Psychologists' Compare And Contrast –
Jean Piaget & Sigmund Freud

Similarities and differences Jean Piaget was a philosopher and developmental Swiss psychologist who is widely known for the epistemology studies relating children. Piaget’s theory of epistemology and cognitive development are both referred to as genetic epistemology. Jean Piaget’s specific concern was on cognitive or intellectual development of a child and manner in which minds progress and process knowledge. Piaget’s fundamental thesis was based on the fact that children’s first grow theories of self-centric about the environment they are living in or about persons and objects in that environment. Secondly, children normally base the theories on the personal experiences that they go through while interacting with objects and persons in the environment. Thirdly, the child uses ‘Schemas’ in order to master or gain information regarding the environment. Lastly, sophistication of any child cognitive structure intensifies as a child develops as it did with a child’s schemas. A child’s schema is a tool case of responses and actions to make things happen, initiating with rudimentary connections like grabbing or mouthing items and finally progress towards extremely sophisticated skills like scientific observation. Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist, is the naissance father of the process of psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud’s main concerns were psychoanalysis which is a clinic methodology of treating psychopathology done by means of dialogue between patients and psychoanalysts. Freud came up with therapeutic techniques like using free associations whereby patients convey their thought or ideas without reservations, and this is done in any order that they spontaneously occurred. Freud came to the finding that the dreams of the patients could be successfully analyzed in order to reveal the complexity in the structuring of the unconscious information and later demonstrate psychic act of repression that underlay symptom configuration. Freud also postulated the subsistence of libido, which is an energy by which mental structures and processes are invested and generates neurotically attachments or death drive, a source of hate, neurotic guilt, repetition and aggression. Both Freud and Piaget main concerns were that of development, and this is a sequence of age-related modifications that occur in the life span of an individual. A stage is defined as developmental period where individuals exhibit typical behavioral patterns or establish particular capacities. Individuals go through stages by specific order building capacities which were developed initially. Stages are normally age related, and development is usually discontinuous by way of qualitative diverse capacity that emerges in every stage. Sigmund gave a description of personality development through a sequence of stages. Of the stages, Freud believed childhood was generally important and that personality normally developed when a child was five years. Freud proposed a theory of development of a child , which occurred in a sequence of stages focused on diverse pleasures on body areas. During every stage, a child encountered conflicts that played a key role in the child’s development. Piaget concerns were cognitive development where children experienced changes as they matured and interacted with the people in the environment around them. As children begin to learn, they modify and expand their schema to represent the universe. Personal and professional assessment Jean Piaget is one of the best child development and well-known specialists. Piaget’s work was foremost published during the 19th century, but the theory on cognitive development still has an influence to the contemporary clinics and researchers until now. Piaget’s research discovered that the young people at approximately the age of eleven on average entered the formal operations stage; nevertheless, there was a huge deal of individual differences with respect into normal development. Youngsters’ cognitive development may be affected through many factors such as numerous medical conditions, physical or emotional trauma and family cultures. A concerned parent, who realizes that there is no development in their children, normally discusses the concerns with the health caregivers of their children, and professionals like school administrators, guidance counselors and teachers. If the professions find a cause to the concerns, the child may be referred to a psychoanalyst to get further assessments. Personally, I think the youths are now able to consider any situation and problem and they can be able to identify the various variables which affect or influence them. This has enabled the youths to have more logical and specific way of approaching problems through propositional thought and hypothetical- deductive reasoning. Freudians psychoanalysis which is a related framework of interpretive strategy, developmental theory and clinical techniques was a pronounced piecemeal in several publications via Sigmund spread all over the globe for about forty five years. Despite the wealth of Sigmund Freud writing, the efficiency of Freud’s theories and therapeutic methods still remain subjects in animated debates. Even in the contemporary world, Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis continues being efficient to most people. In my point of view, I think that the free association between a patient and a psychoanalyst has helped treat so many people especially people who suffer from mental illnesses. Talking with a psychoanalyst, a patient can talk freely of the concerns and the psychoanalyst will identify the source of problems and look for solutions. When the patients speak freely of any memories or ideas that occur to them with a psychoanalyst, a more effective and consistent pattern of relieving symptoms can be achieved. Effectiveness of their treatment approaches Psychoanalysis still remains influential in the field of psychotherapy, within a number of psychiatry or transversely across the humanities. It keeps on generating highly and extensive contested debate in regard to therapeutic efficacy, the scientific status or whether it is detrimental or advances to the feminist cause. Freud’s work nonetheless has suffused contemporary popular culture and thought. In my own experience with a psychoanalyst, free association of dialogue between the psychoanalyst and me enabled me to express my feelings and thoughts without fear. This enabled me to relieve the heavy burden of stressful experiences that I have undergone in my life. When talking to a psychoanalyst, an individual is ensured of confidentiality of the information given. So, one is able to say things that an individual would not tell anyone in the conscious mind and the healing starts. It was through this process of psychoanalysis that I was able to overcome the fears of my life and the healing started because the heavy burden in my heart was relieved. Children are normally natural learners or students and the natural environment both physical and social, offers to the children many opportunities that help them to acquire notions of magnitude. Even in the very diverse or poor races, cultures or classes, children usually have an opportunity of gaining quantitative notions (Gelman 1980; Ginsburg, Posner & Russel1,1981; Ginsburg & Russell, 1981). Piaget had investigated the concealed side of the children’s minds. He had proposed that a child moves from egocentrism towards sociocentrism. Piaget noticed that there was gradual progress intuitive towards socially and scientific responses. Children normally do this for the reason that social interaction and the challenges to the thoughts and ideas of children who are more advanced. For example, a child will learn first and imitate the behaviors of those children in the neighborhood.
Piaget innermost idea of cognitive development still remains vital or important. Children have a way much different reasoning than adults. He found out a way of logical reasoning or the unspoken children thoughts that allow children intellectual development with time. It is difficult to determine certainty of a child who converses with a toy, believes it is alive, or the child is pretending. An adult may view this as a stupid thing the child is doing without first reasoning what are the kids thought. Piaget theory enables people to have a more understanding on the psychology of children rather question their actions. In my own experiences with children, I have come across to children talking to pets or even objects. At first, an individual who has never lived around children may think that they are insane. It is very important to learn and understand the psychology of children. As people grow; the way of reasoning normally changes with time. It is through this understanding that will help individuals understand children’s reasoning capacities even if we view their actions as being odd.
Major theories developed Piaget’s theory of genetic epistemology is a process by which there is developmental of knowledge. He took into account the fact that developmental cognitive structure as a result of differentiation in biological regulations. There are four developmental phases which include: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete and formal operational. In sensorimotor, the children at the age of two experience the universe through the five senses and movement. The children cannot perceive the universe from other people’s point of view. It is in this stage that children use simple reflexes like sucking and rooting, four months children learn how to synchronize sensations. Four to around eight month children become conscious of the things that surround them, twelve month babies try to recombine schemata and comprehend object permanence, eighteen months year old children explore fresh possibilities and try getting different results and lastly, they internalize schemata. Preparation phase is a stage whereby children egocentrism becomes stronger and eventually weakens. In the concrete operational phase children think and conserve logically using practical aids. In the formal operational phase, children acquire abstract thought that they can easily think and conserve in the mind.
Psychoanalytic theory by Sigmund Freud outlines that every psychic energy comes or is generated through the libido. This theory suggests that people’s mental states are influenced by anticathexis and cathexis which are competing forces. Cathexis is an individual’s investment through mental energy, object or idea. Anticathexis entails socially unaccepted, ego blocking need of id. Repressing desires and urges is a common type of anticathexis, and involves investments which are significant of energy. This theory outlines the fact the fact that there is a lot of libido energy that is available. When the energy is devoted towards suppressing urges through anticathexis, less energy for other processes becomes less. Freud believed that a lot of human behavior was aggravated by the death and life instincts. Life instincts are those that relate to basic needs which are necessary for reproduction, survival and pleasure. Human beings normally have a death wish in the unconscious minds, and this is referred to as the death instinct. Sigmund had a belief that the death instincts are largely tempered through life instincts. Personality theory by Sigmund Freud consists of levels of the source of man’s motivations, consciousness, nature of mankind and structure and development of personality. He outlined three stages of consciousness. A conscious mind is a layer of personality which individual experiences in the day to day communications with the universe surroundings that people are conscious of in any given time. Preconscious mind subsists between the conscious and unconscious minds, this level consists of feelings and thoughts that are not presently conscious but are able to be passed from unconscious to the conscious. Moreover, what individuals are not aware of is the unconscious mind which hold feelings or thoughts that are forgotten either for the reason that they were threatening or unimportant. This process of keeping things in unconscious minds is called repression and at times may weaken resulting to the materials becoming conscious. Freud gave a description of personality into three structures. The id which is a source of impulses and instincts, and seeks unconscious immediate contentment of biological requirements and it is usually a basis of psychic energy. The ego is the second structure, and it is the mental structure that adapts towards reality and negotiates clash between the superego and id. The superego characterizes society restrictions or produces ego ideal and guilt. Behavior is created by conflicts from connections of the ego, id and superego. The conflicts causes anxiety and to deal with anxiety, individuals are supposed utilize defense mechanisms.
Praises and critiques Even though Freud gathered evidence from the patients, he did not keep notes. Rather, Freud used his memory and this was not the correct way of gathering qualitative data. Consequently, Freud was criticized concerning the validity of the information acquired. Thus, some aspects of the theory are not appropriately explained, for example, composition of personality and oral stimulation. Anal and oral personalities were observed and only gave little evidence to support oedipal complex while there was the lack of support of electra complex. There are some methodological issues concerning Freud’s studies, but, a lot of his work still remains untested. In the issue concerning sexual drive, it was stated that every person has unique experiences from childhood; however, some people do not state them or have forgotten them. And this maybe the reason as to why there is scarce supporting evidence regarding the complexes. The neo-Freudians discarded Freud theory that was based on institutional drive that had put emphasis on self-assertiveness and interpersonal relations and made changes to therapeutic practice which reflected the theoretical shifts. If what was wrong with individuals followed directly from worse experiences, then, therapy in its basics could be nothing, however, good experiences are viewed to be as corrective. The analysis of Neo-Freudian thus puts extra emphasis on patients’ connections with the psychoanalyst and not much of exploration of unconscious minds. Firestone criticized Freud’s view on sexuality which was a vital problem in the modern life, and ignored that social context and that Freud failed to question the society as an entity Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva, French feminists have been persuaded by Freud’s work as it is interpreted by Lacan. Irigaray produced theoretical challenge towards Lacan and Freud, via their theories which are against them, in order to place forward psychoanalytic clarifications for theoretical bias. Irigary claimed that cultural unconsciousness solitary identifies male sex, and then gives details on the effects of the unconscious belief giving an account on women psychology. Elizabeth Grosz and Ranjana Khanna utilized Freud’s work trying to form a comprehension of sexual differences which accounts for body materiality with no reifying the neurological and biological. The two feminist gave a suggestion that psychoanalysis could be put into work in a way that gives a challenge to anti- biologism, in addition to its own reinforcement of the binary oppositions like the nature/ the social, human/ animal, man/ woman and empirical reality/ interpretation. Jean Piaget’s developmental theory has received criticism on arguments that the theory is empirically false, conceptually limited, or it is epistemologically and philosophically untenable. Piaget later gave a response to the criticism through giving an acknowledgement that the immense majority of criticism did not comprehend on the outcomes that Piaget had a wish to achieve through the research. Piagets view on this developmental theory, was that younger children have discriminative ability which shows logical capacities for the cognitive operations already exists in an earlier time than acknowledged. The theory also gives a revelation that younger children or kids can be armed with certain traits for the cognitive operations, and this depends on how rational the task structure is. Research showed that children at the age of five acquire explicit understanding, and due to this, the child normally counts sweets in order to choose which has supplementary. Lastly, Piagets study found out that general quantity conservation does not give fundamental characteristics of mankind’s native inheritance.
My position on their approach Piaget explained in the developmental theory that the passage into a new stage for a child is gradual more than people think. When a fresh level of knowledge, insight and organization ascertains effectiveness, it will be quickly generalized into other existing areas. Transitions that are between stages appear to be radical and rapid, but often at times, a child grasps a feature of a fresh stage of the cognitive functioning but does not tackle others. In the day to day life, I have observed children as they grow. A child develops increasingly sophisticated consciousness of rules which govern through various ways. A child grows awareness of concepts such as proper, right, necessary and valid through reflection, abstraction and objectification by which a child creates the principles of what action is correct, effective and justified. A clinical technique for treating psychopathology is via dialogue between a psychoanalyst and a patient. This is done through free association whereby patients convey their thoughts or ideas without hesitations and in whatever order that they spontaneously occurred. Patients displace to the analysts the feelings originating from childhoods attachments through a process called transference. This is an important factor since it helps to establish the central role or function of the analytic procedure. I once went to seek treatment from a psychoanalyst since I had a troubled childhood. Free associations enabled me to talk to the psychoanalyst without fear, and this enabled me to face my worst nightmare which I could not tell anyone in my conscious mind. Most people can suffer mental illness due to painful experiences in their lives. Some people are afraid to talk about their experiences either because they are ashamed or they fear to be judged by their fellow friends. In such circumstances, it is advisable to talk to a psychoanalyst whereby an individual is assured of free association. In the contemporary world, psychoanalysis still remains influential in some fields of psychiatry, psychotherapy and even to all corners of humanities.

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