An introduction to neo-Freudian psychoanalytic theory

Psychoanalysis began with Freud, but it did not end with him. Many psychoanalysts influenced by Freud were nonetheless dissatisfied with the mechanistic picture of the human person he left us with. Freud sees humans as "isolated beings irrationally driven by biological, primitive drives welling up within them, their personalities molded by discrete psychic structures interacting mechanically and unconsciously to achieve compromises leading to gratification." Freud focused a great deal on the ego in his later work "The Ego and the Id." This was a departure from his early theorizing about a "seduction theory," according to which the child's early interpersonal...