Freud’s psychosexual development theory states that a person’s experiences in early life affect their personality and future actions. The theory focuses on psychosexual stages, each with a particular body part and challenge, and unresolved conflicts can lead to fixations and personality characteristics. The oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages are described.
Psychosexual development is a theory credited to Sigmund Freud, a neurologist who became famous for his psychological theories. According to Freud, a person’s experiences at an early age dramatically affect both his personality and his future actions. Freud’s theory of psychosexual development focuses on the psychosexual stages, each focused on a particular part of the body capable of producing pleasurable or pleasurable sensations, and each plays a role in the development of the sexual drive. Freud stated that the sexual instinct was the most important influence on the personality. He said this instinct was present when a child was born and continued to develop through the psychosexual stages.
Psychosexual development theory does not focus solely on pleasurable feelings; also consider the conflicts that can arise from experiencing these feelings. Freud believed that fixations would develop if these conflicts were left unresolved long enough. In such a case, the child’s psychic energy, referred to as the libido, would become so entangled in facing one stage that there would be little left to deal with the conflicts and challenges of the next stage. He also believed that too much indulgence would make a child unwilling to progress and that lack of indulgence would leave him needy. Difficulty in any of the stages could involve certain personality characteristics.
The oral phase of psychosexual development begins at birth and continues through the age of one. It is focused on the mouth and the rewarding experiences of this stage include sucking, eating and biting, while a challenge of this stage is weaning. If a person had unresolved problems during this stage, Freud believed that he might be overly optimistic, gullible, dependent, passive, hostile, aggressive, or sarcastic as an adult.
Next is the anal stage, which spans from one year to age three and focuses on the anus. Freud believed that the gratification of this stage came from expelling and retaining fecal matter, while toilet training was the challenge. He said the unresolved conflicts of this stage could make a child overly orderly, rigid, stubborn, messy, or wayward.
The phallic stage extends from age three to five or six and focuses on the genitals. Sexual curiosity and masturbation are the rewarding experiences of this stage, while oedipal conflict, which is characterized by the child’s love for the opposite-sex parent and desire to replace the same-sex parent, is the challenge. According to Freud, growing up to adulthood with challenges not addressed by this stage could cause a person to become overly chaste, promiscuous, vain, flirtatious, or proud.
In the latency phase, from the age of five or six until puberty, the interests of the libido are less evident and children experience sexual calm. There is no body part associated with this stage and children become more interested in hobbies, friends and even school. The genital phase takes over from puberty onwards and people are said to develop renewed sexual interests and engage in mature relationships. Since Freud believed that most personality traits develop early in life, these stages are not associated with any particular personality characteristics. However, difficulties may arise during these stages due to unresolved conflicts from other stages.
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