Mrs Calloway’s Reviews > Simply Psychology > Status Update

Traditionally, psychologist believe that hardwired, biological differences between the brains of men and women determine differences in their feelings and behaviour. However, research has shown that although most people are born with either a male or female body, the cultural environment in which they grow up has a great impact on whether they develop stereotypical masculine or feminine feelings or behaviours.

…Since this “ideal self” can never be attained, it degenerates into what Horney called the despised self. The real self, she argued, is a person’s natural self, which has an authentic picture of who they are. Being in touch with this real self is what Horney called self realisation. {attachment to ego, which can be fueled by social pressures/conditioning but I don’t sense that is the only cause}

Karen Horney believed that many psychological problems are caused by social conditioning rather than biology… She argued that, under healthy circumstances, people usually have a realistic idea about who they are and what they can achieve. However, due to social pressure, many people have an unrealistic, or idealised, image of who they ought to be….

The real… Is the world as it is “in itself”… We can either sense, understand, nor putt into words[Lacan] thought that because we can never know the real, we have a constant sense of incompleteness. This sense can either motivate us to do great things, or it can lead us into self-destructive behaviour. {incompleteness is what one feels if they only identify with their humanity; instead Wholeness/oneness}

“A Iie would have no sense unless the truth felt dangerous” - Alfred Adler

…Adler argued than an inferiority complex can impaired personality development, and may lead to chronic distress if left unchecked.

Alfred Adler coined the term “inferiority complex” to describe a condition in which a person suffers from an overwhelming sense of inferiority that they cannot overcome. He believed that someone within an inferiority complex will often try to overcompensate by, for example, being aggressive or competitive in the company of others in order to hide what they feel is the “truth”: that they are inferior….

Anna Freud thought that the egos defence mechanisms helped protect us, however, they can also prevent us from facing important truths about ourselves

…She attributed these mechanisms to the ego, which, she argued, defends us from both the drives of the ID and the demands of the super ego. {interesting how his child not only accepts his theory as her truth, but builds upon it — we use the work of our ancestors as a foundation, no matter if it is solid or weak — but ultimately we choose to keep the bones or reform them}

Anna Freud explore the ways in which our unconscious minds manipulate reality in order to protect us from traumatic events and circumstances. She identified a wide range of such “defence mechanisms”, including repression (the bearing of painful memories) and rationalisation (the justification of unacceptable thoughts and behaviours)…