Psychosexual Stages

Freud (1905) proposed that psychological development in childhood

takes place in a series of exed psychosexual stages: oral, anal, phallic,
latency, and genital.

These are called psychosexual stages because each stage represents the
exation of libido (roughly translated as sexual drives or instincts) on a
different area of the body. As a person grows physically certain areas of
their body become important as sources of potential frustration
(erogenous zones),
pleasure or both.

Freud believed that life was built round tension and pleasure. Freud
also believed that all tension was due to the build-up of libido (sexual
energy) and that all pleasure came from its discharge.

In describing human personality development as psychosexual Freud

meant to convey that what develops is the way in which sexual energy
accumulates and is discharged as we mature biologically. (NBFreud
used the term 'sexual' in a very general way to mean all pleasurable
actions and thoughts).

Freud stressed that the rest years of life are crucial to the forma&on of
adult personality.
The id must be controlled in order to satisfy social demands; this sets
up a conflict between frustrated wishes and social norms.

The ego and superego develop in order to exercise this control and
direct the need for gratie cation into socially acceptable channels.
Gratie cation centers in different areas of the body at different stages of
growth, making the conflict at each stage psychosexual.
The Role of Conflict
Each of the psychosexual stages is associated with a particular conflict
that must be resolved before the individual can successfully advance to
the next stage. The resolution of each of these conflicts requires the
expenditure of sexual energy and the more energy that is expended at a
particular stage, the more
the important characteristics of that stage remain with the individual as
he/she matures psychologically.

To explain this Freud suggested the analogy of military troops on the

march. As the troops advance,
they are met by opposition or conflict. If they are highly successful in
winning the battle (resolving the conflict), then most of the troops
(libido) will be able to move on to the next battle (stage).

But the greater the difficulty encountered at any particular point, the
greater the need for troops to remain behind to ght and thus the fewer
that will be able to go on to the next confrontation.

Frustration, Overindulgence, and Fixation

Some people do not seem to be able to leave one stage and proceed on
to the next. One reason for this may be that the needs of the developing
individual at any particular stage may not have been adequately met in
which case there is frustration.

Or possibly the person's needs may have been so well satisfied that he/
she is reluctant to leave the psychological benefits of a particular stage
in which there is overindulgence.

Both frustration and overindulgence (or any combination of the two)

may lead to what psychoanalysts call exation at a particular
psychosexual stage.
Fixation refers to the theoretical notion that a portion of the
individual's libido has been permanently 'invested' in a particular stage
of his development. It is assumed that some libido is permanently
invested in each psychosexual stage and thus each person will behave
in some ways that are characteristic of infancy, or early childhood.

Psychosexual Stages of Development

You can remember the order of these stages by using the mnemonic:
“old (oral) age (anal) pensioners (phallic) love (latent) grapes (genital).
 Oral Stage (0-1 year)

In the rest stage of personality development, the libido is centered in a

baby's mouth. It gets much satisfaction from pulling all sorts of things
in its mouth to satisfy the libido, and thus its id demands. Which at this
stage in life are oral, or mouth orientated, such as sucking, biting, and
breastfeeding.

Freud said oral stimulation could lead to an oral exation in later life.
We see oral personalities all around us such as smokers, nail-biters,
nger-chewers, and thumb suckers. Oral personalities engage in such
oral behaviors, particularly when under stress.

Anal Stage (1-3 years)

The libido now becomes focused on the anus, and the child derives
great pleasure from defecating. The child is now fully aware that they
are a person in their own right and that their wishes can bring them
into conflict with the demands of the outside world (i.e., their ego has
developed).

Freud believed that this type of conflict tends to come to a head in potty
training, in which adults impose restrictions on when and where the
child can defecate. The nature of this rest conflict with authority can
determine the child's future relationship with all forms of authority.

Early or harsh potty training can lead to the child becoming an anal-
retentive personality who hates mess, is obsessively tidy, punctual and
respectful of authority. They can be stubborn and light- sted with their
cash and possessions. This is all related to pleasure got from holding
on to their faeces when
toddlers, and their mum's then insisting that they get rid of it by placing
them on the potty until they perform!
Not as daC as it sounds. The anal expulsive, on the other hand,
underwent a liberal toilet-training regime during the anal stage. In
adulthood, the anal expulsive is the person who wants to share things
with you. They like giving things away. In essence, they are 'sharing
their s**t'!' An anal-expulsive personality is also messy, disorganized
and rebellious.

Phallic Stage (3 to 5 or 6 years)

Sensitivity now becomes concentrated in the genitals and masturbation

(in both sexes) becomes a new source of pleasure. The child becomes
aware of anatomical sex differences, which sets in motion the
conflict between erotic attraction, resentment, rivalry, jealousy and fear
which Freud called the Oedipus complex (in boys) and the Electra
complex (in girls).

This is resolved through the process of identification, which involves

the child adopting the characteristics of the same sex parent.

Oedipus Complex

The most important aspect of the phallic stage is the Oedipus complex.
This is one of Freud's most controversial ideas and one that many
people reject outright.

The name of the Oedipus complex derives from the Greek myth where
Oedipus, a young man, kills his father and marries his mother. Upon
discovering this, he pokes his eyes out and becomes blind. This
Oedipal is the generic (i.e., general) term for both Oedipus and Electra
complexes.
In the young boy, the Oedipus complex or more correctly, conflict,
arises because the boy develops sexual (pleasurable) desires for his
mother. He wants to possess his mother exclusively and get rid of his
father to enable him to do so. Irrationally, the boy thinks that if his
father were to end out about all this, his father would take away what
he loves the most. During the phallic stage what the boy loves most is
his penis. Hence the boy develops castration anxiety.

The little boy then sets out to resolve this problem by imitating,
copying and joining in masculine dad-type behaviors. This is called
identification, and is how the three-to- ve year old boy resolves his
Oedipus complex. Identification means internally adopting the values,
attitudes, and behaviors of another person. The consequence of this is
that the boy takes on the male gender role, and adopts an ego ideal and
values that become the superego.

Freud (1909) offered the Little Hans case study as evidence of the
Oedipus complex.

Electra Complex

For girls, the Oedipus or Electra complex is less than satisfactory.

Briefly, the girl desires the father, but realizes that she does not have a
penis. This leads to the development of penis envy and the wish to be a
boy.

The girl resolves this by repressing her desire for her father and
substituting the wish for a penis with the wish for a baby. The girl
blames her mother for her 'castrated state,' and this creates great
tension. The girl then represses her feelings (to remove the tension)
and identties with the mother to take on the female gender role.
 Latency Stage (5 or 6 to puberty)

No further psychosexual development takes place during this stage

(latent means hidden). The libido is dormant. Freud thought that most
sexual impulses are repressed during the latent stage, and sexual
energy can be sublimated (re: defense mechanisms) towards school
work, hobbies, and friendships.

Much of the child's energy is channeled into developing new skills and
acquiring new knowledge, and play becomes largely connected to other
children of the same gender.

Genital Stage (puberty to adult)

This is the last stage of Freud's psychosexual theory of personality

development and begins in puberty. It is a time of adolescent sexual
experimentation, the successful resolution of which is settling down in
a loving one-to-one relationship with another person in our 20's.
Sexual instinct is directed to heterosexual pleasure, rather than self-
pleasure like during the phallic stage.

For Freud, the proper outlet of the sexual instinct in adults was through
heterosexual intercourse. Fixation and conflict may prevent this with
the consequence that sexual perversions may develop.

For example, exation at the oral stage may result in a person gaining
sexual pleasure primarily from kissing and oral sex, rather than sexual
intercourse.