Freud
...s the son of a Protestant clergyman. Jung had a lonely childhood and was known as a dreamer. Jung’s theories were very close to Freud’s except for Freud’s sexual interpretations. For fifty years, Jung traveled the world developing his theories. According to Freud, the main instinct of humans is to act aggressively towards others. Primitively, humans may have been aggressive at all times, but civilization has taught us to restrain because of morals and laws. Freud believes that this restraining causes unhappiness and guilt. According to Skinner, all human actions are based on operant conditioning. This is the idea that human behavior (the operant) is a direct result of a special type of positive stimulus (the reinforcer). Skinner says that when a behavior is followed a positive stimulus there is a better change of the behavior occurring again. However, when the result of the stimulus no longer occurs, the behavior will no longer be reinforced. This is called extinction. Yet, if the behavior starts to have a positive response again, it will not take as long to learn the behavior. Jung says that the decisions that humans make are direct responses to archetypes that everyone in the world knows unconsciously. Jung refers to the part of the mind that makes these decisions the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious is the part of the mind that holds the basic knowledge that you are born with. This knowledge cannot be brought to consciousness, but it affects the way that you act and your decisions. Déjà vu is an example. The archetype that describes the basic instincts of humans is the shadow archetype. It is called the shadow because it shows the dark, ugly side of human wants. This is very similar to Freud’s theory that society represses the human animal instincts thus causing stress and depression in civilized man. The shadow in the collective unconscious is not necessarily evil. It just brings out the natural thoughts of humans. The difference between Jung and Freud is that Freud believed that the collective unconscious was the place where sexual frustration is stored. Freud also writes that the development of individuals and the evolution of civilization are connected in three stages. The first of these stages is the personal development stage. This is where the individual determines how to portray his or her identity. The next stage is sublimation. Sublimation is the channeling of primal aggression into other activities. The final stage is the discontent stage. This stage describes the feelings that individuals have when they are forced to let go of their aggressiveness and submit to civilization. Freud uses the term ‘pleasure principle’ to describe the force that drives us to our personal wants. The opposite of the pleasure principle is the standards of society that consist of the laws and authorities in our civilization. Jung believes that the development of humans stems from the decisions made by the ego. Jung’s idea of the ego is very similar to Freud. The ego contains all of the thoughts and feelings that humans experience on an everyday basis. Conscious decisions are decided by the ego. However the personal unconscious also effect human development. This could be why developing memories is very important. When a person brings these memories to mind, they influence the person to make the important deci...