Self-understanding

Principle of synchronicity – sometimes 2 events occur together in time, but one event doesn’t cause the other. For example, a man may dream of his uncle’s death and then learn the next day by telephone that his uncle just died. Clearly, dreaming about the death didn’t cause it.

Alfred Adler
Depth psychology (심층심리학)– the study of unconscious mental processes and motives, especially in psychoanalytic theory and practice.
Individual psychology - Adlerian theory is a growth model that emphasizes the positive attitude of human nature and control of one’s own destiny, rather than just being a victim. He suggested that early in life, we create a unique lifestyle that stays relatively constant throughout our lives. He held that the main motives of human thought and behaviour are individual man’s striving for superiority and power, partly in compensation for his feeling of inferiority. Every individual, in this view, is unique, and his personality structure—including his unique goal and ways of striving for it—finds expression in his style of life, this life-style being the product of his own creativity.
Phenomenology – a person’s perceptions are based on his or her reality. Adler believed that we “construct” our reality according to our own way of looking at the world.
“I am convinced that a person’s behavior springs from this idea… because our senses don’t see the world, we apprehend it.” (Adler 1933/1964)
Teleology – people move toward self-selected goals. “the life of the human soul is not a ‘being’ but a ‘becoming’.”


특성이론 (trait theory)
Gordon Allport
He was a pioneering psychologist, who rejected two of the most dominant schools of thought, psychoanalysis and behaviorism. He is referred as one of the founders of personality psychology.
“Personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his characteristic behavior and thought.” “The characteristics or the blend of characteristics that make a person unique.” Allport saw personality as striving toward unity and as continually evolving and changing. The person is in a state of becoming. Although situational influences have an effect, it is the individual’s own perception of these influences that determines his or her behavior.
Although situations play a role in behavior, Allport’s primary focus is on traits and other internal characteristics as determinants of behavior. Moreover, he refers to these internal factors as psychophysical systems; this term implies that personality consists of both mind and body elements organized into a complex, inextricable unity.