The Psychosexual Stages of Development - Assignment Example

The assignment is to explain key points and critically examine developmental theories of Freud, Erikson and Piaget in the light of personal experience. In this essay an overview of major points and a brief personal evaluation of these theories will be given; however, in-depth analysis is not possible due to the limitation of time and number of pages. Freud's point of view is that human personality is composed of ID, Ego and Super-Ego, which are affected by the two primary drives sex and aggression. How these drives are channeled in the childhood play a vital role in developing human personalities. Freudian-slip website identifies five key development stages of Freud's theory: (1) Oral, (2) Anal (3) Phallic, (4) Latency and (5) Genital. In the oral stage, a child gets satisfaction and pleasure through mouth, tongue and lips. Toilet training plays a significant role in delivering pleasure and satisfaction to a child in the anal stage. The third is the phallic stage when sexual organs become a focal point for both the genders. This is also a stage for the development of Oedipus complex in which sexual attraction is developed for the opposite gender. The Latency or Puberty is the fourth stage in which Oedipus complex is resolved through repressing the open expressions of sex; though the dominant area of gratification is still the genital area. The Genital Stage (Puberty onwards) where primary interest turns towards the opposite sex. However, the individual understands the social taboos and try to play within the social norms (see the website). Erikson (29-34) development theory identifies eight stages of human development. In Trust-Mistrust stage, trust is defined as an essential trust on others and one's own self, which is important and has lasting effects throughout the life. Toddlers try to control the environment by doing small things for themselves such as holding feeder in the stage of autonomy-shame and doubt, which brings sense of autonomy if they are successful. During Initiative-guilt stage, children take initiatives and feel guilty if they are discouraged. Comparison with peers becomes important in the Industry-inferiority stage and negative evaluation of one one's own self is damaging. In the Ego Identity-Ego diffusion phase, the adolcence tries to integrate many roles such as sibling, student, athlete, worker into a self-image and leads to dissatisfaciton if develops a feeling that they are not capable to fulfill the role. The next phase is Intimacy-Isolation in which one learns to develop meaningful relationship with others and draw satisfaction and encouragment. The Generativity-Stagnation is phase of adulthood in which one seeks satisfaction in productivity in career, family and societal work. One feels satisfied in the stage of Integrity-Despair if one feels that he has reasonable accomplishments in the past. Jean Piaget (see website) gives four periods of development. The Sensorimotor period has six stages including development of reflexes, habits, coordination between vision and prehension, and beginning of creativity. Pre-Operatory thoughts, Pre-Operational stage, and Sensorimotor are stages of Preoperational period in which a child starts from learning to represent objects by images and words to developing language skills. The Concrete Operational period is the period of cognitive development where a child learns to sort objects in shape and colors, identifies sets of objects, considers multiple aspects to solve a problem, learns complex reversable aspects such as mathmatics, understands and develops ability to arrange unrelated arrangments of numbers, quality and numbers in a meaningful way and leaves egocenterism. In formal operational period, a child develops the ability to think abstractly, reason logically and draw conclusions from the information available. The crux of the theories is that specific developmental conflict becomes critical at a certain stage but that does not mean that attributes of each stage is only related to a specific stage. A passed stage has repercussion for other stages. It is interesting to note that all these theories are in a way complement to each other and enhance our knowledge about human development that immediately starts after birth. Another interesting point is that all these theories pay a lot of thrust on the initial stages of human development and consider them critical that have lasting effects throughout the life. After having a discussion with group of parents, the author reaches to the conclusion that these theory should not be treated as static but dynamic and a point of reference point. For example, discussing with a group of parents revealed that their childern started walking or talking at different ages between 12 to 18 months. The author's parents, to some extent, confirms the theory of Piaget that the author first started to utter segmented words at the age of 15 months. However, they did not confirm that my attraction towards my father, approximatly at the age of 12 months, is due to sexual attraction as Freud's asserted in his theory. According to the author's mother, it is possible that a child, regradless of boy or girl, pays more attention to their fathers because they recognize their presence at the later years and has nothing to with sexual attraction. She quesitons if we accept Freud's assetrion regarding attraction towards opposite gender then why do boys get attached to their fathers at the same age Observing small childern of 2-4 years old, the author did not find that childern are paying more attention to opposite sex than to their own gender. Hence, this point of Freud's theory does not seem to be very appleaing. In contrast, what Freud has indicated in the Genital Stage appears to be more interesting and realistic. For example, the author could remember that she was more friendly towards opposite gender when she was 11 or 12 years old. Erickson's stages of development also increase our insight about the stages of human development. It is author's own experenice that trust or mistrust develops at the early stage in all types of relationships, which plays a vital role in stregthening or weakening the relationship. The author belives that if she has a great trust on his family, possibly parents fulfilled her needs at the right time. References Erickson, Erik Homburger. Identity, Youth and Crisis. London: Faber & Faber 1968. The Psychosexual Stages of Development. Freudian Slip. 08.12.2007 Theory of Cognitive Development. Wikipedia: the Free encyclopedia. 07.12.2007 Read More