Psychology began as the study of the soul. Plato believed the soul was an individual’s belief they are separate from, but also connected to their physical and social environments. Aristotle believed the soul was a set of psychological attributes which he referred to as the ‘mind’ (Garcia-Valdecasas, 2005).
From that, psychology evolved into a science of the self which James (1890) viewed as an essential concept in psychology. James split the self into two components, the objective self (me) and the subjective self (I). Poll and Smith (2003) remarked that psychodynamic theories place more emphasis on the objective self unlike James.
The psychodynamic school was founded by Sigmund Freud and tries to explain individual’s personality and behaviour in terms of underlying conscious and unconscious forces. Thus, a strong emphasis is placed on the unconscious and childhood experiences as these are thought to help shape personality.
Psychoanalytic Theory (S. Freud, 1900)
The best-known psychodynamic theory of personality is S. Freud’s
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Freud (1905) has suggested. Social interest is the individual’s ability to achieve their purpose within their community (Peluso et al., 2004). Individuals vary in their need for social interest according to their parent-offspring relationship quality. Furthermore, social interest activity levels differ across individuals with high levels suggesting a giver tendency and low representing a getter tendency. Adler developed four personality types; Socially Useful (High activity, high social interest), Ruling (High activity, low social interest), Getting (low activity, low social interest), and Avoiding (low activity, low social interest). The ruling type is characterised by a superiority complex whereas the getting and avoiding types are characterised by an inferiority complex as Adler believed personality and complexes were linked like Jung