Over the years, the Psychology produced a lot of great minds, all of which were able to contribute their unique works to the field. Despite the differences in their perspective, all of them were important in understanding human psychological functioning. These people include Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, and William James.
Sigmund Freud suggested that the largest part of the mind is its unconscious part. For Freud, this unconscious is the main source of our motivations, like our desire to eat, to have sex, and more. We often deny being conscious of these desires, but as a whole, we tend to go back to it in whatever we do. Carl Jung on the other hand, presented something that stood out from other ideas, and it is about the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious is the psychic inheritance or simply, the reservoir of all our experiences, though we are not directly conscious about it. This is what influences how we behave as well as all of our experiences and emotions, but we only associate to it indirectly as we are unable to tap into it consciously.
Alfred Adler on the other hand, postulates that we all have a single drive or a motivational force in everything that we do, in every behavior and experience that we have. Every one of us has a motivating force known as striving for perfection. This is the desire that we all possess in order to fulfill our potentials, and by sticking to it thru our lives, we slowly come closer to our ideals. William James suggested that people all have stream of thought, wherein relations, vague fringes, and tendencies were all being experienced directly by the human being. Consciousness is more of a stream of ideas rather than just a succession of it. A human being’s psychic life follows a rhythm, and it possesses a series of transitions and resting places (Goodman, 2006). James also emphasized on concepts like interest and attention, wherein these are the things that we tend to focus to, the ones which practically or aesthetically interests us.
The four men mentioned above may all have different theories and perspectives about human psychological functioning. But all of their contributions are essential to the field of psychology, as it pushed our knowledge and understanding about the human mind and all of its complexities further. They are all indeed geniuses of their own right.
References
- Boeree, C. G. (2006a). Alfred Adler. Retrieved October 28, 2008, from http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/adler.html
- Boeree, C. G. (2006b). Carl Jung. Retrieved October 28, 2008, from http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/jung.html
- Boeree, C. G. (2006c). Sigmund Freud. Retrieved October 28, 2008, from http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/freud.html
- Goodman, R. (2006). William James. Retrieved October 28, 2008, from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/james/
