Humans vary in many aspects of their psychology with differences routinely found in patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, setting individuals apart across time and place. Though many psychologists have attempted to account for these individual differences, one area that has continued to generate interest and disagreement is the concept of motivation. Today, understanding behavioural motivation remains one of the most important questions facing personality theorists. In an attempt to better account for human motivation, the present exploration reviews seminal theoretical positions put forward by Sigmund Freud from a Psychoanalytical perspective and contrastingly, that of Carl Rogers from the Humanistic approach. Critical consideration is specifically applied to how verifiable each perspective may be and the degree of empirical support either account has attained to date. Whilst understanding human motivation is not a new endeavour, the present exploration provides a contemporary critical assessment of traditional psychological explanations.

Thinking of the earth as feminine derives from the oldest ideas as to the four rudimentary elements. Bipolarity, which is present in the take on the earth as an archetypical element, one giving life and finally absorbing it back, has not lost its relevance to this day. It is therefore myths, followed by philosophical considerations valuing the distinction between divine and human qualities, which have always been in conflict and cooperation, and these have marked the path Nikolai Berdyaev, the Russian religious thinker, takes. The problem of the nature of man’s gender is the fundamental issue of his philosophical anthropology. The stance represented by the author of The Meaning of the Creative Act is based on the conviction that the structure of the world constitutes two opposing elements, two opposing forces: good and evil, with good being linked to the male and evil to the female. The male to him is anthropological and personal, the female – cosmic and collective. One of Berdyaev’s most important beliefs is that the earth should be treated in a mystical sense as a principle female in matter and body. The driving force behind the world is the clash of both principles, the contact and interaction between the solar male and the terrestrial female. Through the prism of the cosmic battle of the genders, Berdyaev explains Freud’s concept of the Oedipus complex, giving it a mystical- ‑symbolic dimension.

This article examines the relationship of disgust and perversion in Lovetown (Lubiewo bez cenzury) by Michał Witkowski. An overview of the reception of the book reveals that reviewers and critics have focused mainly on Witkowski’s portrayal of the LGBT community, the structure of the novel (dubbed the ‘queer Decameron’), and the textual (meta) creation of the writer’s voice, but it ignored his handling of disgust and perversion. Central to this reading of Lovetown, which draws on Sigmund Freud’s analyses of disgust and perversion, is the observation that the narrator interlards his lingo with neutral, ‘objective’ explanations of the main characters’ deviant behaviours. This glossary, written for the general reader, tends, in effect, to legitimize deviance. An in-depth analysis of the writer’s handling of the categories of the disgusting, the perverse and the sacred leads to the conclusion that Lovetown exemplifies a cathartic-therapeutic narrative in which disgust becomes a tool of self-fulfi llment.