Comparison of Winnicott and Freud's Theories of Personality

Psychodynamic Psychoanalytic Essay

Introduction

Psychodynamic is about bring unconscious to conscious. The purpose of this assignment is to explore two concepts of two different psychoanalytic/ psychodynamic theorists that is useful in social care practice and to critically evaluate how useful are the concepts and why it relevant to social care setting. social care profession promotes social change, problem solving in human relationships and empowerment of people to improve well-being. The concepts chosen for this essay are: Winnicott’s concept on the good enough mother and Freud’s concept on transference. They are both theory of personality, which is about change.

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Winnicott is object relations theory, he is from psychoanalytic background and he is specialised in relationship between children and parents. His theory talks about how effectively someone can develop going forward; his idea of True-self and False-self related to Jung idea of the Mask and archetypes. Winnicott was moving towards working with children much more and looking into how we create an environment that create a safe place for someone to grow.

Winnicott has different terms, however, good enough mother and holding facilitating environment (moving from one stage of life to another) was choosing for this essay because practicing good enough mother in social care setting will help the client to live nearly independently and develop forward. It worthwhile allowing the clients to explore their environment; let them relate to themselves; give them the chance to make some mistakes by allowing them to do things on their own; let them do what they can do; let them (give them) get angry or sad so that they will be able to know how to manage their emotion and also learn from that experience because without given them the chance to do something themselves and made a mistakes, they will never learn. Although carer need to adapt to the client’s needs at the beginning of the adaptation to help and support clients and gradually withdraw, to give them the chance to explore the world themselves and accept reality. Of course, the carer must be empathetic and caring, and to be preoccupied about clients’ needs but carer must allow the clients to experience sadness or anger. According to Jacobs (1995); Winnicott, 1971Good enough carer provide environment that facilitate clients natural maturation process because there is absolute dependence at initial stage and for client to move from absolute dependence, the carer has to begin to fail to adapt to clients need. Wedge (2016) Winnicott believed that good enough carer starts with nearly complete adaptation to her client’s needs. Carer must completely consistently attend to the clients and sees to their needs, but as time goes by, the carer will progressively allow the client to experience small amounts of frustration. Winnicott states that if client does not feel slight frustration, he/she will not form an idea of external reality, he highlights that the early stage of mothering is essential for the client’s healthy development. The ability to have an illusion is necessary to develop a sense of reality.

Through Winnicott’s idea of ‘Holding’ (Winnicott 1953). Therapist offers Clients a ground to work through their emotions and learn to ponder on it, understand their emotional experiences, and comprehend their feelings (Winnicott 1953).

As a carer, we need to allow the emotion to be, because supressing the emotion by ensuring the client is happy all the time by getting what they wanted is preventing them to realised there is another world beside it self. There is no possibility whatsoever for a child/client to develop and proceed from pleasure to reality, to make a transition (Freud, 1923 cited in W.D. Winnicot, 1971) unless there is a good-enough mother. Good-enough carers are the one that will make active adaptation to the clients’ needs which will be gradually reduce for the client to make a justification for their displeasure adaptation and to tolerate the result of the frustration (W.D. Winnicot, 1971)

Carer is there to support client emotion and create environment that create a safe space for clients to grow by creating a secure attachment and form a health relationship with client. So therefore, carer creates an environment within the therapeutic relationship roles of mother and child, and support the emotional development of the client. the good enough mother will let the client safe without been over protective. This is about balance between create enough safety but not mothering a child, secure environment is creating environment that allow them to made a mistake. According to Winnicott (1965) states that If the mothering is not good enough, the client will fail to form his/her true self or hidden behind a false-self, it is only when there is good enough mother that the client will start on a process of development that is personal and real. As a carer, I am there to support the emotional development of the client. Moving from been dependent into nearly independent

Freud was a Viennese neurologist who became known as founding father of psychoanalysis

When we talk about Freud, we talk about stages of awareness which are conscious, unconscious and preconscious (Wedding & Corsini, 2014)

Freud says that early child development is very important for later life development. What happen to the child at earlier stage is critical that will shapes the child development pattern later on. It might be around attachment, being resistance, avoidance, anxious or behaviour

Transference is one of the key idea of psychoanalysis. Transference is the idea of transfer something you do not like on to another person. it is essential for the carer to apply Free Association by allowing the client to say whatever he/she want to say. According Wedding & Corsini (2014) Transference is when past is presented in present situation. Client relate to their carer in a way that were reminiscent of the way they viewed and related to important person in their childhood. Kahn (1997) states that Transference is when clients transfer their fear; feelings, attitude and wishes from their past experience onto their carer and if transference happened, the carer should be quiet and allow the client to find their way to express their deepest wishes and fear, those conflicts would emerge from unconscious to conscious.

For instance, client with authoritarian father/mother might see his/her carer as authoritarian and the client might transfer the negative reactions such as; anger and dislike towards the carer and at the same time, if client view his parent as vulnerable parent that needed protection, he might begin to relate the same thing to the carer, he views the carer as good and transfer positive transference towards the carer. For example, in my work place, there was a client that always want me to assist him and chat with him all the, he always happy when he sees me but it get to a time that I am getting worried and disturbed about everything, so I informed my supervisor. Supervisor told me that the client once lives in Africa and he had a black girlfriend, whom he view as very nice woman then, therefore he is transferring the feeling he has towards his Africa girlfriend on.

(Introductory lectures on psychoanalysis. 1991) In working with clients, it is important that I recognise transference in a client and my own counter transference response so that I can use a client’s unconscious material in transference to reveal unresolved conflicts the client’s have with figures from their childhoods in order to make progress in care.

gaining insight is what is important in psychoanalysis. As a carer, we need to focus on clients past and present and look at what causes their distress; anxiety or relapse and with right intervention carer can still change clients present no matter the past (CLASS NOTE)

Transference is very important in social care setting if we are able to recognise it. It vital important in understanding types of cure and service client require. For example, when client respond to carer what happen in their past experience or have the feelings they had for their father or brother to carer, this will enable the carer to understand what is going on in the clients life; to understand the root cause of client anxiety; know the type of intervention method/s that need to be use and how to help and support the client. The carer will use interpretation to explain to the client without probing, to help the client get new insight and bring his unconscious to conscious. According to Kahn (1997) Freud saw the transference as the therapist central opportunity and support of therapeutic leverage. Freud see the development of transference as crucial part of the psychoanalytic process (Freud, 1917 in Wedding & Corsini, 2014 ) Client provided carer with an opportunity to help him/her develop an understanding of how past relationships influence the experience of present in an emotionally immediate way, by re-experiencing the past in the analytic relationship (Wedding & Corsini, 2014)

Conclusion

Good enough Carers provide crucial upbringing to allow for the growing client’s disillusionment with the carer and the world, without destroying their craving for life and ability to accept both internal and external reality

Bibliography

• Kahn, M. (1997) Between therapist and client: the new relationship. New York: W.H. Freeman,
• Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1991) London: Penguin Books. pp. 483-500
• Winnicott, D.W. (1971) Playing and Reality. London: Routledge.
• Winnicott, D.W. (1953) “Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena—A Study of the firs not-me”, International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 34(2) pp.89-97. Available at: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a56f/ba056a21039574e5b2371f4ad01728b54366.pdf [Assessed on: 10th November, 2018].
• Winnicot D. W. (1965) The family and Individual Development. London: Routledge.
• Jacob, M. (1995) Winnicott. London: Sage
• Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. (15 Feb. 1991)  Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Wedge, M. (2016) What Is a “Good Enough Mother”? Good mothering involves more than devotion. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/suffer-the-children/201605/what-is-good-enough-mother
• Wedding, D. & Corsini, R. J. (2014) Current Psychotherapies [10th Ed.] United Kingdom: Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning.