Freud V Erickson Essay -- Psychology Psychologists Compare Contrast

Sigmund Freud is probably the intimately familiar name that comes to mind when one thinks of famous psychologists. Freud was innate(p) in Freiberg, Moravia in 1856, provided when he was four years old his family move to Vienna, where Freud was to live and work until the last year of his life. The scope of Freuds interests, and of his professional training, was genuinely broad - he always considered himself first and foremost a scientist, endeavoring to give way the compass of human knowledge, and to this end, rather than to the practice of medicine, he enrolled at the medical school at the University of Vienna in 1873. He concentrated initially on biology, doing research in physiology for six years under the enormous German scientist Ernst Brcke, who was director of the Physiology Laboratory at the University, thereafter specializing in neurology. Eventually, Freud set up a private practice in the preaching of psychological disorders, which gave him much of the clinical mater ial on which he base his theories and his pioneering techniques.(Amacher)Freuds theories of development relied heavily on the belief that infantile sexuality must(prenominal) be seen as an integral part of a broader developgenial surmisal of human personality. This had its origins in, and was a planetaryization of, Breuers earlier discovery that traumatic childhood events could have devastating negative effects upon the adult individual, and took the form of the general thesis that premature childhood sexual experiences were the crucial factors in the end of the adult personality.(Freud2) From his account of the instincts or drives it followed that from the moment of birth the infant is impelled in his actions by the desire for bodily/sexual pleasure, where this is seen by Freud in almost mechanical terms as the desire to release mental energy. This lasts until puberty, when mature venereal development begins, and the pleasure drive refocuses around the genital area.(Amache r) It was also a friend and fellow psychoanalyst of Freuds, Erik Erickson, who created one of the major theories that open a window to the development of everything that makes us who we are on the inside. It is referred to as Ericksons Theory of Human Development and it simplifies the complex government issue of human personality.(Miller)First, lets talk about the man himself. Erik Homberger was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1902. The conditions ... ...believed that personality continued to develop across the living and describes stages of adult development not considered by Freud. Both theorists emphasized the unconscious, but Erickson went beyond this to discuss the importance of the collective unconscious an idea Freud especially rejected. Both theorists had little physical evidence to support their hypothesis, however because of the early stages of development that the field of psychology was in, they were accepted based primarily on merit, and have been later evaluated by evidence, and some parts accepted and others disregarded.BibliographyAmacher, Peter. Freuds neurologic Education and Its Influence on Psychoanalytic Theory.Psychological Issues IV, no. 4, monograph 16. New York multinational Universities Press, 1965.Battino, R., & South, T. 1997. Ericksonian Approaches A Comprehensive Manual. Neuyptology PressFreud, Sigmund, Brill, A. A., ed. (1938). The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, New York The new-made LibraryFreud, Sigmund. (1935). An Autobiographical Study., London Hogarth Press.Miller, P. (1983). Theories of Developmental Psychology. San Francisco W.H. Freeman and Company.