Sigmund Freud and his followers viewed human behavior as stemming from forces inside us

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• Carl Jung moved beyond Freud's emphasis on sexual drives, proposing the concept of a collective unconscious shared by all humanity, containing universal archetypes that influence our thoughts and behaviors.
• Alfred Adler rejected the primacy of psychosexual development, instead focusing on social urges and the individual's striving for superiority to overcome feelings of inferiority.
• Melanie Klein and other object relations theorists shifted the focus from internal drives to the crucial role of early relationships with caregivers ("objects") in shaping personality development.

This rich intellectual history is precisely why psychodynamic theory remains a fundamental part of a psychology student's education. It introduced foundational concepts—the unconscious, the influence of childhood, and the existence of defense mechanisms—that are either integrated into or actively challenged by other major psychological theories. Studying Freud and his followers provides an essential historical context and a powerful analytical framework for comparing and critically evaluating the vast landscape of psychological thought.

Sample Answer

        The summary you've provided offers an excellent foundation for understanding psychodynamic theory and its historical significance in psychology. You are correct that Freud's work established a revolutionary framework that viewed human behavior not as a simple, rational process, but as a complex interplay of internal, often unconscious, forces. Freud's genius lay in his systematic approach to uncovering these "interpsychic conflicts." His model of the human psyche, comprised of the id (the pleasure-seeking, unconscious drives), the superego (the moral compass), and the ego (the rational mediator), provided a powerful lens for understanding internal conflict. He posited that the ego's attempts to manage the id's raw desires while adhering to the superego's strict rules resulted in unconscious conflicts that could manifest as neurotic symptoms, defense mechanisms, and other observable behaviors. The emphasis on the unconscious mind as a repository of repressed memories and motivations was a paradigm-shifting idea that challenged the prevailing view of the mind as solely conscious and rational. You are also right to point out that his followers, often referred to as the neo-Freudians, built upon and, in some cases, significantly diverged from his original theories. Each of these thinkers expanded the scope of psychodynamic thought: