The Cultural Dichotomy of Colonial People

From the time of its inception, psychoanalytic theory has taken into account the impact of culture on personality development. However, its strongly biological orientation initially led theorists of the early 20th century to a highly individualistic and triadic emphasis on developmental theory. Nonetheless, in Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921), Freud proposed that only rarely could individual psychology ignore the relations of the individual to others and suggested that from the very first, individual psychology is at the same time social psychology. It was around that period as well that Jung was struggling with his concept of archetypes and his theories about the collective unconscious (Ellenberger, 1970).

It was not until the mass exodus of psychoanalysts from Europe to America in the 1930's that some of Freud's original theories, which until that time were presumed by psychoanalysts to have universal applicability, were questioned in the light of new clinical evidence. The role of culture, as opposed to or as parallel to instinct, in the development of personality became increasingly important in personality theory. The theme recurs in the writings of Horney, Fromm, Sullivan, Erikson, and many others. In most instances, however, with the exception perhaps of Fromm and Erikson, to whom we shall return, the theoretical focus remained on individual personality development. Culture, with all its interpersonal