Melissa, a 19-year-old college student, is, on the surface, a typical individual. She engages in typical behaviors and for girls her age, including frequent socialization. This paper analyzes Melissa and her past from the perspective of Freud, Adler, Horney, and Erikson, revealing deeper inner mechanics. Freud Sigmund Freud was undoubtedly a major influence on the development of psychology (Wollheim, 1971). Revolutionizing the field of psychology, his perspective, psychoanalysis, proposes a psychosexual stage system of development and structures the psyche around three most critical constructs: the id, shortsighted and operating on the pleasure principle; the ego, constructed by the id and operating on the reality principle; and the superego, …show more content…
She is likely to be overdependent on other people, quite possibly indicated by her large circle of friends with whom she socializes frequently. There is no indication that Melissa is fixated on the anal stage. In fact, she is a slob, and typical anal stage fixation is associated with orderliness, not messiness (Frager and Fadiman, 2013). A feminine Oedipal attitude, present in Melissa, would have come into being during her phallic stage. A feminine Oedipal attitude involves a girl’s romantic feelings for her father figure and her resentment, and ultimate identification, with her mother (Frager and Fadiman, 2013). Melissa’s mother is warm, loving, passive, and submissive. Likewise, Melissa is described by her friends as lively and fun to be around; she is warm and loving, like her mother. The latency period is not relevant to Melissa’s current personality as a psychosexual stage, as it is typically psychologically uneventful (Frager and Fadiman, 2013). The genital stage is similarly unimportant in understanding Melissa. Structural Components of the …show more content…
It is specific, personal, and unique, and highly dependent upon the perspective of the individual (Adler, 1956). Melissa has developed a life goal most likely focused on gaining superiority through knowledge over human relationships after the feelings of inferiority most likely generated throughout her childhood. Her demanding, tyrant father, along with her submissive mother, and six older siblings, must have had some dysfunction, which Melissa unconsciously or consciously decided that she wanted to master. This is most likely why she is a psychology