View/Open - UZSpace Home

Egopsychologists likeErik Erikson(1963, 1968, 1979, 1982)wouldpointout that
modification ofattitudes does not reallytake the different past stages ofa person's
lifeintoproperaccount, for understanding the present situation ofthe client/patient.
The eightstages ofpsychosocial development (oral-sensory, muscular-anal, loco­
motor-genital, latency, adolescence, earlyadulthood, middle adulthood, late adult­
hood) are actually not analysed or taken into serious accountwhen the therapisttries
to directthe client/patient away from his/her distressing symptoms and/orattitude
(Erikson 1963:273).
KarenHorney wouldbe ofthe opinion that logotherapists do not seriously take the
socio-cultural background ofa personin mindbefore they direct a personinto a
specific direction. Theimportance of cultural and social influences on personality
(Hjelle & Ziegler 1992:223) whichsurprisingly are lackingin the logotherapeutic
setting had been explained by Horney(1937, 1939)before World War One. How­
ever, although the logotherapists will not denythese influences, they do not thinkthat
these influences are the key to get rid ofproblematic symptomslattitudeslbehavior.
What is important, is the decision ofthe patient/client to change, and the definite and
dehberate cognitive moveto change your attitude in that given-problematic situation.
This"choice"to change will then lead to change.
Although he was a humanistic personologist, ErichFrommwould argue that
logotherapists do not take the different social systems, that had influenced, and/or
that influence a person, seriously enoughinto account. Becausepersonality is the
productofa dynamic interaction betweenneeds inherentin human beingsand the
forcesexertedby socialnorms, customs, laws, traditions and institutions, the
practical way ofimplementing modification ofattitudes by Iogotherapists, would be
seen as too simplistic and reductionistic (Fromm 1941).
56