A Critical Introduction to Psychology

(Tuis.) #1

190 Christopher R. Bell


motivation has been brought into consciousness, will be to put him in a
position to choose action (or passivity) with respect to the real source of
the conflict— that is, towards the social structures. (p. 100)

Fanon’s incisive analysis of the psychopathology of
colonization/decolonization brings to the fore questions regarding the
functioning and potential efficacy of psychoanalysis within a broader
social context—can psychoanalysis alter the intra-psychic dynamics of
psychical conflict while overlooking or leaving undisturbed the external
reality of social asymmetries of power? Is psychoanalysis inherently
tailored to certain normative interests regarding class, race, gender, and/or
sexual orientation? In its Ego Psychology variant, psychoanalysis arguably
introduced a new kind of elitism in so far as it proffered a cure that
involved becoming better adapted to a socio-economic system productive
of social asymmetries of power and, by extension, of neurotic
psychopathology, in the first place. Danziger (2012) thus summarizes the
implications of this kind of psychoanalysis: “Far from offering a
universally valid concept of the human individual, the image of the
consciously selfed person had become a difficult ideal imperfectly
realizable by a minority prepared to invest considerable time and effort” (p.
74).


Humanistic Psychology

Humanistic theories of personality and motivation are commonly
presented in introduction to psychology textbooks as a rejoinder and
necessary foil to Freud’s theories of personality that focus on the
psychopathologies caused by repression rather than a positive vision of
health or human flourishing. Humanistic theories, represented by Abraham
Maslow’s model of a hierarchy of needs and Carl Roger’s concept of an
actualizing tendency, propose a vision of personality that is not inherently
split between conscious and unconscious or between various psychical
agencies, but rather inherently whole, thus constituting a vision that is

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