Discussion week 2: Psychoanalytic or Adlerian
1. Psychoanalytic and Adlerian theories are similar in their psychodynamic approaches. There
are many differences; in our book, Tan highlighted that Freud emphasized that one's sexual
drives and unconscious affect a person's behavior, while Adlerian theory emphasized that one's
goals, social interests, and community connections are what drive one's behaviors. (Tan, 2011.
Pg. 58).
2. Tan mentions many of limitations of the psychoanalytic theory, first Freud’s theories can not
be “translated into testable hypotheses,” (Tan,2011, p.g 52).Adlerian theory’s weakness is the
potential drawback from clients who are simple not interested or do not want to talk about their
childhood, or bring family matters or might not know much about their culture due to adoption.
“Many clients who have pressing problems are likely to be hesitant to discuss areas of their lives
that they may not see as connected to the current struggle,” (Corey, 2021). The Strength of the
theory is that it really values culture and promotes healthy diversity. Given that the theory
emphasizes the idea of human in their social statuses, “the therapeutic process is grounded within
a client’s culture and worldview rather than attempting to fit clients into preconceived models,”
