study material

1. Naorem Binita Devi
Kakching,Manipur

2. NAOREM BINITA
DEVI,FACULTY
MEMBER,DEPT.OF
PSY.,MZU

3. The Nature Of People from the
Psychodynamic psychotherapy
• The concept of human nature in psychoanalytic theory found its
basis in psychic determinism and unconscious mental
processes.
• Psychic determinism implies that mental life is a continuous
manifestation of cause-related relationships.
• Mental processes are considered the causative factors in the
nature of human behavior. Mental activity and even physical
activity may be kept below the conscious level.
• Freud ( 1965) noted that conflict, repression, and anxiety often
go together, with the result that people often do not understand
their feelings, thoughts, actions, or behaviors. Analysis on the
basis of unconscious determinism is the base of psychoanalytic
psychotherapy. Psychotherapy leading to catharsis will then
lead to confronting the unconscious mind or to a way of
learning to cope, understand, and grow in mental development.

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• Freud viewed people as basically evil and victims of instincts
that must be balanced or reconciled with social forces in order
to provide a structure in which human beings can function.
• To achieve balance people need a deep understanding of the
forces that motivate them to action.
• According to Freud, people operate like energy systems,
distributing psychic energy to the id, ego, and super ego.
• Human behavior is viewed as determined by this energy, by
unconscious motives, and by instinctual and biological drives.
• Psychosexual events during the first five years of life are seen as
critical to adult personality development.
• Sugarman (1977), believing that Freud’s concept of the nature of
people is often misinterpreted, presents a contrasting view of
Freudian theory in which a humanistic image of people is
recognized in the following eight ideas:

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• people have a dual nature, biological and symbolic;
• people are both individuals and related to others
simultaneously;
• people strive for goals and values;
• one of the strongest human needs is to give meaning to
life;
• one’s internal world, including the unconscious, is more
important than overt behavior;
• people are social creatures whose need for interpersonal
relationships is supreme;
• people are always evolving, always in process;
• people have a certain amount of autonomy within the
constraints of reality.

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• In summary, according to psychoanalytic theory, the basic concepts of
human nature revolve around the notions of psychic determinism and
unconscious mental processes. Psychic determinism simply implies
that our mental function or mental life is a continuous logical
manifestation of causative relationships. Nothing is random, nothing
happens by chance. Though mental events may appear unrelated, they
are actually closely interwoven and dependent upon preceding mental
signals. Closely related to psychic determinism are unconscious mental
processes, which exist as fundamental causative factors in the nature of
human behavior. In essence, much of what goes on in our minds and
hence our bodies in unknown, below the conscious level, so that we
often do not understand our feelings and/or actions. The existence of
unconscious mental processes is the basis for much of what is involved
in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Analysis leading to catharsis is
employed to dredge up unconscious elements contained within the
recesses of the mind. By confronting these elements, the therapist can
achieve growth and mental health.

7. L.P.Ullman, Joseph Wolpe, Arnold Lazarus, and John Krumboltz).
Nature of people :
• A broad statement of the behaviorist view of the nature of people is
probably best summed up by Skinner’s (1971) belief that children are
influenced and changed as biological entities by things that happen to
them. He finds the notion that somehow or other the child of our past
is still contained within us a form of animism that serves no useful
purpose in explaining present behavior.
• Behaviorists view human beings as neither good nor bad but merely as
products of their environment.
• People are essentially neutral at birth ( the blank slate ot tabula rasa
idea) with equal potential for good or evil and for rationality or
irrationality.
• Behaviorists view people as responders. Self-directing mentalistic
concepts of people are not accepted; people are seen as capable of
making only those responses they have learned, and they make them
when the stimulus conditions are appropriate.

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• Individuals, then, are viewed by behavioral therapists ad product
oftheir conditioning. The stimulus/response paradigm is the basic
pattern of all human learning. People react in predictable ways to any
given stimulus according to what they have learned through
experience. Humans react to stimuli in much the same way animals do,
except that human responses are more complex and organized on a
higher plane.
• Skinner regarded the human being as an organism who learns patterns
of behavior, which are catalogued within the individual’s repertoire, to
be repeated at a later date. To be more specific, the organism learns a
specific respose when a satisfying condition follows an action. The
number of these responses mount as time passes and satisfying
conditions repeat. The interest of the behaviorist is in the science of
behavior as it relates to biology. Skinner believes that “ a person is a
member of a species shaped by evolutionary contingencies of survival,
displaying behavioral processes which bring him under the control of a
social environment which he and millions of others like him have
constructed and maintained during the evolution of a culture. The
direction of the controlling relation is reversed: a person does not act
upon the world, the world acts upon him.” (1971,p.211).

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• Since human behavior is learned, any or all
behavior can be unlearned and new behaviors
learned in its space. The behaviorist is concerned
with observable events. These observable events,
when they become unacceptable behaviors, can
be unlearned. It is this unlearning or reeducation
process with which the behavioral therapy is
concerned. Behavioral therapy procedures can be
developed from social learning theory.
•

10. Person-centered therapy ( Carl
Rogers)
• Carl Rogers and his person-centered school of thought view people as
rational, socialized, forward-moving, and realistic beings. Negative,
antisocial emotions do exist, but they are only a result of frustrated
basic impulses, an idea that is related to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
For instance, extreme aggressive action toward other people would
result from failure to meet needs of love and belonging. Once people
are free from their defensive behavior, their reactions are positive and
progressive.
• People possess the capacity to experience—that is, to express rather
than –repress—their own maladjustment to life and to move toward a
more adjusted state of mind. Rogers believes that, in moving toward
psychological adjustment, people are moving toward self-actualization.
Because people possess the capacity to regulate and control their own
behavior, the therapeutic relationship is merely a MEANS OF tapping
personal resources and developing human potential. It is believed that
people will learn from their external therapy experience how to
internalize and provide their own form of psychotherapy.

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• In summary, a person-centered therapy believes that
people have worth and dignity in their own right and
therefore deserve respect;
• Have the capacity and right to self-direction and,
when given the opportunity, will make wise
judgments;
• Can select their own values if allowed to do so;
• Can learn to make constructive use of responsibility;
• Have the capacity to deal with their own feelings,
thoughts, and behaviors, and
• Have the potential for constructive change and
personal development toward a full and satisfying
life.

12. Gestalt Therapy ( Fritz Perls)
The nature of man:
• According to gestalt Therapy, the most important
area to concern is the thoughts and feelings people
are experiencing at the moment. Normal and healthy
behavior occurs when people act and react as total
organisms. Many people tend to fragment their lives,
distributing their concentration and attending
among several variables and events at one time. The
results of such fragmentation can be seen in an
ineffective living style, with outcomes ranging from
low productivity to serious accidents. The gestalt
view of human nature is positive in that people are
viewed as capable of becoming self-regulating beings
who can achieve a sense of unity and integration in
their lives.

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• Perls (1969) referred to the person as a total organism—not just
the brain. His saying that people would be better off losing their
minds and coming to their senses meant that our bodies and
feelings are better indicators of the truth than our words, which
we use to hide ourselves from the truth. Body signs such as
headaches, rashes, neck strain, and stomach pains may indicate
that we need to change our behavior. Perls believed that
awareness alone can be curative. With full awareness, a state of
organismic self-regulation develops, and the total person takes
control.
• Mentally healthy people are viewed as people who can maintain
their awareness without being distracted by the various
environmental stimuli that constantly vie for our attention.
Such people can fully and clearly experience their own needs
and the environmental alternativesfor meeting these needs.

14. Continue:2 experiencehavingshare of inner
• Healthy people still
conflicts and frustrations, but
their
achieved increased
levels of concentration and awareness, they are able to
solve their problems without completing them with
fantasy elaboration. Conflicts with others are likewise
resolved when it is possible and dismissed when it is not.
People with high levels of awareness of their needs and
their environment know which problems and conflicts are
solvable and which are not. The key to successful
adjustment in Perl’s theory is the development of personal
responsibility—responsibility for one’s life and response
to one’s environment. Much of the Perls doctrine is
summarized in his famous Gestalt Prayer (Perls, 1969, p.4):
•

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• I do my thing and you do your thing.
• I am not in this world to live up to your expectations.
• And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
• You are you and I am i
• And if by chance we find each other, it is beautiful.
• If not, it can’t be helped.
The healthy person focuses sharply on one need at a time while
relegating other needs to the background. When the need is met
—or the gestalt is closed or completed—it is relegated to the
background, and a new need comes into focus. The smoothly
functioning figure/ground relationship characterizes the
healthy personality. The dominant need of the organism at any
time becomes the foreground figure, and the other needs
recede, at least temporarily, into the background.

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• The foreground is the need that presses most sharply for
satisfaction, whether it is the need to preserve life or is related
to less physically or psychologically vital areas. For individuals
to be able to satisfy their needs and close the Gestalt in order to
move on to other things, they must be able to determine what
they need, and they must know how to manipulate themselves
and their environment; even the purely physiological needs can
be satisfied only through the interaction of the organism and
the environment ( Perls, 1976).
•
• Perls defined neurotic people as those who try to attend to too
many needs at one time with the result being failure to satisfy
any one need fully. Neurotic people also use their potential to
manipulate others to do for them what they have not done for
themselves. Rather than running their own lives, they turn them
over to those who will take care of their lives, they turn them
over to those who will take care of their needs.

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• In summary, people cause themselves additional problems by not
handling their lives appropriately in the following six categories:
•
• 1.Lacking contact with the environment. People may become so rigid
that they cut themselves off from others or from resources in the
environment.
• 2. confluence. People may incorporate too much of themselves into
others incorporate so much of the environment into themselves that
they lose touch with where they are. Then the environment takes
control.
• 3. Unfinished business. People may have unfulfilled needs, unexpressed
feelings, or some uncompleted situations that clamor for their
attention ( this may manifest itself in dreams).
• 4. fragmentation. People may try to discover or deny a need such as
aggression. The inability to find and obtain those things are needs may
be result of fragmenting one’s life.

18. • top dog/underdog. People may experience a split in their personalities
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•
between what they think they “ should” do ( top dog) and what they
“want” to do ( underdog)
6. polarities ( dichotomies). People tend to flounder at times between
existing, natural dichotomies in their lives such as: body/mind,
self/external world, emotional/real, infantile/mature,
biological/cultural, poetry/prose, spontaneous/deliberate,
personal/social, love/aggression, and
unconscious/conscious( Sahakian,1969).
• Much of everyday living seems to be involved in resolving conflicts
posed by these competing polarities. Five types have been identified by
Assagioli (1965):
• Physical polarities—masculinity/femininity and
parasympathetic/sympathetic nervous system;
• emotional polarities—pleasure/pain, excitement/depression, love/hate.
• Mental polarities—parent/child, eros(feeling)/logos (reason),
topdog/underdog.
• Spiritual polarities—intellectual doubt/dogmatism.
• interindividual polarities—man/woman,black/white, Christian/jew.
•

19. • Rational emotive therapy is based on the philosophy
of Epictetus ( born ca. AD 50) : “ what disturbs men’s
minds is not events, but their judgement of events.”
Generally speaking, very young children and animals
have limited emotional repertoires and tend to
emote in a quick, unsustaines manner. When
children get old enough to use language effectively,
they acquire the ability to sustain their emotions and
possibly keep themselves emotionally upset. RET
does not concentrate upon the past events in one’s
life, but rather the present events and how one reacts
to them. RET theory stresses that, as human beings,
we have choices.

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• We control our ideas, attitudes, feelings, and actions, and we
arrange our lives according to our own dictates. We have little
control over what happens or what actually exists, but we do
have both choices and control over how we view the world and
how we react to the difficulties, regardless of how we have been
taught to respond.
• RET theory holds that people are neither good nor bad if they
respond to others with a rational belief system. If individuals
react with irrational beliefs, however, they will view themselves
and others as evil, awful, and horrible whenever they or others
fall short of their expectations. The human being is viewed by
Ellis as a naturally irrational, self-defeating individual who
needs to be taught otherwise. He has also stated people can be
naturally helpful and loving as long as they do not think
irrationally. In others words, Ellis has described a circular
process in the following figure.
•

21. Transactional analysis ( Eric berne)
• The nature of people and the theory of psychotherapy
sections are covered together for transactional analysis
because the TA theory of psychotherapy is basically a
statement describing the human personality.
• Berne had a positive view of the nature of people. He
believed that children were borne as princes and
princesses, and shortly thereafter their parents and the
environment turned them into frogs. He believed that
people had their potential to regain their royal status
providing they learned and applied the lessons of
transactional analysis to their personal lives. Berne
believed that early childhood years were critical to
personal development. During these early years, before
children enter school, they form their basic life script, and
they develop a sense of being either OK or not OK.

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• They also arrive at conclusions about the “OK-ness” of other people. In
Berne’s view, life is very simple to live. However, people upset
themselves to the point where they invent religions, pastimes, and
games. These same people complain about how complicated life is
while persisting in making life even harder. Life is a series of decisions
to be made and problems to be solved. Berne believes people have the
rationality and freedom to make decisions and solve their problems.
• The TA theory of human nature and human relationships derives from
data collected via four types of analyses:
• structural analysis, in which an individual’s personality is analyzed;
• Transactional analysis, which is concerned with what people do and say
to each other;
• Script analysis, which deals with the specific life dramas people
compulsively employ;
• Game analysis, in which ulterior transactions leading to a pay off are
analyzed.
•

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• Irrational thinking leads to self-hate, which leads to self-destructive
behavior and eventually to hatred of others, which will turn cause
others to act irrationally toward the individual, and thus begin the
cycle again.
• Ellis believes that some of our irrational thoughts are biological in
origin, but the majority stem from our upbringing ( parents, teachers,
and clergy). Ellis has described three problem areas in which people
hold irrational; beliefs; they must be perfect; others must be perfect;
and/or the world must be a perfect place to live. The following
examples describe in a nutshell what people tell themselves when
interpreting events with an irrational belief system. A more rational
replacement thought follows each irrational self-message.
•
• because it would be highly preferable if I were outstandingly
competent, I absolutely should and must be; it is awful when I am not,
and I am therefore a worthless individual .
• ( alternative) It would sure be nice if I were outstanding in whatever I
do, but if I am not, it is OK, and I will try my best anyway.
•

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• Because it is highly desirable that others treat me considerably
and fairly, they absolutely should and must, and they are rotten
people who deserve to be utterly damned when they do not.
• (alternative) I would prefer people to treat me considerately.
However, I realize that this is not always the case, so I will not
take it personally when they do not, and I will make it my
business to be considerate.
• Because it is preferable that I experience pleasure rather than
pain, the world should absolutely arrange this, and life is
horrible and I can’t bear it when the world doesn’t.
• ( alternative) I realize that in life there are both pleasurable
moments and painful moments. Therefore, I will try to make the
painful moments a positive, learning experience so that I can
endure trials and even benefit from them.