Klein and Fairbairn are both object relations theorists who believed that early object relations significantly influence one’s development and personality. While they have this main commonality, they each have their own conceptualizations about healthy development, as well as the origins of psychopathology. The following paragraphs will attempt to first reiterate some of the major postulates of their theories and their notions of normal development, and then attempt to explain how they understand the emergence of neurosis.
Klein believed healthy development occurs as a progression through two developmental positions. As discussed previously, the first position is the paranoid-schizoid position. Klein believed during this time the infant is in a state of extreme mental splitting of the external object (predominantly, the mother’s breast) into “good” and “bad” part-objects. At this developmental stage, experiences can only be perceived as all good or all bad (Mitchell & Black, 1995). Klein believed that after the infant’s ego sufficiently develops, he or she will be able to then integrate the bad with the good. This integration makes it possible for the infant to tolerate conflict. Klein felt that the establishment of a good internal object is a prerequisite for the later working through of the depressive position (Klein, 1975). This good object internalization can be augmented by good parenting, which can help “soothe any persecutory anxieties, thereby diminishing paranoid fears of bad objects and strengthening the relationship to good objects.” (Mitchell & Black, 1995, p. 94).
Klein believed that this splitting during this stage is essential for healthy development in that it enables the infant to take in and retai...
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In each stage, there is a crisis of two opposing emotional forces (McLeod, 2013). From birth to age one is Erikson’s stage of trust vs. mistrust. If taken care of well and protected, a child will achieve a healthy balance of trust and mistrust. Even though Precious’s physical abuse did not start until she was three, there is a high chance that her living environment was not surrounded by safety and love. Precious may have developed mistrust because later on in her life she because suspicious of others and was not able to connect because of an overwhelming sense of fear and inability to trust.
During Erikson’s first developmental stage, Trust versus Mistrust, the child learns whether or not they can trust the world in which they live. As the infant begins to explore their environment they learn what a safe environment is, and this is largely due to the attachment formed with their parent or caregiver (Ashford & LeCroy, 2013, p. 245). Precious reports she did not begin to be physically, emotionally, and sexually abused by her parents until the age of three, so she may have developed some level of trust with her parents during this first developmental stage. However, with Erikson’s second stage of Autonomy versus Shame and Doubt, Precious likely began having problems resolving the conflicts presented in Erikson’s theory of development. This stage is typically entered into at the age of 18 months and lasts until around the age of three years. During this stage, primary tasks involve developing a greater sense of self control and independence (Ashford and LeCroy, 2013, p. 304). This is the age when Precious began being abused by her parents, and was therefore likely not able to successfully resolve her tasks. For instance, Precious was not allowed to take control of her body and was forced into acts involuntarily. Her mother also controlled what Precious ate, at times limiting the amount of food available to her and at other times forcing her to
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The emotional support children receive from their parents in the early years of their lives can make an everlasting impact in how their fears develop and persist over the course of their lives. Take, for instance, a considerably difficult a child who received a nurturing amount of support from his parents in contrast with another little boy who was physically reprimanded for his antsy behavior. The first boy’s parent’s found tactful ways to allow their child to better handle his fears, consequently allowing him to forge a more functional life in the future. In opposition, the other child’s father, who hit him in efforts to stop his anxiety, ironically contributed to the child’s unwanted behavior, causing him to become more disruptive and disturbed in the
From birth, children are dependent on parents for survival and safety. Infants need this attachment in order to survive. Basic needs like shelter and food are things in that all human beings need; but for infants and children, in particular, they cannot survive independently without parents and guidance. Furthermore, as children grow, the parent-child attachment is not just physical, but it is also psychological. Adults who care for children through unconditional love and acceptance, provide positive living environments and self confidence which helps the child grow independently into an adult. Failure in this child-parent relationship in the form of long term neglect or trauma can have consequences in a child’s development physically and psychologically.
This paper briefly describes experiences in my life that have had a big part in shaping who I am today. I will also be connecting psychology theories with these life changing events. It will discuss how Operant conditioning plays a role depression with the lost of a positive reinforcement. Next it will discuss James Lange Theory of emotion. I will connect it with accident and explain the emotion I had. In closing I will be disusing The frustration Aggression theory and how these events have change my life for the better.
What happens during a child’s first years can be very crucial in how this individual turns out in adulthood. “Recurrence of episodes involving physical, emotional, or sexual abuse in the childhood.” (Diseases 1: Pais 3) Which means when a child experiences one of these traumatic events constantly they try to seek comfort. This is wher...
We allowed our environment to shape and mode our behavior, attitudes and thought patterns. What happens when an individual’s environment has a child does not have balance in his or her life? Karen Horney explains the effect of not having balance. My perception of Karen Horney’s Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Self-Realization is that when children are not giving the proper care for and encourage to grow or are to achieve an aim in life. The individual builds an imaged perception of them self. The attribute or personality of the individual leads to him or her to operate accordingly to what they think they should be. Thus the neurosis affects the personality but then again the individual acts less than a psychosis. He or she can make rational decision and has a grab on reality. These are the qualifications of a Neurosis. Horney’s concept of this is displayed thought out her book. The meaning behind this paper is to demonstrate how well I comprehend Horney’s theory of
The thought process that drives the psychodynamic theory is that our histories greatly influence the people we turn out to be. The psychodynamic theory emphasizes the importance that relationships, especially those developed in the early stages of life, have on our development. This theory is also motivated by the assumption that our emotions or states of mind are the driving forces behind our actions (Dean, 2002). This theory focuses on childhood trauma, and how this can influence the way a person acts for the rest of his or her life. Freud was the first practitioner to make the parallel between internal and external factors. He realized that people
...n educator, Erikson was interested in how one might strengthen and enrich the ego of young children. On the other hand, looking at Bandura’s perspective of the social learning theory of observational learning, he believed that human behavior is due to a mixture of behavioral, cognitive, and environmental factors that surrounds a person. Many psychologists agree with Bandura that behavior arises from the interactions of a person and the environment rather than from either factor alone (Engler, 235). This paper concludes that both theories of social motivation, ego, and learning play an important role in the development of infants and that modeling and aggression are linked together. Erik Erikson’s theory focused on the social dimensions of Freud’s ego theory, while Albert Bandura’s theory focused on models that influence learning through their informative function.
The first stage in Erikson’s psychosocial theory is the Trust vs. Mistrust stage. This stage is from birth to about one year of age. This is the time when an infant child learns to depend on another for affection, comfort, and nutrition eventually learning to blindly trust the primary caregivers to provide these things (Cooper, 1998). When the infants needs are met, then the infant develops a specific attachment with their caregiver, if the outcome is negative then the infant learns to mistrust the people around them and the environment that they are in. This brings us to the next stage in psychosocial
In examining the Freudian view of human development, the main characteristic of human development is one of a primitive and sexual nature. Freud defines the id as a unconscious part of the mind focused on the primitive self and is the source of the demands of basic needs. Freud explains that the mind of an infant consists only of the id, driving the basic needs for comfort, food, warmth, and love. In later stages of early development, as a child’s mind begins to grow, the ego is formed. The ego is defined as the connection between consciousness and reality that controls one’s thought and behavior. In late pre-school years a child begins to develop what is called a superego. At this stage values are internalized, and the complex connection between the id, ego, and supere...
The two theories that will be discussed throughout this paper are Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development and Erik Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development. The major themes and concepts of the two theories share both differences and similarities. Specific emphasis will be placed on the earliest years of life and will also be related to separation, individuation, and attachment theory. Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development focuses on the concept of schemas and cognitive thought that helps an individual organize knowledge and understand the world, in comparison to Erikson’s theory which focuses on conflicts that arise between and within the ego. Accommodation and assimilation occur throughout Piaget’s theory as a result of children changing their schema to adapt.
In the book “The Nature of the Child”, he summarizes what is now known about the psychological development of the child from infancy onward, and in doing so he challenges many current assumptions about the family and its influence. Freudian theory depends upon the assumption that the emotional environment of the child’s first five years has a persistent effect upon his development, which can only partially be modified by later events. Modern students of cerebral function partially support such a view by assuming that psychological experience involves changes in brain cells and their connections with each other. Kagan points out that “the development of the embryo contains frequent discontinuities in which some structures disappear after their mission has been accomplished, leaving no structural residue.” evidence is lacking that even severe emotional disturbance in early childhood necessarily has permanent effects upon adult adjustment. One study of European children who were adopted by American families because they had been left homeless by the Second World War showed that about 20 percent showed severe signs of anxiety. But, over the years, all of these symptoms vanished; the vast majority of the children made good school progress; and there was no case of academic difficulty among them.” Nor were there any persistent emotional difficulties in relation to their adoptive