Freud's Theory of Psychosexual Development - Essay Example

Freud's Theory of Psychosexual Development Sigmund Freud proposed theories focused on the importance of events and experiences during childhood and the mental disorders. Freud describes that the early experiences of a child play a great role in the development of a child’s personality and this influences a child’s behavior in every aspect of the life. Freud put forward his theory about child development as a series of “psychosexual stages”. Satisfaction of libidinal desire is involved in each stage which later serves a great role in adult personality. If a stage is not successfully completed by a child, it would later influence his/her behavior and adult personality. This essay attempts to discuss in detail Freud’s psychosexual theory, including its relationship with adult neurotic behavior1. It also tries to, as the title suggests, evaluate the extent to which Freud's psychosexual can assist in understanding a client’s presenting issues. Understanding Psychosexual Development To understand Freud’s theory of psychosexual development we first need to know about the psychosexual development. According to Sigmund Freud, what a person experiences early in his life as a child has a great influence on the development of his/her personality. According to Freud’s Psychoanalytic personality theory, the most basic element of personality that is present at the time of birth is “id” which exists unconsciously. The id works on the pleasure principle which demands the fulfillment of needs and satisfaction of desires. Hence it generates an unconscious psychic energy within a person in initial stages of life which not only endeavors to satisfy all his needs but also serves as a necessary force to develop his personality. To better understand the concept of id let’s consider an example. Since id works on the pleasure principle, which means that all the inner desires and needs should be given foremost priority and they should be satisfied as soon as possible, when we are hungry we are more likely to divert attention towards refrigerator or food, and then we eat to satisfy our need. Similarly to quench our thirst we drink water. But not all of our needs can be satisfied instantly. There are needs whose satisfaction need to be delayed until a particular time or until the things that satisfy those needs are within our reach. So unfulfilled needs create tension within an individual, which drives him to take action in order to satisfy those needs.To project is not bad; in fact “it is a psychological achievement”2. The id principle also takes into account the “primary process” to temporarily relieve an individual from the tension. This involves, for example, fantasizing, daydreaming or hallucinating about the fulfillment of those needsto create a mental picture within our mind. It must, however, be kept in mind that id is just one of the three main components of an individual’s personality. The other two being: “ego” and “superego”. But as mentioned earlier, only id is present at the time of birth and it exists unconsciously3. Freud’s Theory of Psychosexual Development Freud’s theories of understanding human behavior – psychoanalysis – have made great contributions to psychology. Many other psychologists at the time of Freud were inspired by Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis and developed their own ideas bases thereon. These theories are collectively known as “psychodynamic”, as they stress the factor that prompts behavior. Biomedical views that every mental disorder has a physical origin were opposed by these theories. In fact Freud believed that mental disorders and abnormal behavior at later stages in life had its origin during the childhood and caused by the unconscious psychic energies within a person. Freud’s theory of psychosexual development is one of the most famous and controversial in this field. According to his stage theory, personality of an individual develops through a series of different puerility stages. At these stages during the childhood the pleasure searching behavior of id is focused on areas that are sensitive to sexual stimulation. Freud describes this libidinal desire or “psychosexual energy” as the driving force of the behavior and which later on plays a great role in formation of personality. The stages of psychosexual developed are described in the following headings. For the development of a healthy and complete personality the stages of psychosexual development as described by Freud needs to be finished in a successful manner. If any of these stages are not psychologically completed (for example due to any conflict), fixation will occur which is an abnormal state in which development has stopped prematurely. And the individual will get anxious and trapped in that stage for a larger span of time. The Stages The stages describe how the sexuality starts from the young ages of childhood and develops until a person matures. Freud thought that sex is the primary instinct and therefore each of the five stages describes the satisfaction of libidinal desire through different bodily parts. As the sex instinct matured, a child’s attention is shifted from one body part to another for the satisfaction of sexual desire4.These stages are described as under. 1. The Oral Stage This stage occurs from birth to eighteen months. At this very first stage an infant tries to gratify the needs through mouth. Pleasure seeking activities are fulfilled through sucking, swallowing and biting. Conflict may occur, for example, during the weaning process when some other food is substituted for the mother’s breast milk in the diet of a child. If fixation occurs at this basic stage, a child may become excessively dependent on others and at the later stages of life s/he will seek oral stimulation through, for example, smoking, drinking, nail-biting and eating. 2. The Anal Stage This stage occurs between eighteen months one to three years of age. The sexually sensitive bodily area at this stage is anus. Pleasure seeking activities are fulfilled through defecating or retaining faeces. Conflict at this stage occurs at the toilet training. To properly develop controls over his/her bodily needs, a child needs to learn to use the toilet at the proper time and in a proper way. Success at this stage is largely dependent on how parents teach, and reward or punish as the case may be, their child at these ages. If a child learns to have control over his bowel movements and bladder control, this developed a sense of achievement and independence within a child that later develops his personality in good form. A child therefore needs support from parents and encouragement at this stage. 3. The Phallic Stage Occurs from three to six years of age. Child’s attention is now focused on genitals and s/he seeks to derive pleasure from genital stimulation. At this stage children begin to notice difference between opposite sexes and develop a desire for, or even envy, the opposite sex. Freud suggested that at this stage boys begin to develop incestuous affection for their mother and even begin to see their father as rivals for mother’s love. The term Oedipus complex has been coined to reflect this behavior. Similarly girls at this stage, according to Freud, experienced the similar feelings for their fathers and they even feel “penis envy” (i.e., the envy that female gender feels towards the male because males have penis). Girls’ first love object, just like boys, is the mother due to the obvious reasons of care and feeding, but at the phallic stage father becomes a girl’s new love object upon the girls’ discovery that boys have a penis which they don’t have. For this behavior the term Electra complex has been used5. Due to these believes some other psychologists criticize Freud theory on the fact that it is demeaning to women and inappropriate. 4. The Latent Period It occurs from age six up to puberty (around 11). At this stage the sexual activities and satisfaction of libido remain dormant as most of the mental a bodily energies are focused on developing physical and intellectual abilities through sports, playing and school homework. The child as he enters into school focuses his attention on making friends, hobbies and interests. This stage is significant to the development of individual personality because the sense of industry, development of skills to work with people and objects and initiative without sense of inferiority serves as a foundation for grownup adults who are satisfied in their love and work3. 5. The Genital Stage Ranges from puberty onwards. This stage begins during when an individual begins to feel strong sexual emotions for the opposite sex and this satisfies the libidinal desire. This because the bodily changes triggered by puberty stimulatethe sexual urges and the person now needs to learn socially acceptable ways to express these urges. If all previous stages are successfully completed, an individual will develop a concern for others and their welfare, and s/he will also be caring and capable of understanding other’s needs. The fully developed sex instinct is then satisfied by marrying opposite sex and raising children4. Relationship with Adult Neurotic Behavior Neurosis is a mental or personality disturbance not known to be attributed to any organic dysfunction. It may include unusual human behaviors such as disturbances of sight and sound, lack of ability to eatproperly and paralysis of arms.Sigmund Freud developed his initial ideas, conclusions and explanations on adult neurotic behavior based on his experiences with his clients. He found that most of his clients’ disorders centered on the childhood sexual conflicts and inability to complete a particular psychosexual stage successfully. Freud concluded from his research that most of the neurosis problems faced during adulthood is directly related to non-completion of the tasks of psychosexual development. When people suppress their unfulfilled needs and sexual desires, neurotic behaviors result at later stages in life6. Therefore, the neurotic adult behaviors are the manifestations of childhood libidinal desires and sexual fantasies. And if the sex instincts at earlier stagesof life are not dealt with and gratified in correct way, the neurotic behavior at later stages will happen afterwards as a consequence. Here we can again take the example in previous section. If a child has not properly resolved the oral stage and fixation occurs, it may rather result in Oral-receptive personality characterized by being overly dependent on others, needy and at the later on seek to reduce tension through smoking drinking, and eating; or Oral-aggressive personality which is characterized by hostile attitude and being verbally abusive to others. Likewise insufficient toilet training may also result in anal-expulsive (i.e., lack of self-control and being careless) or anal-retentive personality (i.e., looking for order and tidiness, and characterized by stubbornness and perfectionism). Like this the Freud’s theory can help in understanding a client’s presenting issues. Criticism on Freud’s Psychosexual Theory The concept of unconscious motivation is accepted widely and considered to be one of the greatest contributions made by Sigmund Freud in the field of developmental psychology. Few contemporary developmentalists are still the strong proponents of Freudian theory. However, a lot of developmental psychologists today have rejected Freud’s concept of psychoanalysis on the basis that it’s empirical or scientific verification is very hard to come by. Libido is impossible to quantify or measure and therefore cannot be tested. Likewise we cannot measure the relative intensities of id, ego and superego. Other psychologists criticize Freudian theory on the grounds that we can never know for sure whether the early childhood experiences actually have a solid effect on the later development of personality, since the length of time between the cause and effect is too long to make any realistic assumptions about human behavior. This is so because the human behavior keeps changing and depends on the circumstances. Furthermore, the arguments are made that the Freud’s believes are founded on basis of studies on his patients and not any empirical research, and the case studies were also done on adult patients instead of observation during the childhood7. A lot of people today prefer other theories, such as Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development (1963), to Freud’s theory. This is because people don’t think that their personalities and lives are so much dominated by the sexual instincts. Although Erikson consented with many of the Freud’s ideas, there are two main points on which Freud’s theory differed from that of Erikson’s. The first critical difference is that Erikson believed children are curious explorers who learn to adapt to their environment rather than simply being slaves of their bodily needs and being shaped up by their parents. Secondly Erikson emphasized the role of cultural influences and placed much less emphasis on the sexual instincts than Freud8. Feminist Critique Freud’s theory was concentrated mainly on the male psychosexual development and the female development was not much emphasized. This is the reason why feminist critiques regarded Freud’s theory as androcentric. Freud attempted to explain the theoretical explanation of psychosexual development of female only at later stages of his career, and he also confessed that he had trouble including the female sexuality and desires within the theory. As mentionedin the earlier parts of the essay, due to the concept of “penis envy” many female psychologists have criticized Freud’s theory on the grounds that it is demeaning to women and inappropriate. Freud said, “Girls feel deeply their lack of a sexual organ that is equal in value to the male one; they regard themselves on that account as inferior and this envy for the penis is the origin of a whole number of characteristic feminine reactions”3. He further wrote that after this stage a girl develops all feminine characteristics and matures of her childish desires into giving a birth to her own child. Many feminist critiques don’t believe it to be exactly the case and this, therefore, has attracted a lot of criticism on Freud’s theory. An Evaluative Argument on Freud’s Theory Although it’s impossible to scientifically evaluate the rationality of the theory as most of the psychoanalytic hypotheses are untestable, Freud’s greatest contribution was the identification of unconscious motivation that exists from birth. Arguments continue regarding how significant are the early experience with respect to later stages, but most of the contemporary psychologists do agree that some of the childhood experiences play an important role in personality development and have long lasting effects. Freud also explained in detail the emotional aspect of humans, such as love, fear, fatigue, anxiety etc. and how they have a lasting impression on our lives. For these reasons, Freud has certainly changed our views about the human development2. The main question one may ask while evaluating the psychosexual theory is whether the sex instinct really drives all our actions and influences our lives? The answers may vary depending on the individual and his/her experiences. But it may be safe to say that besides sexual desires other factors such as culture and environment also play an important role in forming our personality and attitudes. Sigmund Freud also developed the method of “Talk Therapy” which has become a very important part of different therapeutic techniques in determining the substantial events and that may have an effect on client’s issues and difficulties. The “Talk Therapy” method is being used even by those psychotherapists who criticize or reject the Freudian theory. To sum up, Freud devised one of the most famous and widely talked about psychological personality theories of all time. His theory and ideas were mainly concentrated on the belief that the biological needs and instincts, chiefly sex, plays the most vital role and are the driving forces behind an individual’s every action9. Freud’s theory can play an important role in understanding a client’s presenting problem. Firstly, when interviewing the client, we might ask questions based on the client’s childhood experience, sex in particular, including abuses and fantasies. Then writing a mental health assessment based on the client’s mental health history and childhood experience, including its relevance and relation to the Freud’s psychosexual stages to establish any conflicts and fixation. The final assessment is then used for developing a treatment plan for elimination a client’s presenting problem. References Read More