Summary PYC2601 Exam Study Pack

MODULE : PYC2601

,PYC2601 Exam
Study Pack
Contains:

• Textbook Summaries 4th Ed
• Comprehensive Study Notes
• Assignments & Solutions
• Detailed Summaries

,Comprehensive summary - Personology Edition 4




Summaries made from Text Book:

Personology
From individual to ecosystem
Fourth Edition
WF Meyer, C Moore, HG Viljoen

, Self-Concept Theory – Viktor Frankl (1905-1997)

Background - Page 436
 Worked as professor of Neurology an psychiatry in Vienna
 Contemplated the meaning and purpose of human existence
 Opposed ideas that humans are mere mechanisms or animals
 Was a student of Freud and Adler
 He believed that as human being we are primarily motivated by a will to meaning
 Own school of thought called logo therapy, known as the third Viennese school of
psychotherapy
 Jewish prisoner in several Nazi camps(having something to live for was what enable
prisoners to hold on to the will to live)
 Transcendental vision of being encompasses a great deal more than Maslow’s theory of
self-actualisation
 Unusually positive perspective, believed in indestructible significance of life
 Death is the boundary which makes life a unique, unrepeatable opportunity, life is given to
us so that we can find meaning, even in suffering

View of the person underlying the theory – Page 438
 We have been given freedom to be able to exercise responsibility,
 To live life beyond mere animal existence,
 To live on a dimension of meaning in releasing timeless values as these emanate from a
divine Trans human dimension,
 To live highly personalized lives as we (uniquely) embrace the opportunities and fulfill the
tasks that life presents to each one of us
Freedom to be responsible – Page 439
 Person is not merely a highly dev eloped animal shaped by the forces of heredity and the
environment but the human person is primarily a spiritual being – a being that has
freedom and responsibility
 We are also not compelled to behave in any particular way, we can say YES or NO
 Because of this freedom to make choices we cannot ascribe our behaviour to
conditioning or drives, but must take responsibility for making those choices and taking
responsibility = noögenic dimension = makes us human
Level of being beyond animal existence – Page 439
 True fulfillment is hardly possible without a sense of purpose (spiritual direction) in life – the
struggle to find and experience this MEANING in life = the opportunity presented to and
discerned by us through our conscience as something we are to realise or to grasp in
each and every unique situation of our own personal lives
 It is true that on a physical and crude psychosocial level we have much in common with
the animal, but we also have properties NOT shared by animals
 Being a person is distinguished by the radical transcendence of the biopsychical, and
social faculties and a combination thereof
 Self-transcendence = the freedom to rise above conditions and being able to think and
do something about them
 When we achieve psychological and spiritual maturity the will to meaning will be stronger
that any other motivation
 We want to know, we will make sacrifices, and devote ourselves to a cause
Transhuman Dimension – Page 440
 Meaning is something that exist in an objective sense and is phenomenologically proven
by the fact that in life we feel addresses by our conscience, called upon to act
responsibly