Ryan’s Character and His Development Process by Using Adler’s Theory of Psychoanalytic Approach and Maslow’s Theory of Humanistic Approach

DSS2223 Personality Psychology

Individual assignment

Instructor: YEUNG Pui Kei, Rita

Name: TAM Rafferty

SID: 54064271

Background

Personal information

Name: Cheung Ryan

Gender: Male

Age: 16

Birth order: First-born

Occupation: Student

School: Diocesan Boys' School

Place of residence: Causeway Bay

Strength: Fencing

Characteristics

Low self-esteem

Low self-confidence

Very hard working

Perfectionist

Modest

Studious

Have good leadership

Experiences

Spoiled by family

Many maids followed him in childhood

Did not know how to communicate well with others (Before)

Often involved friends gathering

Have a good relationship with friends (Now)

Fencing team team captain of DBS

Cannot reach top 8 of the under 17 age-group competition

Finally got in top 4 in the overall ranking

Introduction

I will analyze Ryan’s character and his development process by using Adler’s theory of psychoanalytic approach and Maslow’s Theory of Humanistic Approach.  

Alder’s theory of Psychoanalytic Approach

Inferiority

Adler (1930) proposed inferiority is the source of human striving, it determine our power of behaviors.  With the gradual growth of the individual, we strive to compensate for our insufficiency or weaknesses.  Feelings of inferiority may be real or imagined, however, the feelings of inferiority give us motivation to strive to a higher levels of development.  Inferiority is not determined by heredity.  Inferiority is inescapable, but more importantly, it is necessary that inferiority provides us motivation of growth.  Ryan has a low self-esteem in many aspects.  Compare with other activities or study, fencing was always his strength, but even in fencing aspect, he thinks he is very weak.  He earnestly hopes that he can get some of the achievements in fencing.  Tragically, he is still unable to reach his short-term goal, the under 17 age-group competition in Hong Kong.  Actually, to get good results in the Hong Kong age-group competition was not easy.  Ryan got top 8 in under 17 group for many times, which is a good result already, but he still feels inferior to others.  So, we can see that Ryan has the feelings of inferiority.