C H COOLEY

 Self is a subjective world, a phenomenal world. It is the characteristics of

individual’s traits, behaviors, identities, feelings and thoughts.

Aspects of self

 Self-concept: An overarching idea people have about who they are-

physically, emotionally, socially, spiritually and in terms of other aspects
that make up who we are.
 Self-knowledge: It is used to describe the information that an individual
draws upon when finding answers to the questions “what am I like?” and
“who am I?”.
 Self-esteem: Self-esteem is how we value and perceive ourselves.
 Social-Self: It refers to how we perceive ourselves in relation to others.

Development of Self

 Self-concept is a function of social interactions and it undergoes many

changes over the course of a life-time.
 New-borns initially have no concept of self
 They must first discover their existence separate from their environment
(i.e., objects, people).
 Once infants make this important distinction between self and non-self,
they establish interactive routines with close companions (i.e., develop
socially) and learn that their behavior elicits predictable reactions from
others.

Charles Horton Cooley (1922a) the American sociologist is best known for his
concept of the “looking glass self”.

 The looking-glass self, first coined by Charles Cooley, 1902, in his work,
Human nature and the Order, describes how one’s self or social identity is
dependent on one’s appearance to others.

 Developmentally, Cooley theorizes that human beings possess an inherent

tendency to reach out, interact, or socialize with those people and objects
that surround them.

 According to him, children develop a concept of their selves with the help
of others around them. She/he forms an idea about oneself based on the
opinions of others about her/him. The kind of social self that develops out
of an imagination of how one appears to the other person and the kind of
 feeling about one’s self can be referred to as “looking glass self” or
“reflected self”.

“Each to each a looking glass

Reflects the other that doth pass”

Human Nature and Social Order

 The real human life, which may be considered either in an individual

aspect or in a social aspect, is always both individual and general. In other
words, society and individuals do not denote separable phenomena, but are
simply collective and distributive aspects of the same thing.

 The question often asked is whether the individual is free or a mere piece
of society. For Cooley, heis free, but it is an organic freedom, which
he works out in cooperation with others, not a freedom to do things
independently of society. It is teamwork. He has the freedom to function in
his own way, like the quarter back, but, in one way or another, he has to
play the game as life brings him into it.

Symbolic interaction

 The knowledge about ourselves develops in us through the opinions and

reactions of others around this. The social “looking glass self” consists of
these other people through whom we build an image of ourselves. This
knowledge about one’s self is first obtained from the parents and later it is
reformed by the judgements of others. He argued that people’s self-
understanding is constructed by their perception of how others view them.
 From the time they are born, humans define themselves within the context
of their social interactions. Children learn that the symbol of their crying
will elicit a response from their caregivers, not only when they are in need
of necessities such as food or a diaper change, but also when they are in
need of attention.
 Cooley best explains this interaction in On Self and Social Organization,
noting that "a growing solidarity between mother and child parallels the
child's increasing competence in using significant symbols. This
simultaneous development is itself a necessary prerequisite for the child's
ability to adopt the perspectives of other participants in social relationships
and, thus, for the child's capacity to develop a social self."
 Cooley argued that the dynamic of self-creation is similar to a looking-glass
(a mirror) in that: “As we see our face, figure, and dress in the glass and are
interested in them because they are ours, and pleased or otherwise with
them according as they do or do not answer to what we should like them to
be; so in imagination we perceive in another’s mind some thought of our
appearance, manner, aims, deeds, character, friends, and so on, and are
variously affected by it”. He termed it as looking glass self.

 According to Cooley (1902), the human mind is social and mental. This
means that the mental processes occurring in the human mind are the
direct result of social interaction.

 A self-idea of this sort seems to have three principal elements:

1) The imagination of our appearance to the other person

2) The imagination of his judgement of that appearance and

3) Some sort of self-feeling such as pride or mortification.

 The comparison with a looking glass hardly suggests the second element,
the imagined judgement, which is quite essential.
 The thing that moves to pride or shame is not the mere mechanical
reflection of ourselves, but an imputed sentiment, the imagined effect of
this reflection upon another’s mind.
 As a result, in our imagination we form an opinion about ourselves through
the other person’s perceptions and may get positively or negatively affected
by it.
 For example, a child who is in the mood to create some mischief might
want to lie to her/his parents. However, before creating the mischief the
child might reflect over and think that if his lie is caught that will have a
bad impression on her/his parents about her/him.

Concept of self, I and me

 The tendency of the self, like every aspect of personality, is expressive of

far-reaching hereditary and social factors, and is not to be understood or
predicted except in connection with the general life.
 The object of self-feeling is affected by the general course of history, by the
particular development of nations, classes, and professions and other
conditions of this sort.
 According to Cooley, the meaning of ‘I’ and “ mine” is learned in the same
way that the meanings of hope, regret, chagrin, disgust and thousands of
 other words of emotion and sentiments are learned: that is, by having the
feeling, imputing it to others in connection with some kind of expression,
and hearing the word along with it.
 In its more complex forms, such as are expressed by “I”, in conversation
and literature, it is a social sentiment, or type of sentiments.
 The individual’s selective application of looking-glass self
 There are certain circumstances where individuals care more about others’
perceptions of them than others.
 For example, someone traveling through a foreign city where they know no
one may be less conscious about how they appear to others than someone
in an interview for their dream job
 People use the looking-glass self to control and evaluate the responses of
others
 Because people are aware that others are perceiving, reacting to, and
judging them, they attempt to shape the impressions that they give others.
 For example, someone may brag about how much alcohol they consumed
over the course of a weekend to their friends but make a concerted effort to
hide this information from their employer.

GEORGE HERBERT MEAD

 American philosopher, sociologist, and psychologist, primarily affiliated
with the University of Chicago, where he was one of several distinguished
pragmatists.
 He is regarded as one of the founders of symbolic interactionism and of
what has come to be referred to as the Chicago sociological tradition.
 Mead is best known for his theory of Self. According to Mead, the self
represents the sum total of people’s conscious perception of their identity
as distinct from others.
 His theory of Self was shaped by his overall view of socialization as a life-
long process.
 For him, self is the social product rising from relations with other people.
At first, as babies, we are unable to interpret the meaning of people’s
behaviour.
 When children, learn to attach meanings to their behaviour, they step out
of themselves. Finally, when they can think about themselves, the same
way they might think about someone else, they begin to gain a sense of self.

MIND
 The first component in Mead's trilogy is termed mind Mead's conception of
mind is a "social phenomenon arising and developing within the social
process, within the empirical matrix of social interactions.
 The mind emerges through such exchanges; thus, its nature is that of an
internal process of communication grounded in the utilization of
significant symbols.
 Therefore, the mind is processually formed through self-conversation and
interactions with others Shared symbols, dominate the process Our most
vital and distinctive symbolic communication is language.
 In Mead's words, "out of language emerges the field of mind. For Mead and
later symbolic interactionists language is the distinguishing criterion for
being human.
 Mead believed that if one's actions evoke the same response in others, then
the meaning of symbols is no longer private but a behavioral reality that
can be studied.

SELF

 The second component in Mead's trilogy is termed self. The self also "arises
in social experience" and can be thought of as an object to itself," possessing
a "social structure".
 Individuals can conceive of their own being and convert that identity into a
form of consciousness. So conceived, the self can be the recipient of both
definition and emotion.
 Symbolic communication is crucial to the development of answers to the
question. Who am I? Mead argued that the self is best thought of as a
process, and he traced its genesis developmentally.
 The development of the self is dependent on learning to take the role of the
other. Role taking requires that we imagine how our behavior will be
defined from the standpoint of others (as in Cooley’s “looking glass self”).
 For Mead, role taking occurs throughout the developmental process by
which the self is constructed and refined. This process consists of three
distinctive phases.
 From a period of imitation, without meaning for infants; through the play,
acting world of children; and finally, to the phase of the generalized other,
the self-expands, changes, and comes into being.
 For the very young, role playing is simply a matter of doing what others do
(Imitation). In time, however, the child begins to play " roles such as parent,
sibling, even the imaginary friend.
 In the course of switching identities and imaginary conversations, the self
through play becomes both separate and defined.
 The child is learning to see a unique self from the various perspectives of
other role players (Role Playing).
 When egocentric play gives way to the rules and " of games, the individual
learns that the behaviors of other players are somewhat fixed, impersonal,
and predictable.
 In playing the multiple and interlocking roles of the game, and other
organized endeavours, self-control emerges.
 Through such play, one develops and internalizes a group of perspectives
on the self that Mead termed the Generalized Other. As this collective frame
of reference matures, the player becomes a social being who will
demonstrate some consistency in future behavior.
 Thus, the inner voice of the generalized other continues to whisper the
complex requirements of being "human.

SOCIETY

 Society is the third component in Mead's system It is little more than an

extension of his "organized self.
 More precisely, through interaction the self takes on "generalized social
attitudes" toward a wider environment Such references are beyond the
immediate spheres of personal relationships, intimate groups, or
communities.
 For Mead, the institution of society consists of "common responses" rooted
in such attitudes by which "the modern civilized human individual is and
feels himself to be a member not only of a certain local community or state
or nation, but also of an entire given race or even civilization as a "whole.
 Society is thus maintained by virtue of humans’ ability to role take and to
assume the perspective of generalized other.

Three stages of Development of Self

The process of forming the self, according to mead occurs in three distinct
stages:

1. Imitation: In this stage, children copy behaviour of adults without

understanding it. A little boy might ‘help’ his parents vacuum cleans the floor
by pushing a toy vacuum cleaner or even a stick around the room.

2. Play stage: A child plays, sometimes at being a mother or a teacher, at times

a Post man, a police man etc. In this stage, responses are not organised. A child
thus internalizes the attitudes of others who are significant to him through
enacting the roles of others.

3. Game Stage: As a child matures, he also learns to respond to ‘Generalised

Others’. The individual just does not identify the roles of his significant
others(family) but also determines other. He gains a Social Identity.

Two Facets of Self

Mead made significant contribution to the development of the concept of

social self in differentiating that the portion of the self that develops through
the internalization of the attitudes of others from that portion which never
becomes completely predictable.

‘Me’

1. Me is the part of the Self that is an organisation of the internalized attitude

of others.

2. Me represents the conventional part of self.

3. It is an objective part of self

‘I’

1. I is the acting part of Self.

2. I represents the self in so far as it is free, has initiative, novelty and

uniqueness.

3. I is the Subjective part of self.

Interaction Between Two Facets of Self

1. Mead says that two parts of the self are in constant interaction. The ‘I’ holds
attitudes about “me”. and the me reflects the judgments of others towards “I”.

2. This dialogue is the basic part of the conscious and unconscious mental life
of every individual.

3. The self has characteristics that it can be the object and subject to itself.

4. Self is introspective.

5. Self is reflective.

6. The self arises in the process internal conversation between I and Me.
WILLIAM JAMES
 William James was born in a well-to-do New England family on January 11,
1842.

MAJOR CONCEPTS

 James explored the full range of human psychology, from brain-stem

functioning to religious ecstasy, from the perception of space to psychical
research (now called ESP). He could argue both sides of a controversy with
equal brilliance.
 For James, personality arises from the continual interplay of instincts,
habits, and personal choices. He viewed personal differences,
developmental stages, psychopathology, and the rest of personality as
arrangements and rearrangements of the basic building blocks supplied by
nature and slowly refined by evolution.

The Self

 The self is that personal continuity that we all recognize each time we
awaken. It is more than personal identity; it is the place from which all our
mental processes originate and through which all our experiences are
filtered.
 James described several layers of the self, which, like consciousness, he
saw, paradoxically, as simultaneously continuous and discrete.

THE BIOLOGICAL SELF. The biological self is our physical, corporal being. It
is our hereditary makeup, our physical features, our physiological processes. It
is everything to do with our biological functions. It is the vehicle that
transports us physically from birth to death, that exists in the physical world.

 It is this unique heart that is mine; this unique brain, just this hand, just
this foot, just this tongue—the physicalness of personal identity that is me
and no other person. It can be taken as a subset of the material self.

THE MATERIAL SELF. In addition to the biological self, the material self
includes those specific items in the physical world with which we personally
identify. It is the total world of objects that we own. The material self
encompasses the sum total of our home, possessions, friends, and family.

 In its widest possible sense, however, a man’s Self is the sum total of all that
he CAN call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes
and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his
reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank-account.
 All these things give him the same emotions. If they wax and prosper, he
feels triumphant; if they dwindle and die away, he feels cast down,—not
necessarily in the same degree for each thing, but in much the same way
for all.

THE SOCIAL SELF. We willingly or unwillingly accept any and all roles. A
person may have few or many social selves.

 These may be consistent or inconsistent. But whatever they are, we identify

with each in the proper setting. We have, in fact, as many different selves
as we have individual relationships, he said. James suggests that the proper
course of action is to pick a self that seems admirable and to act like that
self in as many situations as possible.
 “All other selves thereupon become unreal, but the fortunes of this self are
real. Its failures are real failures, its triumphs real triumphs”. This
phenomenon James called the selective industry of the mind.
 The social self constitutes patterns of personal habit that form the mainstay
of our relationships. James viewed it as the shifting, malleable surface of
personality, often little more than a set of masks, changed to suit different
audiences. He argued that social habits are necessary; they make life
orderly. Habit is a cushion; it renders relationships safe and predictable.
 To James, the constant interplay between cultural conformity and
individual expression was beneficial to both.

THE SPIRITUAL SELF. The spiritual self is the individual’s inner and
subjective being. It is an active element in all consciousness.

 According to James, it is “the most enduring and intimate part of the self”. It
is not where we experience pleasure or pain but that part of us that
pleasure and pain affect. It is the source of effort, attention, and the will.
 That simultaneously highest, deepest, and most all-encompassing
dimension of personality. The active element in all consciousness, the
individual’s inner and subjective being. It is also the place from which the
decisions of the will emanate and the source of attention and effort.
 The spiritual self is of a different order of feeling from the other selves, and
while it is hard to define, it can be experienced. One expression of this self
is exemplified in religious experiences, which James saw as coming from a
region more central than the area of ideas or of intellect.

But James also said that while all of our various selves could be unified in the
experience of mystical awakening, this unification is never complete. We may
be permitted to see the possibility of unity, but its actualization remains the
great task of living.

ERIK ERIKSON
Erik Erikson is the most widely read and influential post-Freudian theorist,
both in psychology and in the popular press.

Erikson’s life-span theory of ego development has had enormous influence

within psychology and related fields. He is also the founder of modern
psychohistory.

He made three major contributions to the study of personality: (1) that along
with Freud’s psychosexual developmental stages, the individual
simultaneously goes through psychosocial and ego-development stages, (2)
that personality development continues throughout life, and (3) that each
stage of development can have both positive and negative outcomes.

Erikson’s theory includes eight stages of human development. Each stage

consists of a unique developmental task that confronts individuals with a
crisis that must be resolved. The more successfully an individual resolves the
crises, the healthier development will be.

1) Trust vs Mistrust is Erikson’s first psychosocial stage, which is experienced

in the fi rst year of life. Trust in infancy sets the stage for a lifelong
expectation that the world will be a good and pleasant place to live.

Caregivers who are sensitive and responsive to their baby’s basic needs, such
as food and shelter, help their baby develop a sense of security. When these
babies learn that they will receive the care they need when they need it, they
begin to feel safe and learn to trust the people around them.

On the other hand, caregivers who are unresponsive to their baby’s needs can
cause their baby to view this “new world” as unreliable and unpredictable.
These babies may develop a sense of anxiety and mistrust, which will affect
how they interact with others as they grow up.

The virtue that is developed upon a healthy resolution of the crisis at this stage
is “hope”. This is manifested by a deep faith and conception that everything
will turn out to be okay.

2) Autonomy versus shame and doubt is Erikson’s second stage. This stage
occurs in late infancy and toddlerhood (1 to 3 years). After gaining trust in
their caregivers, infants begin to discover that their behavior is their own.
 They start to assert their sense of independence or autonomy. For
example, they can play with their toys, feed themselves, go potty by
themselves and even dress themselves.They realize their will. If infants and
toddlers are restrained too much or punished too harshly, they are likely to
develop a sense of shame and doubt.

3) Initiative versus guilt, Erikson’s third stage of development, occurs during

the preschool years. As preschool children encounter a widening social
world, they face new challenges that require active, purposeful, responsible
behavior.

Children at this ages like to act out various family scenes and roles, such as
teachers, police officers, doctors, as they see on TV. They make up stories with
toys to demonstrate what they believe is the adult world. They also begin to
explore their environment and ask a lot of “why” questions.

Over-controlling and overly strict caregivers who discourage their children

from exploring new things may cause their children to develop a sense of
guilt. This may have a negative impact on their social life and may also hinder
their creativity. Feelings of guilt may arise, though, if the child is irresponsible
and is made to feel too anxious.

Success at this phase of the Erikson stages will lead to the virtue of purpose,
which is demonstrated by how the children make decisions, come up with new
ideas, as well as work and play with others.

4) Industry versus inferiority is Erikson’s fourth developmental stage,

occurring approximately in the elementary school years. Children now
need to direct their energy toward mastering knowledge and intellectual
skills. Children become more competitive. They get to know their abilities
as well as others’ abilities. They compare themselves to their peers as they
feel the need to validate their competency.

If they don’t measure up, they feel inferior. The negative outcome is that the
child may develop a sense of inferiority—feeling incompetent and
unproductive.

According to the Erik Erikson theory, children develop the virtue of

“competence” by resolving the crisis at this stage. This virtue is demonstrated
by making things, getting results, applying skills and feeling capable.

5) Identity versus identity confusion It marks the shift from childhood to

adulthood. During the adolescent years, individuals face finding out who
 they are, what they are all about, and where they are going in life. If
adolescents explore roles in a healthy manner and arrive at a positive path
to follow in life, then they achieve a positive identity; if not, then identity
confusion reigns.

People who succeed at this stage develop a strong sense of identity. When they
come across challenges and problems, they can commit to their principles,
ideals and beliefs. Those who fail to establish their own identity at this stage
tend to be confused about themselves and about their future. They may end up
following other people’s ideas.

Erikson’s theory suggests that young people who succeed at resolving the crisis
at this stage develops the virtue of “fidelity”. This is characterized by the self-
esteem and self-confidence that are requisite to associating freely with people
and beliefs on the basis of their value, loyalty, and integrity.

6) Intimacy versus isolation is Erikson’s sixth developmental stage, which

individuals experience during the early adulthood years. At this time,
individuals face the developmental task of forming intimate relationships.
If young adults form healthy friendships and an intimate relationship with
another, intimacy will be achieved; if not, isolation will result.

The virtue that is developed upon resolving the crisis at this stage is “love”.
Young adults develop the capacity to offer love, both physically and
emotionally, and to accept love in return.

7) Generativity versus stagnation, Erikson’s seventh developmental stage

occurs during middle adulthood. By generativity Erikson means primarily a
concern for helping the younger generation to develop and lead useful
lives. They feel the urge to be productive and make contributions to the
society. For example, they may volunteer at their church or mentor young
kids.

Failure to resolve the crisis at this stage may lead people to experience
stagnation. They become uninterested in their environment and the people
around them. The feeling of having done nothing to help the next generation is
stagnation.

By successfully resolving the crisis at this stage, people develop the virtue of
“care”. They are able to offer unconditional support for their children, their
community and the society.
8) Integrity versus despair is Erikson’s eighth and final stage of
development, which individuals experience in late adulthood. They are
typically retirees in this stage. It is important for them to feel a sense of
fulfilment knowing that they have done something significant and made
meaningful contributions to the society during their younger years. During
this stage, a person reflects on the past. If the person’s life review reveals a
life well spent, integrity will be achieved.

People who are unsuccessful at this stage experience despair. They feel that
they have wasted their lives and experience many regrets, Erikson described.

Resolving the crisis at this stage successfully, people develop the virtue of
“wisdom”. These elderly people are likely to reflect on their lives positively
even in the face of imminent death.

KOHLBERG’S THEORY
MORAL DEVELOPMENT: Involves changes in thoughts, feelings and
behaviours regarding standards of right and wrong.

 Moral development has an intrapersonal dimension, which regulates a

person's activities when she or he is not engaged in social interaction, and
an interpersonal dimension, which regulates social interactions and
arbitrates conflict.
 A major perspective on moral development was proposed by Lawrence
Kohlberg (1958, 1986). Piaget’s cognitive stages of development serve as the
underpinnings for Kohlberg’s theory, but Kohlberg suggested that there are
six stages of moral development.
 These stages, he argued, are universal. Development from one stage to
another, said Kohlberg, is fostered by opportunities to take the perspective
of others and to experience conflict between one’s current stage of moral
thinking and the reasoning of someone at a higher stage.

STAGES OF KOHLBERG THEORY

Level 1: Pre-conventional reasoning: Kohlberg hypothesized three levels of

moral thinking, each of which is characterized by two stages. Pre-conventional
reasoning is the lowest level of moral reasoning, said kohlberg. At this level,
good and bad are interpreted in terms of external rewards and punishments.
• Stage 1: Heteronomous morality is the first stage in pre conventional
reasoning. At this stage, moral thinking is tied to punishment. For example,
children think that they must obey because they fear punishment for
disobedience.

• Stage 2: Individualism, instrumental purpose, and exchange is the second

stage of pre conventional reasoning. At this stage, individuals reason that it is
okay to pursue one’s own interests but let others do the same. Thus, they think
that what is right involves an equal exchange.

Level 2: Conventional reasoning: It is the second, or intermediate, level in

kohlberg’s theory of moral development. at this level, individual abide by
certain standards, but they are the standards of others, such as parents or the
laws of society.

• Stage 3: Mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships and interpersonal

conformity is kohlberg’s third stage of moral development. At this stage,
individual value trust, caring, and loyalty to others as a basis of moral
judgments. Children and adolescents often adopt their parents moral
standards at this stage, seeking to be thought of by their parents as a good girl
or a good boy.

• Stage 4: Social systems morality is the fourth stage. at this stage, moral
judgements are based on understanding the social order, law, justice, and
duty. For example, adolescents may reason that in order for a community to
work effectively, it needs to be protected by laws that are adhered to by its
members.

Level 3: Post conventional reasoning: It is the highest level in kohlberg’s

theory of moral development. At this level, the individual recognizes
alternative moral courses, explores the options, and then decides on a
personal moral code.

• Stage 5: Social contract or utility and individual rights is the fifth stage. At
this stage individual reason that values, rights and principles undergird or
transcend the law. A person evaluates the validity of actual laws, and social
systems can be examined in terms of the degree to which they preserve and
protect fundamental human rights and values.

• Stage 6: Universal ethical principles is the sixth and highest stage. at this
stage, the person has developed amoral standard based on universal human
rights. When faced with a conflict between laws and conscience, the person
will follow conscience, even though the decision might involve personal risk.
 Kohlberg emphasized that peer interaction and perspective taking are
critical aspects of the social stimulation that challenges children to change
their moral reasoning.
 Whereas adults characteristically impose rules and regulations on children,
the give-and-take among peers gives children an opportunity to take the
perspective of another person and to generate rules democratically.
 Kohlberg stressed that in principle, encounters with any peers can produce
perspective-taking opportunities that may advance a child’s moral
reasoning.
 Some theorists and researchers argue that Kohlberg did not adequately
distinguish between moral reasoning and social conventional reasoning.
 Social conventional reasoning focuses on conventional rules that have
been established by social consensus in order to control behavior and
maintain the social system. The rules themselves are arbitrary, such as
using a fork at meals and raising your hand in class before speaking.
 In contrast, moral reasoning focuses on ethical issues and rules of morality.
Unlike conventional rules, moral rules are not arbitrary. They are
obligatory, widely accepted, and somewhat impersonal. Rules pertaining to
lying, cheating, stealing, and physically harming another person are moral
rules because violation of these rules affronts ethical standards that exist
apart from social consensus and convention.
 Moral judgments involve concepts of justice, whereas social conventional
judgments are concepts of social organization.

KAREN HORNEY
The psychoanalytic social theory of Karen Horney (pronounced Horn-eye) was
built on the assumption that social and cultural conditions, especially
childhood experiences, are largely responsible for shaping personality.

Basic Hostility and Basic Anxiety

 Horney (1950) believed that each person begins life with the potential for
healthy development, but like other living organisms, people need
favorable conditions for growth.
 These conditions must include a warm and loving environment yet one that
is not overly permissive.
 Children need to experience both genuine love and healthy discipline. Such
conditions provide them with feelings of safety and satisfaction and permit
them to grow in accordance with their real self.
 Unfortunately, a multitude of adverse influences may interfere with these
favorable conditions.
 Primary among these is the parents’ inability or unwillingness to love their
child. Because of their own neurotic needs, parents often dominate, neglect,
overprotect, reject, or overindulge. If parents do not satisfy the child’s
needs for safety and satisfaction, the child develops feelings of basic
hostility toward the parents.
 However, children seldom overtly express this hostility as rage; instead,
they repress their hostility toward their parents and have no awareness of
it. Repressed hostility then leads to profound feelings of insecurity and a
vague sense of apprehension.
 This condition is called basic anxiety, which Horney (1950) defined as “a
feeling of being isolated and helpless in a world conceived as potentially
hostile”.

Neurotic Needs

 Horney tentatively identified 10 categories of neurotic needs that

characterize neurotics in their attempts to combat basic anxiety.
1. The neurotic need for affection and approval. In their quest for affection
and approval, neurotics attempt indiscriminately to please others. They try
to live up to the expectations of others, tend to dread self-assertion, and are
quite uncomfortable with the hostility of others as well as the hostile
feelings within themselves.
2. The neurotic need for a powerful partner. Lacking self-confidence,
neurotics try to attach themselves to a powerful partner. This need includes
an overvaluation of love and a dread of being alone or deserted.
3. The neurotic need to restrict one’s life within narrow borders. Neurotics
frequently strive to remain inconspicuous, to take second place, and to be
content with very little. They downgrade their own abilities and dread
making demands on others.
4. The neurotic need for power. Power and affection are perhaps the two
greatest neurotic needs. The need for power is usually combined with the
needs for prestige and possession and manifests itself as the need to control
others and to avoid feelings of weakness or stupidity.
5. The neurotic need to exploit others. Neurotics frequently evaluate others
on the basis of how they can be used or exploited, but at the same time,
they fear being exploited by others.
6. The neurotic need for social recognition or prestige. Some people combat
basic anxiety by trying to be first, to be important, or to attract attention to
themselves.
7. The neurotic need for personal admiration. Neurotics have a need to be
admired for what they are rather than for what they possess. Their inflated
self-esteem must be continually fed by the admiration and approval of
others.
8. The neurotic need for ambition and personal achievement. Neurotics often
have a strong drive to be the best—the best salesperson, the best bowler,
the best lover.
9. The neurotic need for self-sufficiency and independence. Many neurotics
have a strong need to move away from people, thereby proving that they
can get along without others.
10. The neurotic need for perfection and unassailability. By striving
relentlessly for perfection, neurotics receive “proof ” of their self-esteem
and personal superiority.

Neurotic Trends

 As her theory evolved, Horney began to see that the list of 10 neurotic
needs could be grouped into three general categories, each relating to a
person’s basic attitude toward self and others.
 In 1945, she identified the three basic attitudes, or neurotic trends, as (1)
moving toward people, (2) moving against people, and (3) moving away
from people.
 Some children move toward people by behaving in a compliant manner as
a protection against feelings of helplessness; other children move against
people with acts of aggression in order to circumvent the hostility of others;
and still other children move away from people by adopting a detached
manner, thus, alleviating feelings of isolation.

Intrapsychic Conflicts

 Intrapsychic processes originate from interpersonal experiences; but as

they become part of a person’s belief system, they develop a life of their
own—an existence separate from the interpersonal conflicts that gave them
life.
 The two important intrapsychic conflicts: the idealized self-image and self-
hatred.
 Briefly, the idealized self-image is an attempt to solve conflicts by painting a
godlike picture of oneself. Self-hatred is an interrelated yet equally
irrational and powerful tendency to despise one’s real self.

a. The Idealized Self-Image

 Horney believed that human beings, if given an environment of discipline
and warmth, will develop feelings of security and self-confidence and a
tendency to move toward self-realization.
 Added to this failure is a growing sense of alienation from themselves.
 Feeling alienated from themselves, people need desperately to acquire a
stable sense of identity. This dilemma can be solved only by creating an
idealized self-image, an extravagantly positive view of themselves that
exists only in their personal belief system.
 These people endow themselves with infinite powers and unlimited
capabilities; they see themselves as “a hero, a genius, a supreme lover, a
saint, a god”.
 Horney (1950) recognized three aspects of the idealized image: (1) the
neurotic search for glory, (2) neurotic claims, and (3) neurotic pride.

1) The Neurotic Search for Glory

 As neurotics come to believe in the reality of their idealized self, they begin
to incorporate it into all aspects of their lives—their goals, their self-
concept, and their relations with others. Horney (1950) referred to this
comprehensive drive toward actualizing the ideal self as the neurotic
search for glory.

2) Neurotic Claims

 A second aspect of the idealized image is neurotic claims. In their search for
glory, neurotics build a fantasy world—a world that is out of sync with the
real world.
 Believing that something is wrong with the outside world, they proclaim
that they are special and therefore entitled to be treated in accordance with
their idealized view of themselves. Because these demands are very much
in accord with their idealized self-image, they fail to see that their claims of
special privilege are unreasonable.

3) Neurotic Pride

 The third aspect of an idealized image is neurotic pride, a false pride based
not on a realistic view of the true self but on a spurious image of the
 idealized self. Neurotic pride is qualitatively different from healthy pride or
realistic self-esteem.
 Genuine self-esteem is based on realistic attributes and accomplishments
and is generally expressed with quiet dignity. Neurotic pride, on the other
hand, is based on an idealized image of self and is usually loudly
proclaimed in order to protect and support a glorified view of one’s self.

b. Self-Hatred

 People with a neurotic search for glory can never be happy with
themselves because when they realize that their real self does not match
the insatiable demands of their idealized self, they will begin to hate and
despise themselves.
 Horney (1950) recognized six major ways in which people express self-
hatred.
 First, self-hatred may result in relentless demands on the self, which are
exemplified by the tyranny of the should. These people continue to push
themselves toward perfection because they believe they should be perfect.
 The second mode of expressing self-hatred is merciless self-accusation. Self-
accusation may take a variety of forms—from obviously grandiose
expressions, such as taking responsibility for natural disasters, to
scrupulously questioning the virtue of their own motivations.
 Third, self-hatred may take the form of self-contempt, which might be
expressed as belittling, disparaging, doubting, discrediting, and ridiculing
oneself.
 A fourth expression of self-hatred is self-frustration. Self-frustration stems
from self-hatred and is designed to actualize an inflated self-image.
 Fifth, self-hatred may be manifested as self-torment, or self-torture.
Although self-torment can exist in each of the other forms of self-hatred, it
becomes a separate category when people’s main intention is to inflict
harm or suffering on themselves.
 The sixth and final form of self-hatred is self-destructive actions and
impulses, which may be either physical or psychological, conscious or
unconscious, acute or chronic, carried out in action or enacted only in the
imagination. Overeating, abusing alcohol and other drugs, working too
hard, driving recklessly, and suicide are common expressions of physical
self-destruction.

HENRY MURRAY
 Henry Murray designed an approach to personality that includes conscious
and unconscious forces; the influence of the past, present, and future; and
the impact of physiological and sociological factors.

Principles of Personology

 The first principle in Murray’s personology, his term for the study of
personality, is that personality is rooted in the brain. The individual’s
cerebral physiology guides and governs every aspect of the personality.
 A second principle in Murray’s system involves the idea of tension
reduction. Murray agreed with Freud and other theorists that people act to
reduce physiological and psychological tension, but this does not mean we
strive for a tension-free state. It is the process of acting to reduce tension
that is satisfying, according to Murray, rather than the attainment of a
condition free of all tension.
 A third principle of Murray’s personology is that an individual’s personality
continues to develop over time and is constructed of all the events that
occur during the course of that person’s life. Therefore, the study of a
person’s past is of great importance.
 Murray’s fourth principle involves the idea that personality changes and
progresses; it is not fixed or static.
 Fifth, Murray emphasized the uniqueness of each person while recognizing
similarities among all people. As he saw it, an individual human being is
like no other person, like some other people, and like every other person.

The Divisions of Personality

The Id

 Murray divided personality into three parts, using the Freudian terms id,
superego, and ego, but his concepts are not what Freud envisioned.
 Like Freud, Murray suggested that the id is the repository of all innate
impulsive tendencies.
 As such, it provides energy and direction to behavior and is concerned with
motivation.
 The id contains the primitive, amoral, and lustful impulses Freud
described.
 However, in Murray’s personology system the id also encompasses innate
impulses that society considers acceptable and desirable.

The Superego
 Murray defined the superego as the internalization of the culture’s values
and norms, by which rules we come to evaluate and judge our behavior
and that of others.
 The substance of the superego is imposed on children at an early age by
their parents and other authority figures.
 Other factors may shape the superego, including one’s peer group and the
culture’s literature and mythology.
 According to Murray, the superego is not rigidly crystallized by age 5, as
Freud believed, but continues to develop throughout life.
 While the superego is developing, so is the ego-ideal, a component of the
superego that contains the moral or ideal behaviors for which a person
should strive.
 The ego-ideal represents what we could become at our best and is the sum
of our ambitions and aspirations.

The Ego

 The ego is the rational governor of the personality; it tries to modify or

delay the id’s unacceptable impulses. To Murray, the conscious organizer of
behavior; this is a broader conception than Freud’s.
 It consciously reasons, decides, and wills the direction of behavior. Thus,
the ego is more active in determining behavior than Freud believed. It
functions not only to suppress id pleasure but also to foster pleasure by
organizing and directing the expression of acceptable id impulses.
 The ego is also the arbiter between the id and the superego and may favor
one over the other.
 The ego may also integrate these two aspects of the personality so that what
we want to do (id) is in harmony with what society believes we should do
(superego).
 A strong ego can mediate effectively between the two, but a weak ego
leaves the personality a battleground.

Needs: The Motivators of Behavior

 A need involves a physicochemical force in the brain that organizes and

directs intellectual and perceptual abilities.
 Needs may arise either from internal processes such as hunger or thirst, or
from events in the environment.
 Needs arouse a level of tension; the organism tries to reduce this tension by
acting to satisfy the needs.
 Thus, needs energize and direct behavior. They activate behavior in the
appropriate direction to satisfy the needs.
 Murray’s research led him to formulate a list of 20 needs. Not every person
has all of these needs. Over the course of your lifetime you may experience
all these needs, or there may be some needs you never experience. Some
needs support other needs, and some oppose other needs.

Murray’s list of needs

1. Abasement: To submit passively to external force. To accept injury, blame,

criticism, and punishment. To become resigned to fate. To admit inferiority,
error, wrongdoing, or defeat. To blame, belittle, or mutilate the self. To seek
and enjoy pain, punishment, illness, and misfortune.
2. Achievement: To accomplish something diffi cult. To master, manipulate, or
organize physical objects, human beings, or ideas. To overcome obstacles
and attain a high standard. To rival and surpass others.
3. Affiliation: To draw near and enjoyably cooperate or reciprocate with an
allied other who resembles one or who likes one. To adhere and remain
loyal to a friend.
4. Aggression: To overcome opposition forcefully. To fi ght, attack, injure, or
kill another. To maliciously belittle, censure, or ridicule another.
5. Autonomy: To get free, shake off restraint, or break out of confinement. To
resist coercion and restriction. To be independent and free to act according
to impulse. To defy conventions.
6. Counteraction: To master or make up for a failure by restriving. To
obliterate a humiliation by resumed action. To overcome weaknesses and
to repress fear. To search for obstacles and difficulties to overcome. To
maintain self-respect and pride on a high level.
7. Defendance: To defend the self against assault, criticism, and blame. To
conceal or justify a misdeed, failure, or humiliation.
8. Deference: To admire and support a superior other. To yield eagerly to the
influence of an allied other. To conform to custom.
9. Dominance: To control one’s environment. To influence or direct the
behavior of others by suggestion, seduction, persuasion, or command. To
get others to cooperate. To convince another of the rightness of one’s
opinion.
10. Exhibition: To make an impression. To be seen and heard. To excite, amaze,
fascinate, entertain, shock, intrigue, amuse, or entice others.
11. Harmavoidance: To avoid pain, physical injury, illness, and death. To
escape from a dangerous situation. To take precautionary measures.
12. Infavoidance: To avoid humiliation. To quit embarrassing situations or to
avoid conditions that may lead to the scorn, derision, or indifference of
others. To refrain from action because of the fear of failure.
13. Nurturance: To give sympathy to and gratify the needs of a helpless other,
an infant or one who is weak, disabled, tired, inexperienced, infi rm,
humiliated, lonely, dejected, or mentally confused.
14. Order: To put things in order. To achieve cleanliness, arrangement,
organization, balance, neatness, and precision.
15. Play: To act for fun, without further purpose.
16. Rejection: To exclude, abandon, expel, or remain indifferent to an inferior
other. To snub or jilt another.
17. Sentience: To seek and enjoy sensuous impressions.
18. Sex: To form and further an erotic relationship. To have sexual intercourse.
19. Succorance: To be nursed, supported, sustained, surrounded, protected,
loved, advised, guided, indulged, forgiven, or consoled. To remain close to a
devoted protector.
20. Understanding: To be inclined to analyze events and to generalize. To
discuss and argue and to emphasize reason and logic. To state one’s
opinions precisely. To show interest in abstract formulations in science,
mathematics, and philosophy.

Types of Needs

a) Primary and secondary needs.

 Primary needs (viscerogenic needs) arise from internal bodily states and
include those needs required for survival (such as food, water, air, and
harmavoidance), as well as such needs as sex and sentience.
 Secondary needs (psychogenic needs) arise indirectly from primary
needs, in a way Murray did not make clear, but they have no specifiable
origin within the body. They are called secondary not because they are less
important but because they develop after the primary needs. Secondary
needs are concerned with emotional satisfaction and include most of the
needs on Murray’s original list.

b) Reactive and proactive needs.

 Reactive needs involve a response to something specific in the

environment and are aroused only when that object appears. For example,
the harmavoidance need appears only when a threat is present.
 Proactive needs do not depend on the presence of a particular object. They
are spontaneous needs that elicit appropriate behavior whenever they are
aroused, independent of the environment. For example, hungry people
look for food to satisfy their need; they do not wait for a stimulus, such as a
television ad for a hamburger, before acting to find food.
 Reactive needs involve a response to a specific object; proactive needs arise
spontaneously.

Characteristics of Needs

 Needs differ in terms of the urgency with which they impel behavior, a
characteristic Murray called a need’s prepotency. For example, if the
needs for air and water are not satisfied, they come to dominate behavior,
taking precedence over all other needs.
 Some needs are complementary and can be satisfied by one behavior or a
set of behaviors. Murray called this a fusion of needs. For instance, by
working to acquire fame and wealth, we can satisfy the needs for
achievement, dominance, and autonomy.
 The concept of subsidiation refers to a situation in which one need is
activated to aid in satisfying another need. For example, to satisfy the
affiliation need by being in the company of other people, it may be
necessary to act deferentially toward them, thus invoking the deference
need. In this case, the deference need is subsidiary to the affiliation need.
 Murray recognized that childhood events can affect the development of
specific needs and, later in life, can activate those needs. He called this
influence press because an environmental object or event presses or
pressures the individual to act a certain way.
 Because of the possibility of interaction between need and press, Murray
introduced the concept of thema (or unity thema). The thema combines
personal factors (needs) with the environmental factors that pressure or
compel our behavior (presses).
 The thema is formed through early childhood experiences and becomes a
powerful force in determining personality. Largely unconscious, the thema
relates needs and presses in a pattern that gives coherence, unity, order,
and uniqueness to our behavior.

Personality Development in Childhood

Complexes
 Drawing on Freud’s work, Murray divided childhood into five stages, each
characterized by a pleasurable condition that is inevitably terminated by
society’s demands.
 Each stage leaves its mark on our personality in the form of an unconscious
complex that directs our later development.
 According to Murray, everyone experiences these five complexes because
everyone passes through the same developmental stages. There is nothing
abnormal about them except when they are manifested in the extreme, a
condition that leaves the person fixated at that stage. The personality is
then unable to develop spontaneity and flexibility, a situation that
interferes with the formation of the ego and superego.

Stages of Development

a) The claustral stage. The fetus in the womb is secure, serene, and
dependent, conditions we may all occasionally wish to reinstate.
 The simple claustral complex is experienced as a desire to be in small,
warm, dark places that are safe and secluded. For example, one might long
to remain under the blankets instead of getting out of bed in the morning.
 People with this complex tend to be dependent on others, passive, and
oriented toward safe, familiar behaviors that worked in the past.
 The insupport form of the claustral complex centers on feelings of
insecurity and helplessness that cause the person to fear open spaces,
falling, drowning, fires, earthquakes, or simply any situation involving
novelty and change.
 The anti-claustral or egression form of the claustral complex is based on a
need to escape from restraining womblike conditions. It includes a fear of
suffocation and confinement and manifests itself in a preference for open
spaces, fresh air, travel, movement, change, and novelty.

b) The oral stage. The oral succorance complex features a combination of

mouth activities, passive tendencies, and the need to be supported and
protected. Behavioral manifestations include sucking, kissing, eating,
drinking, and a hunger for affection, sympathy, protection, and love.
 The oral aggression complex combines oral and aggressive behaviors,
including biting, spitting, shouting, and verbal aggression such as sarcasm.
Behaviors characteristic of the oral rejection complex include vomiting,
being picky about food, eating little, fearing oral contamination (such as
from kissing), desiring seclusion, and avoiding dependence on others.
c) The anal stage. In the anal rejection complex, there is a preoccupation
with defecation, anal humor, and feces-like material such as dirt, mud,
plaster, and clay.
 Aggression is often part of this complex and is shown in dropping and
throwing things, firing guns, and setting off explosives.
 Persons with this complex may be dirty and disorganized. The anal
retention complex is manifested in accumulating, saving, and collecting
things, and in cleanliness, neatness, and orderliness.

d) The urethral stage. Unique to Murray’s system, the urethral complex is

associated with excessive ambition, a distorted sense of self-esteem,
exhibitionism, bedwetting, sexual cravings, and self-love.
 It is sometimes called the Icarus complex, after the mythical Greek figure
that flew so close to the sun that the wax holding his wings melted. Like
Icarus, persons with this complex aim too high, and their dreams are
shattered by failure.

e) The genital or castration stage. Murray disagreed with Freud’s contention

that fear of castration is the core of anxiety in adult males.
 He interpreted the castration complex in narrower and more literal fashion
as a boy’s fantasy that his penis might be cut off.
 Murray believed such a fear grows out of childhood masturbation and the
parental punishment that may have accompanied it.

MARTIN SELIGMAN
 Martin Seligman is a pioneer of Positive Psychology (the term itself was
coined by Abraham Maslow), not simply because he has a systematic
theory about why happy people are happy, but because he uses
the scientific method to explore happiness.
 Positive Psychology was introduced as an initiative of Martin Seligman in
1998, then president of the American Psychological Association, positive
psychology is the scientific study of strengths, well-being, and optimal
functioning
 Seligman is credited as the father of Positive Psychology and its efforts to
scientifically explore human potential. In Authentic Happiness (2002), he
explains that his journey towards this new field in psychology started off in
a study on learned helplessness in dogs.
 Positive psychology shifts traditional ideas of psychology away from fixing
what is 'wrong', instead focusing on what works for us, on our strengths,
skills, and on enhancing the positives in our lives.

The Three Dimensions of Happiness

[Positive Psychology] takes you through the countryside of pleasure and

gratification, up into the high country of strength and virtue, and finally to the
peaks of lasting fulfillment: meaning and purpose. (Seligman 2002).

 Positive psychology is the scientific study of positive experiences and

positive individual traits, and the institutions that facilitate their
development. A field concerned with well-being and optimal functioning.

According to Seligman, we can experience three kinds of happiness:

1) Pleasure and Gratification

2) Embodiment of Strengths and Virtues

3) Meaning and Purpose

In his 2002 book Authentic Happiness, he introduced three Dimensions of

Happiness,

a. The first domain, the pleasant life, concerns positive emotion about the
past, present, and future. Positive emotion about the past includes
contentment, satisfaction, and serenity. Positive emotion about the present
includes the somatic pleasures (i.e., immediate but momentary sensory
delights) and the complex pleasures (i.e., pleasures that require learning
and education).
 Positive emotion about the future includes optimism, hope, and faith. The
pleasant life is a life that maximizes positive emotions and minimizes pain
and negative emotion. This captures what is usually intended by the class
of hedonic theories of happiness.
 An individual leading a life of pleasure can be seen as maximizing positive
emotions, and minimizing negative emotions.

b. The second domain is the engaged life, which consists of using positive
individual traits, including strengths of character and talents. An individual
leading a life of engagement constantly seeks out activities that allow her to
be in flow.
 By strengths of character, we mean qualities considered virtuous across
cultures and historical eras (e.g., valor, leadership, kindness, integrity,
originality, wisdom, and the capacity to love and be loved).
 Strengths are distinguished from talents insofar as they appear more
malleable and subject to volition, and insofar as they are worthy ends in
themselves and not just means to a greater end.
 A life led around these traits comes close to what Aristotle called
“eudaimonia” or the “good life, because the wise deployment of strengths
and talents leads to more engagement, absorption, and flow, we call this
life the “engaged life.”

c. The third domain of positive psychology is the meaningful life, which

entails belonging to and serving positive institutions.
 An individual leading a life of meaning belongs to and serves something
that is bigger than himself. These larger entities could be family, religion,
community, country, or even ideas.
 An incomplete list of institutions that can cultivate positive emotion and
positive traits includes mentoring, strong families and communities,
democracy, and a free press.
 We believe that positive traits and positive emotions flourish best in the
context of positive institutions. Because meaning derives from belonging to
and serving something larger than oneself, a life led in the service of
positive institutions is the meaningful life.

PERMA model

 In his 2011 book ‘Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness

and Wellbeing’ Dr Seligman initally set out his theory of the building blocks
of wellbeing – the PERMA model.
 The PERMA model takes five simple elements which Seligman believes are
fundamental pillars of human wellbeing and highlights how a focus on
ensuring these elements are given time, attention and focus can lead to a
happier, more engaged and fulfilling life – the model is featured as an
aspect of Positive Behaviour Support, a framework which our organisation
has fully integrated into our everyday practice, which intrinsically links the
application of the PERMA model to our role as care providers to those on
the autistic spectrum.
 The PERMA model consists of five straightforward elements; these are –
Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Achievement.
a) Positive Emotion

 This element has the most apparent connection to the overall concept of
happiness.
 A focus on positive emotion isn’t just the act of smiling our way through
each day (regardless of we may actually feel inside); it is more based
around finding the ability to stay optimistic and to view the events and
circumstances that life presents us in a way that is constructive and
positive.
 There are several types of positive emotion that all of us have felt at one
time or another - Joy, Gratitude, Hope, Pride, Amusement, Inspiration, Awe,
Love.
 Once you have a clearer picture of the aspects of your life that bring these
positive emotions out in you, you can spend time trying to focus your
thinking towards making these aspects of your life a priority.
 The more difficult aspect of dealing with positive emotion is that as we are
all aware, life is not always easy, things change and emotions are not
always positive.
 To this end, a massively important part of discussing positive emotion is the
concept of acceptance.
 By accepting that something negative may have happened to us in the past
or may well be ongoing as we speak (a bad day in work, the breakdown of a
relationship or a global pandemic, for example!) then we equip ourselves
with the abilities to be optimistic and constructive when moving forward
with whatever our present and future may hold.

b) Engagement

 We have all heard the expression ‘time flies when you’re having fun’ – this
is because when we are actively engaged in doing something that we enjoy,
our bodies become actively flooded with endorphins and hormones that
elevate our sense of well-being and create a ‘flow’ of immersion that
absorbs us in the activity.
 Flow can be defined as “being completely involved in an activity for its own
sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought
follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole
being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”
 The most important aspect of this is recognizing what activities in our lives
bring us to this state of flow, where our bodies are flushed with positive
endorphins and serotonin and to ensure that these activities are being
 given the necessary importance and time to be able to feature regularly in
our lives.

c) Relationships

 Human beings are designed to ‘belong’. It is a crucial aspect of being

human that we allow ourselves to experience feelings of intimacy
connection, as well as emotional and physical contact with other people.
 This means that the quality of the relationships we form with others
around us are vital in helping us live a life filled with wellbeing and
positive energy.
 Most of us have been in a situation where a relationship of some kind, be it
familial, romantic, professional or otherwise has made us feel drained,
damaged and led to feelings of isolation or sadness.
 It is vital then that we seek out relationships that build us up instead of
break us down; by making sure we are conscious of how the relationships
we have with those around us truly make us feel inside then we can
actively know that these relationships are adding to our own quality of life.

d) Meaning: Discovering Purpose in Life

 For us to feel that our lives have meaning, we have to feel that our actions
are worthwhile and valuable; that we are contributing to something bigger
than just ourselves.
 We all want to feel that our lives and our actions matter. Something as
simple as supporting someone to try something new, assisting someone in
carrying out a task that brings them joy or helping them take steps towards
their independence can all be incredibly rewarding and brings joy to both
the individual in question and the person working to support them.
 Many of us will have experienced at some point the positive emotion that
altruism (the principle or practice of unselfish concern for or devotion to
the welfare of others) can bring us in our role.

‘We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked
through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They
may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything
can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to
choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own
way.’ – Victor Frankl.

e) Accomplishment: Striving and Achieving Goals

 When we achieve our goals in life, we are rewarded with feelings of joy,
pride and accomplishment.
 In addition, by setting ourselves goals and achieving them, we improve our
sense of effectiveness and wellbeing, which can then motivate us, leads us
to set further goals for ourselves, giving us purpose in life and a sense of
moving forward.
 By regularly challenging ourselves with self-improvement in mind, we can
accomplish our goals and progress with new ones that will create a cycle of
fulfilment.
 It is very important however, to remember that goals we set for ourselves
and goals that we support people to work towards have to be realistic and
achievable.
 A helpful acronym to remember when setting targets or goals, for yourself
or in collaboration with people we work alongside is SMART.
 Goals should be -
 Specific – target a specific area for improvement.
 Measurable – quantify or at least suggest an indicator of progress.
 Assignable – specify who will do it.
 Realistic – state what results can realistically be achieved, given available
resources.
 Time-related – Plan for when results can be achieved.
 When our goals are realistic then we can make honest efforts to achieve
them, which will in turn increasing feelings of pride, self-confidence and
overall wellbeing in ourselves as well as the people we support to make
these achievements.

ROLLO MAY
Existentialism

 The term existentialism has become popular in academic and literary

circles and is used in so many different ways by philosophers,
psychologists, theologians, novelists, actors, and others that it has almost
lost its meaning.
 Existence means to emerge or to become; it suggests process; is associated
with growth and change.

Basic Concepts
 The two basic concepts of existentialism, for May, namely, being-in-the-
world and nonbeing

Being-in-the-World

 Existentialists adopt a phenomenological approach to understanding

humanity. To them, we exist in a world that can be best understood from
our own perspective.
 The basic unity of person and environment is expressed in the German
word Dasein, meaning to exist there. Hence, Dasein literally means to exist
in the world and is generally written as being-in-the-world.
 Many people suffer from anxiety and despair brought on by their
alienation from themselves or from their world. They either have no clear
image of themselves or they feel isolated from a world that seems distant
and foreign. They have no sense of Dasein, no unity of self and world.
 Alienation is the illness of our time, and it manifests itself in three areas: (1)
separation from nature, (2) lack of meaningful interpersonal relations, and
(3) alienation from one’s authentic self.
 Thus, people experience three simultaneous modes in their being-in-the-
world: Umwelt, or the environment around us; Mitwelt, or our relations
with other people; and Eigenwelt, or our relationship with our self.
 Umwelt (Umwelt; literally, “world around”) is the world of objects and
things and would exist even if people had no awareness. It includes
biological drives, such as hunger and sleep, and such natural phenomena
as birth and death. We cannot escape Umwelt; we must learn to live in the
world around us and to adjust to changes within this world.
 The Mitwelt (Mitwelt; literally, “with-world”) involves our inherent need to
form personal relationships for their own sake, rather than to sublimate
some instinctual drive. We also live in the world with people, that is,
Mitwelt. We must relate to people as people, not as things. If we treat
people as objects, then we are living solely in Umwelt.
 Eigenwelt (Eigenwelt; literally, “own-world”) refers to one’s relationship
with oneself. It is a world not usually explored by personality theorists. To
live in Eigenwelt means to be aware of oneself as a human being and to
grasp who we are as we relate to the world of things and to the world of
people.

Healthy people live in Umwelt, Mitwelt, and Eigenwelt simultaneously. They

adapt to the natural world, relate to others as humans, and have a keen
awareness of what all these experiences mean to them.
Nonbeing and Anxiety

 Being-in-the-world necessitates an awareness of self as a living, emerging

being. This awareness, in turn, leads to the dread of not being: that is,
nonbeing or nothingness.
 Death is not the only avenue of nonbeing, but it is the most obvious one,
when we do not courageously confront our nonbeing by contemplating
death, we nevertheless will experience nonbeing in other forms, including
addiction to alcohol or other drugs, promiscuous sexual activity, and other
compulsive behaviors.
 Our nonbeing can also be expressed as blind conformity to society’s
expectations or as generalized hostility that pervades our relations to
others.
 The fear of death or nonbeing often provokes us to live defensively and to
receive less from life than if we would confront the issue of our
nonexistence.
 The awareness of an eventual end to our being, and the impending
psychological destruction posed by rejections and insults, evoke the painful
emotion of anxiety.
 Anxiety is the subjective state of the individual’s becoming aware that his
existence can become destroyed, that he can lose himself and his world,
that he can become “nothing.”

Guilt

 No one ever deals perfectly with the three modes of being-in-the-world.

 Such inevitable failures evoke ontological guilt, another normal and
necessary aspect of every personality.
 As with anxiety, the ideal course is to accept and use our guilt for
constructive purposes—as by developing a healthy humility concerning the
possibility of our own errors, and a readiness to forgive others their
mistakes.

Intentionality and Significance

 Psychologically healthy people can readily imagine some desirable future

state and then prepare to move in this direction, a capacity May refers to as
will or intentionality.
 The conscious capacity to move toward one’s self-selected goals is termed
as will.
 According to May, a conscious and unconscious sense of purpose pervades
all aspects of our existence—perceptions, memories, and so forth.
 To May, the loss of intentionality represents the major psychopathology of
our time. “The central core of modern man’s ‘neurosis’ … is the
undermining of his experience of himself as responsible, the sapping of his
will and ability to make decisions”.

Love

 One constructive way of affirming Dasein is through love, another

important characteristic.

“[Love is] a delight in the presence of the other person, and an affirming of his
value and development as much as one’s own”.

 Love always involves a blending of four components, in varying

proportions.
 As in Freudian theory, our need for sex is satisfied through drive reduction
and physical release.
 Another particularly important aspect of love is eros, a striving for
fulfillment through union with significant others.
 The other two characteristics of love (to which May devotes considerably
less attention) are friendship and liking (philia), and a non-possessive
devotion to the welfare of the other person (agapé).
 Thus, love is a rich experience that encompasses all three modes of being-
in-the-world: biological drives (Umwelt), relationship to others (Mitwelt),
and the affirmation of one’s self and values (Eigenwelt).

The Daimonic

 According to May, our motives include innate urges that are both benign
and illicit.
 Among the former are sex, passion and eros, and procreation; whereas the
latter include hostility, rage, cruelty, and the quest for power.
 Any of these aspects has the potential to dominate one’s personality.
 May refers to them as the daimonic, after an ancient Greek word for both
the divine and diabolical.
 To achieve psychological health, we must consciously accept and attempt to
control the daimonic.

PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT

In the battle for freedom, we progress through several stages of consciousness.

 The first stage is simply our innocence as infants with no consciousness of

self.
 The second stage is rebellion, whereby we seek to establish our inner
strength. This struggle typically takes place at age 2 or 3 and again during
adolescence.
 Although rebellion is a necessary step in the evolution of consciousness, it
should not be confused with freedom.
 Rebellion is defiance, an active rejection of parental and societal rules. Such
behavior is automatic, rigid, and reflexive.
 True freedom, in contrast, involves “openness, a readiness to grow; it
means being flexible, ready to change for the sake of greater human
values”.
 The third stage is ordinary consciousness of self. At this point, we are
capable of understanding some of our errors and of recognizing some of
our prejudices. We are also capable of learning from our mistakes and
assuming responsibility for our actions.
 Many people identify this state of ordinary consciousness with being,
maturity, and health.
 But, according to May, there is still another stage, a fourth stage of
consciousness that, if attained, actually signifies maturity. He calls this
stage the creative consciousness of self.
 Transcending the usual limits of consciousness, we are able to see the truth
without distortion. These moments of insight are joyous ones and occur
only occasionally.

ROBERT KEGAN
 Constructive developmental theory concerns itself with regular,
progressive changes in how individuals make meaning or “know”
epistemologically.
 Kegan indicated that the “deep structure of any principle of mental
organization is the subject-object relationship”.
 He considered those things “object” that people could “reflect on, handle,
look at, be responsible for, relate to each other, take control of, internalize,
assimilate, or otherwise operate on”.
 He considered those things “subject” that people were “identified with, tied
to, fused with, or embedded in”.
 People thus lack awareness of or behave automatically in relationship to
those things to which they are subject.
 A shift from one order of consciousness to another involves a shift in what
is subject and what is object.
 As meaning-making evolves, thinking becomes less rigid, exclusive, simple,
and dogmatic and more flexible, open, complex, and tolerant of differences.

INCORPORATIVE BALANCE

 During the incorporative balance of the first 18 months of life, babies are
embedded in reflexes, sensing, and moving.
 Newborns exist in an “objectless world” in which everything around them
is merely an extension of themselves and in which anything that leaves
their immediate surrounding no longer exists.
 They are only aware of their own immediate needs and are unaware of the
“other.”
 They are dependent on and merged with the mother or caretaker.
 To support or match infants developmentally, caregivers need to hold them
and offer them close physical contact, comfort, protection, and eye contact.
 Infants at this stage learn how to comfort themselves from how they are
comforted when anxious.
 Kegan thus urges parents to respond to the infant in their experience of the
anxiety rather than trying to relieve the anxiety.

IMPULSIVE BALANCE

 Children between the ages of 2 and 7 operate primarily from the impulsive
order of consciousness.
 From Kegan‟s perspective, they are subject to their impulses and
perceptions but can make their reflexes related to sensing and moving
object.
 They may have a hard time sitting still for any length of time, may
continually move around with little predictability, and will display a short
attention span, particularly related to others‟ needs or desires.
 Their use of language will be only one, and perhaps a tangential, means of
communication, and life will be filled with fantasy.
 These children exhibit some difficulty distinguishing between fantasy and
reality and demonstrate magical thinking.
 They make decisions about right and wrong based on what the authority
figures in their lives deem to be right and wrong.
 Although impulsive children realize that there is a world separate from
themselves, they confuse their impulses with their family members‟
impulses, needs, and desires.
IMPERIAL BALANCE

 The transformation from the impulsive to the imperial balance during

preadolescence is about the birth of the role, that is, the ability to “take the
role of the other, to see that others have a perspective” and an existence of
their own.
 The children are subject to their needs, wishes, and interests, while they
are able to make their impulses and perceptions object.
 They also develop “enduring dispositions”, that is, needs and interests or
notions about themselves that persist through time.
 Their persisting needs or interests translate into their demonstrated
commitment to or effort at becoming competent at those things in which
they are interested.
 Children at this age seem more “tightly wrapped” than those operating
from the impulsive balance.
 They seem to become more self-sufficient, cognitively, affectively, and
behaviorally.
 Imperial children develop a greater sense of privacy and self-possession.
 They seem capable of “physical patience, motoric propriety, and
perseverance”.

INTERPERSONAL BALANCE

 People operating in this stage are able to see needs as object and thus
regulate competing needs, but they are embedded in or subject to
relationships, roles, and rules.
 They have moved ahead from the imperial balance in that they are good
and productive citizens, are trustworthy and employable, take others into
account, have the capacity for insight and consciousness, think before
acting, exercise common sense, consider the long-term consequences of
their choices, have friends, and develop a meaningful life based on clear
ideals.
 They are fully socialized, that is, they have internalized the values of
society or their surroundings.
 Those operating from this order of consciousness are able to achieve such
behaviors because they understand another’s point of view, even when it
might be different from their own.
 They can subordinate their own point of view to the relationship and to
another‟s point of view.
 This interpersonal way of knowing says, “Whatever happens, the bond that
I have with this person is more important than what will happen to me.”
INSTISTUTIONAL BALANCE

 They have well-defined boundaries that they protect very carefully.

 They are well controlled and selfpossessed, believing that they need to be
“steel rods” that display no weakness.
 Family and work are two of the institutions in which people find
themselves embedded, both of which Kegan indicates require institutional
balance functioning.
 Members of a couple need to be able to define a sense of self or separate
identity so that the other does not organize or define them; set limits to
preserve the coupleship; support their partner‟s development and
accomplishment of goals; collaborate in constructing a mutual future; and
communicate well or directly, standing their ground and making known
unhappy feelings in a productive way.
 Success as parents or as a couple requires these institutional balance
capacities.

INTERINDIVIDUAL BALANCE

 Postmodern, interindividualism, rarely develops before age 40.

 Interindividual people (a) orient toward relationships, dynamisms, and
tensions among systems of deciding rather than forcing decisions between
one or the other; (b) believe such relationships are prior to the systems
themselves; (c) envision “motion, process, and change as the irreducible
and primary feature of reality”; (d) seek out and are not threatened but are
nourished by contradiction; (e) become responsible for systems rather than
to systems; (f) become more tentative and less certain about their theory,
seeing that any system of operating is temporary, preliminary, and self-
constructed; (g) transcend allegiance to the product “in favor of an
orientation to the process that creates the product”.
 Interindividual people, then, can maintain an open, incomplete stance,
admitting that they might be wrong; take a one down, not-knowing position
that says to other people, “Let‟s co-construct our experience together”; seek
out differences as needed challenges to themselves and as opportunities to
grow or be intimate; tolerate emotional conflict and even plurality within
themselves; return to connectedness but not to fusion.
 They mutually preserve each other’s distinctiveness simultaneously,
together creating a context in which these separate identities
“interpenetrate”.

ANNA FREUD
 Anna Freud was the daughter of the founder of psychoanalysis,
Sigmund Freud.
 She was born in Vienna on 3rd December 1895, when her father’s radical
theories of sex and the mind were starting to make him famous across
Europe.
 Although Anna Freud may have been an unplanned baby,she became the
only one of Sigmund Freud’s six children to follow his path.
 An unhappy child, Anna was jealous of the older sister favored by her
mother and was ignored by her other siblings. She recalled “the experience
of being . . . only a bore to them, and of feeling bored and left alone”.
 Anna was not ignored by her father. She became his favorite child and by
the age of 14 was dutifully attending meetings of his psychoanalytic group,
listening attentively to the case histories being presented and discussed.
 At 22, Anna began 4 years of psychoanalysis conducted by her father, who
was later sharply criticized for analyzing his daughter. To analyze one’s
child was a serious violation of Freud’s rules for the practice of
psychoanalysis; the situation with Anna was kept secret for many years.
 Anna Freud joined the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, presenting a paper
entitled Beating Fantasies and Daydreams.
 She devoted her life to the care of her father and to his system of
psychoanalysis.
 Whereas the elder Freud had worked only with adults, attempting to
reconstruct their childhood by eliciting their recollections and analyzing
their fantasies and dreams, Anna worked only with children.

Child Psychology
 She became a school teacher and then a psychoanalyst and pioneered
the treatment of children, establishing clinics and nurseries for children
who were war victims, survivors of the holocaust or just generally
troubled by their lives.
 She established a clinic and a center to train analysts in the building next
door to her father’s London home. In 1927 she published Four Lectures on
Child Analysis.
 Anna Freud was not primarily a theoretician. Her interests were more
practical, and most of her energies were devoted to the analysis of
children and adolescents, and to improving that analysis. Her father,
after all, had focused entirely on adult patients. Although he wrote a great
deal about development, it was from the perspectives of these adults. What
 do you do with the child, for whom family crises and traumas and
fixations are present events, not dim recollections?
 First, the relationship of the child to the therapist is different. The child's
parents are still very much a part of his or her life, a part the therapist
cannot and should not try to usurp. But neither can the therapist pretend to
be just another child rather than an authority figure. Anna Freud found
that the best way to deal with this "transference problem" was the way
that came most naturally: be a caring adult, not a new playmate, not a
substitute parent.
 Another problem with analyzing children is that their symbolic abilities
are not as advanced as those of adults. The younger ones, certainly, may
have trouble relating their emotional difficulties verbally. Even older
children are less likely than adults to bury their problems under complex
symbols. After all, the child's problems are here-and-now; there hasn't
been much time to build up defenses. So the problems are close to the
surface and tend to be expressed in more direct, less symbolic,
behavioural and emotional terms.
 Most of her contributions to the study of personality come out of her work
at the Hampstead Child Therapy Clinic in London, which she helped to
set up. Here, she found that one of the biggest problems was
communications among therapists: Whereas adult problems were
communicated by means of traditional labels, children's problems could
not be. Because children's problems are more immediate, she
reconceptualized them in terms of the child's movement along a
developmental timeline. A child keeping pace with most of his or her
peers in terms of eating behaviours, personal hygiene, play styles,
relationships with other children, and so on, could be considered
healthy. When one aspect or another of a child's development seriously
lagged behind the rest, the clinician could assume that there was a
problem and could communicate the problem by describing the particular
lag.

Ego Psychology
 Freud had spent most of his efforts on the id and the unconscious side of
the psychic life.
 Anna Freud substantially revised orthodox psychoanalysis by expanding
the role of the ego, arguing that the ego operates independently of the id.
 She rightly pointed out that ego is the seat of observation from which we
observe the work of the id and the superego, and the unconscious generally
and that it deserves study in its own right.
 This was a major extension of the Freudian system, one that involved a
fundamental and a radical change.
 In The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense, published in 1936, she
clarified the operation of the defense mechanisms.
 The book received widespread praise and is considered a basic work on
ego psychology. The standard defense mechanisms owe their full
development and articulation to Anna Freud.
 We instinctively try to protect our ego (our acceptable picture of who we
are) with a variety of defences. The problem is that in the act of defending
ourselves against pain in the immediate term, we harm our long-term
chances of dealing with reality and therefore of developing and maturing
as a result.

Defense Mechanisms

Strategies the ego uses to defend itself against the anxiety provoked by
conflicts of everyday life.

Classification of Defense Mechanisms

 Narcissistic-Psychotic Defenses
 Immature Defenses
 Neurotic Defenses
 Mature Defenses