Gestalt theory
Gestalt theory primarily focusses on grouping and puts more emphasis on higher order cognitive developments at the center of behaviorism. According to the theory, there are four chief factors that determine grouping which include proximity, similarity, closure and simplicity. These four aspects of grouping were also known as the law of organization (King & Wertheimer, 2004). The four factors of grouping were examined in terms of perception and problem solving especially the Gestalt analysis of problem solving. This theory is based on the belief that human realization can never be disintegrated into its essentials and that perception can only be meaningful when observed as a whole.
Gestalt is also known as the “Law of Simplicity” which states that every stimulus is perceived in its most simple form. Gestalt theorists followed the basic principle that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Gestalt means that when parts are identified individually they have different characteristics to the whole. When you look at something in entirely; you are not always conscious of its parts but only aware of the overall thing.
Gestalt theory is a psychological concept that is widely used in training. It proposes that what is seen is just a perception of the seer and not what may be there in the actual sense and that the nature of a unified whole is not understood by analyzing its parts. The authors came from a diverse range of disciplines and who understand the human being and its environment as something that is more than and different from the sum of its parts (King & Wertheimer, 2004).
Gestalt Theory goes against the trend towards more and more specialization and dissection that would lead only to an incoherent knowledge, by offering a multi-disciplinary and critical synoptic approach. Gestalt theory is resolved to penetrate the problem itself by examining the fundamental assumptions of science. These theory has, for a long time been characterized as the tone of European science, as it understood to involve a detailed examination of the problem by first breaking up the complexes into their various components, isolate the components, discover their underlying characteristics and then reassemble them to fix the problem (King & Wertheimer, 2004).
The theory advocates that the behavior of the whole is not determined by that of its individual components but where the part-processes are themselves determined by the intrinsic nature of the whole. Gestalt theory encompasses a detailed and concrete research that is not only geared towards obtaining the final result but as a tool or means towards further inventions and innovations. It proposes that a problem cannot be solved by merely listing the possible solutions for systemization, classification and arrangement but by tackling it in a holistic manner, guided by the spirit of the new methods and all that one has learnt (King& Wertheimer, 2004).
Freudian Theory
The most common and controversial theory by of Sigmund Freud is the personality theory/ psychoanalysis theory .Freud believed that personality develops through a series of childhood stages to adulthood. The psychosexual development psychosexual development is based upon the Greek tragedy by Sophocles Oedipus Rex that is famously referred to as the Oedipus complex. This theory is divided into five stages namely; oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. Freud’s theory was an important factor to his teachings based upon the development of the human personality. The theory of personality emphasizes the importance of the unconscious mind. According to Freud, psychological disorders are the result of these unconscious conflicts becoming extreme or unbalanced. Freud believed that the human mind was composed of three structures the id, the ego and the superego (Fayek, 2012).
According to Sigmund Freud psychoanalytic theory, all the psychic energy is generated by the libido. He advocates that our mental states were influenced by two competing forces: cachexia and anti-cachexia. Cachexia represents the mental investment in a person, an idea or an object. If you are craving for food, for example, you can create a mental image of a delicious food that you have been craving. In some instances, the ego might harness some of the id’s energy to seek out activities that are related to the activity in order to disperse some of the excess energy from the id. If one can’t actually find food to appease his hunger, he might instead peruse an interesting recipe book (Fayek, 2012).
Anti-cachexia represents the ego blocking the socially unacceptable needs of the id. Repressing urges and desires is one common form of anti-cachexia or defense mechanisms, but it involves a significant investment of energy. Freud also believed that much of human behavior was motivated by two driving instincts: the life instincts and the death instincts. The life instincts are relate to a basic need for survival, reproduction and pleasure, such things as the need for food, shelter, love and sex. He also suggested that all humans have an unconscious wish for death, which he referred to as the death instincts such as Self-destructive behavior. These death instincts were largely tempered by the life instincts (Fayek, 2012).
Further exploration of Freudian Theory
Sigmund Freud theory of psychoanalysis concentrates on the unconscious bases of behavior .S Sigmund believed in psychological determinism, the view that behavior had an underlying psychological cause. His approach considered three elements of personality which included structure, development and dynamism (Fayek, 2012).
Structure
Personality structure consists of three parts which are ID, the ego and super ego. ID is the primitive pleasure seeking urge that requires immediate gratification and it exists from birth while the ego is an intermediary between the ID and the real world. It is the part of one’s personality that tastes urges against reality, thinks, learns and perceives. Super ego is the part that represents the social values and morals which is made up of the subconscious that punishes through guilt and rewards through pride. According to Freud, the ID part of our personality seeks instinctive impulsive solutions, but the ego part seeks practical realistic solutions while the super ego seeks moralistic and perfectionistic solutions (Fayek, 2012).
Development
Freud came up with the psycho sexual stages of personality development .Failure to pass through each stage successfully may result in fixation at a particular stage for example over-indulgence in the oral stage may result in the behaviors like optimism and verbosity. The psycho sexual stages of personality development include oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage and latency stage (Fayek, 2012).
Oral stage (birth to 1.5years)
At this stage, the child’s pleasures comes from the mouth primarily through sucking and biting .The developmental task in this stage is the successful weaning from the mother’s breast or bottle, if frustrated at this stage, the child develops a fixation and can develop one or more of these personality; Oral receptive-this is characterized by oral pleasure seeking like putting food or cigar into the mouth. According to Freud, people with oral receptive personalities tend to become dependent on others and expect others to care for them. Oral aggressive-this is characterized by oral pleasures that that emphasizes biting such as chewing gums and smoking pipes. Oral aggressive people are often verbally hostile (Fayek, 2012).
Anal stage (1.5years to 3 years)
At this stage, the primary zone of pleasure is the Anus. Retaining and expelling are the primary pleasures in this stage and the developmental task is successful toilet training. Rigid toilet training like requiring children to go or not go on demand may result in fixation. Anal retentive-it refers to the personalities that wait until the last moments to go. Such people are neat, methodical and also stubborn. Anal repulsive-it’s made up of characteristics like cruelty, destructive acts, emotional outburst, carelessness and disregard for rules (Fayek, 2012).
Phallic stage (3years to 6years)
Here the focus of pleasure is the genitals and the developmental task is successful identification of same sex parent. Boys in this stage tend to jealously love their mothers and view their fathers as competitors for their mother’s love and so they both fear and hate their fathers. Freud called this condition Oedipus complex. For successful resolution; the boy must renounce his passionate love for the mother and make peace with the father. Fixation at this stage creates Don Juan personality, a personality obsessed with sexual gratification or following poor identification with the fathering being less masculine and being more feminine. Girls at this stage identify and admire the father and have feelings of anger and jealousy towards the mother and they develop defiance to the mother (Fayek, 2012).
Latency stage (6 years to puberty)
At this stage, sexual urges are suppressed and the developmental tasks are transforming the repressed urges into socially acceptable activities like competing games with peers.
Genital stage (puberty to adulthood)
The pleasure zones are the genitals and gratification occurs in sexual intimacy and developmental tasks are ability to form a love relationship making the beginning of mature sexual relationships, develop interest and talents related to productive work.
Dynamism of personality
Freud concluded that the elements of personality were in a dynamic and usually conflicting relationship with each other and the conflict produces anxiety in the Ego. The person reduces the anxiety through various defense mechanisms. These mechanisms tend to deny or distort reality to make it less disturbing. These defense mechanisms include repression, regression, fixation, rationalization, sublimation, denial and projection (Fayek, 2012).
Repression-this refers to a case where the impulse or urge is pushed to the unconscious.
Regression-this is adopting essentially childish behavior so that you can be excused by others.
Fixation-this is where one develops obsessively rigid behavior concerning specific urge.
Rationalization is an explanation of a way or motives of behavior so that they look acceptable.
Projection it involves attributing ones feeling or motives to others.
Sublimation-it involves directing the threatening urge into a more socially acceptable activity such as subliming the urge to fight by playing rugby.
Denial-it’s where one openly denies the threatening impulse.
Micro skills and techniques expected to be effective with Freudian Theory
Freudian theory has brought a lot of insight dealing with the psychological issues related to life. Most of these skills are applicable in our daily social lives and also therapeutic in nature. Freudian psychoanalytic theory provides a model of the mind’s functioning as it offers explanatory concepts for understanding human development, motivation, and behavior and a technique for treating patients with emotional difficulties. It also provides a model of mental functioning, as it stresses on listening to the conscious and unconscious communications of the patient.
Micro skills and techniques from Freudian’s psychoanalysis have expanded to treat a widening scope of patients. It has been recognized by analysts that certain conditions need to be developed in treatment in order for classical psychoanalytic methods to be effective. These include a background of safety and trust, a stable sense of self, and a capacity for self-reflectiveness. Contemporary Freudian thinkers have therefore focused attention on helping to foster these conditions. The goal of developing insight through interpretation remains a central tenet.
Summary of theoretical perspective
Freudian theory is of essence especially to the psychological field that also relates to health. The development of the theory of human mind and behavior and the techniques used by the clinical psychologists are of much help and therefore worth the credit of Freud’s innovation. Also another point to note a positive contribution of this theory is the conception of the unconscious that has actually enabled people to have access to it through his psychoanalysis approach to personality (Huffman, 2010).
Freudian theory has given a lot of insight on the personality perspective. These psychoanalytic perspectives are; the way psychic energy conflicts are solved shapes ones personality, that personality characteristic of a person is determined by the interaction of ID, Ego and Supper ego. Psychic determinism: that whatever happens in a person’s mind and what a person does has a specific identifiable cause. Psychic energy is needed to make the mind go and the energy cannot be destroyed, it must be expressed (Huffman, 2010).
Gestalt theory is essential in the sense that it has also led to the development of gestalt therapy. The process is based upon the relationship between the therapist and the patient .Conception of the whole, holism made the person self-regulating and independent entity and the Gestalt therapist regards the client as a functional whole striving towards maturity. The whole is more important than its separate parts taken together. Although Freudian theory is helpful to a greater extent, it also does have a number of criticisms. These include; some personalities are hereditary and so the application of Freudian theory of psychoanalysis to some extent cannot be fruitful (Huffman, 2010). In the psycho-sexual development theory of development, Freud refers to infants as sexual beings as this has caused some controversy with some psychologists arguing that this pattern of development is neither universal nor necessary for development of a healthy pattern. A general criticism of Gestalt theory has been that it does not provide an explanation of emotion and personality.
References
Fayek, A. (2012). Freud’s Other Theory of Psychoanalysis: The Replacement For The Indelible Theory Of Catharsis. Lanham: Jason Aronson.
Huffman, T. E. (2010). Theoretical Perspectives on American Indian Education: Taking A New Look At Academic Success And The Achievement Gap. Lanham, Md: AltaMira Press.
King, D. B., & Wertheimer, M. (2004). Max Wertheimer and Gestalt theory. New Brunswick, NJ [u.a.: Transaction Publ.
