social needs, such as dominating other
people or being dependent on them, become core features of their personalities.
The first feminist personality theorist, Karen Horney (pronounced “horn-eye”), challenged Freud’s view that women’s lack of a penis causes them to envy men and feel
inferior to them. Horney (1937) argued that it is men who envy women. Realizing that
they cannot bear children, males see their lives as having less meaning and substance
than women’s. Horney called this condition womb envy. She believed that when women
feel inferior, it is because of cultural factors—such as the personal and political restrictions that men have placed on them—not because of penis envy (Larsen & Buss, 2005).
Contemporary Psychodynamic Theories
Today, some of the most influential psychodynamic approaches to personality focus on
object relations—that is, on how early relationships, particularly with their parents,
affect how people perceive and relate to other people later in life (Pervin, Cervone, &
The defense mechanism illustrated in the cartoon on page 423 is displacement.