Comparing Skinner’s theoretical perspective to that of Freud and Rogers
The main postulate of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytical theory of personality is that one’s behavior reflects the unconscious workings of his or her psyche, and that is it is specifically the early (psychosexual) phases of people’s development, which define the qualitative of their existential stance. Hence, Freud’s model of psychopathology – an individual begins to experience some mental angst when the functioning of the structural elements of his or her psychic apparatus (id, ego, and superego) ceases to help the concerned person to release his unconscious anxieties in the socially appropriate manner.
In its turn, this explains Freud’s approach to conceptualizing the purpose of psychoanalytic therapy. According to the founder of psychoanalysis, to be able to help a patient to restore its mental health, a psychologist must be capable of coming up with the proper interpretation of the actual significance of this patient’s consciously suppressed unconscious anxieties.
Burrhus Skinner’s ‘behaviorist’ theory of personality stands in striking opposition to the methodology of psychoanalysis. The reason for this is that, unlike Freud, Skinner used to believe that it is specifically the externally applied stimuli (environmental circumstances) that determine one’s ‘operant behavior’ – something that implied the full appropriateness of subjecting people’s behavioral patterns to a positivist scientific inquiry. In essence, Skinner’s theory proclaims that there is nothing phenomenological about how people act and that for psychologists to be able to prove their high professional value, they must know how to assess even the most complex psychopathological cases within the methodological framework of the behaviorist ‘cause-effect’ paradigm.
Carl Rogers’s theoretical perspective differs rather dramatically from those of Freud and Skinner. According to the founder of a ‘person-centered’ (or Rogerian) psychotherapy, the proponents of psychoanalysis and behaviorism overlook the importance of helping patients attain the state of self-actualization, as the actual aim of psychotherapeutic interventions. In its turn, this presupposes that the best strategy for such interventions is establishing a close and personal relationship between psychotherapists and their clients.
The above-mentioned emphasizes the strongly defined phenomenological sounding of Rogers’s approach to addressing the formation of one’s personality/behavior. After all, the very notion of ‘self-actualization’, which lies at the foundation of Rogers’s theory, is utterly idiosyncratic (Schustack & Friedman, 2007).
The main difference between Skinner and Freud is that, unlike the latter, the former considered the motivational force behind one’s tendency to act in one way or another, to be intrinsic. This simply could not be otherwise – the very concept of the unconscious, prominently featured within the theory of psychoanalysis, presupposes the innate essence of people’s mental anxieties. Skinner, on the other hand, never ceased promoting the idea that it is not only that the psychoanalytical perspective is not only methodologically fallacious (because of the ‘metaphysical’ sounding on many of its core-concepts), but also that it makes psychology a pseudo-science to an extent – all because psychoanalysis is inconsistent with the method of a positivist inquiry.
There are nevertheless some similarities between the theoretical stances, on the part of Skinner and Freud. The foremost of them is that, just as it used to be the case with Skinner, Freud favored the analytical method of reductionism, as the instrument of gaining in-depth insights into the workings of a person’s psyche (Overskeid, 2007). Another major similarity between psychoanalysis (Freud) and behaviorism (Skinner) is that the founders of these two approaches to psychotherapy considered one’s behavior/personality to be ‘instrumental’ and therefore – predetermined to undergo a continual transformation, as time goes on.
The most notable difference that sets the theory of Skinner from that of Rogers is essentially the same with the above-outlined main incompatibility between the former and Freud – unlike Rogers, Skinner used to contest the idea that there are many innate (phenomenological) subtleties to people’s behavior. Rogers, on the other hand, did not only endorse this idea, but he also strived to encourage psychologists to adopt a humanist/holistic outlook on one’s individuality, as the behavioral extrapolation of his or her ‘true self’.
Even though Rogers did recognize the fact that the external circumstances do affect people’s behavior rather substantially, he nevertheless remained a firm believer in the ‘wholesomeness’ of one’s sense of self-identity – something that adds even further to the incompatibility between the ‘behaviorist’ and ‘person-centered’ psychotherapies. Unlike Skinner, Rogers adhered to the idea that humans possess ‘free will’ – the condition that is inherent to being human.
Nevertheless, even though the views of Skinner and Rogers hardly correlate, there is one important similarity between them – both psychologists were highly critical of the Freudian idea that the roots of one’s behavior should be traced deep into the realm of his or her unconscious longings. This simply could not be otherwise – whereas, Skinner denied the very existence of such a realm as a ‘thing in itself’, Rogers used to point out to the fact that, due to people’s endowment with ‘free will’, they are in the position to exercise conscious control over their irrational urges. In this respect, the theoretical perspectives of Skinner and Rogers are indeed comparable – whatever improbable it may sound.
References
Overskeid, G. (2007). Looking for Skinner and finding Freud. American Psychologist, 62(6), 590-595.
Schustack, M. & Friedman, H. (2007). The personality reader (2nd ed.). London: Pearson.