Freuds Psychosexual Development Theory And Stages - Coursework Example

Freud’s psychosexual development theory and stages After birth, every child undergoes growth and development from childhood through adolescence to adulthood. This growth and development process, termed as psychological, development occurs in a sequence of permanent stages known as psychosexual stages, a term proposed by Sigmund Freud. He named the stages that way because they represented the fixation of libido (sexual instincts and drives) on diverse parts of the human being’s body (Fonagy, 16). He asserted that as a human being matures physically their body’s parts become vital erogenous zones, that is, significant sources of pleasure, frustration or both. Freud believed that pleasure and tension were the basis of human life formation; that libido build up caused tension while the discharge of the libido led to pleasure. This paper explores the five stages of psychosexual development as expounded by Sigmund Freud. In illustrating personality development as psychosexual, Freud explained the process of sexual energy formation and expulsion as a human being matures biologically. He stressed the first 5 years being critical to the development of adult personality; the id must be directed so as to gratify social demands. The control of the id yields conflict between social norms and frustrated wishes. The control was accomplished by the ego and superego through publicly tolerable media. The different satisfaction centers at different parts of the body during different stages of growth, makes the conflict at every stage psychosexual (Brenner, 62). Freud noted that the conflict associated with each psychosexual stage had to be resolved for the person to successfully progress to the next stage otherwise they will backtrack once on the proceeding stage. He also noted that the more the sexual energy was required to complete a particular stage, the more import the stage’s features remained in the process of psychological maturity (Newman and Philip, 35). He liken this correlation to military troops; the conflict to the resistance the troops experience when they advance in the war. If the troops are highly efficient, more of them will advance to the next battle, but if they are less efficient, more of them will stay behind. Equally, if the conflict is efficiently resolved, more libido will be passed to the next stage, but if less efficiently resolved, less libido is passed to the next stage. Fixation, overindulgence and frustration Not all people appear to successfully advance to the next stage of development because of frustration or overindulgence. Frustration denotes inadequate satisfaction of the needs of a particular stage of development whereas overindulgence describes excellent satisfaction of the needs of a particular stage (Nevid, 388). In frustration, the person lags in the frustrated stage to fully satisfy the needs whereas in overindulgence, the person is reluctant to leave the stage’s enjoyed psychological benefits. Overindulgence as well as frustration, or a combination of both, may result into fixation, a condition in which a fraction of an individual’s libido is undeviatingly invested in one of the psychosexual stages of development. Fixation leads to a person portraying characteristics of a stage other than the one they are in. Psychosexual development stages Feud presented five stages of psychosexual development namely oral, anal, phallic, latent and genital respectively. The oral stage has the mouth as the center of pleasure whereas the anal stage has the anus as the center of pleasure. Phallic and genital stages have the penis and/or the clitoris as centers for pleasure. Oral Stage of psychosexual development Oral stage is the initial stage of personality development as presented by Freud occurring between zero and one year after birth in which the libido is centralized in the mouth of the baby. Much satisfaction is attained from placing different kinds of things in its mouth to gratify libido that in turn gratify the id’s demands. The id demands during this stage are mouth-oriented and include breast feeding, biting and suckling (Plotnik, Rod, and Haig, 438). Frustration or overindulgence in this stage leads to oral personality fixations such as thumb suckling, finger chewing or nail biting. Often, victims of frustration/overindulgence in this stage engage in these personalities when under stress. Anal stage of psychosexual development Anal stage follows the oral stage with pleasure center shifting from the mouth to the anus with great pleasure coming from defecating, expelling or withholding feces. At this stage, between one and three years, the children develop their ego and become wholly conscious of the fact that they are people in their own right. They become aware that their desires can lead them into disagreement with the outside world’s demands. Potty training, where the adults (parents) enforce restraints on the children on where and when to defecate constitute the outside world’s demands that counter children’s wishes of defecating where and when they want. The nature of the conflict at this stage influences the children’s upcoming relationship with diverse types of authority (Gehart, 53). Rigid potty training leads to development of anal-retentive personalities in children. Children with such personality appear reverential of authority, enthusiastically tidy, organized and punctual; however, they can be tight-fisted and pigheaded with their belongings and cash. All these characters stem from toddlerhood feces retention under the strict demands of parents. This means people with this personality, anal-retentive, had to hold onto to their feces when still toddlers for as long as their parents demanded them; they expelled it only at the direction of the parent. They could not expel it prior to or after the directions to do so. They presently respect authority as much as they respected parents’ directions (Carroll, 28). On the other hand, liberal potty training leads to development of anal-expulsive personality. Children with this kind of personality tend to be rebellious, disorganized and messy (Domoney, 293). They are reminiscent of giving their belongings away. They are at liberty to act on their own disregarding prevailing authority just as they were at liberty to expel their feces during toddlerhood. They are the opposite of anal-retentive personality. Phallic stage of psychosexual development This is the third stage occurring between three and five/six years after birth. In this stage, the pleasure center shifts from the mouth to the genital, the penis in boys and the clitoris in girls. The children at this stage become sensitive to their anatomical sexual differences between their bodies and those of others; of same sex as well as opposite sex (Hughes, 3284). This awareness spurs conflict between jealousy, resentment, rivalry, erotic attraction and fear that Freud referred to as Electra complex and Oedipus complex in girls and boys respectively. In Oedipus complex, they boy develops possessive cravings for his own mother and imagines eliminating his father to enjoy mother’s love whereas in Electra complex the girl craves the father. This conflict is resolved by the boy copying and imitating the father while the girl stifles her desire and identifies with her mother. Latency stage of psychosexual development This stage occurs between five/six year and puberty and is typified by no further psychosexual developments. The libido is inactive (Gooren, 592). Freud emphasizes during this stage, mot sexual whims are contained while sexual energy is directed towards friendships and work. The child spends most of his or her energy in attaining new knowledge and learning new skills. The child also restricts his or her play to same gender children (Shaffer & Kipp, 42). Genital stage of psychosexual development This is the last stage according to Freud beginning in puberty and extending to adulthood. It is a stage in which adolescents sexually experiments. Adolescents direct their sexual instincts to heterosexual pleasure unlike in phallic stage where such instincts are directed to self-pleasure (Chodorow, 286). Successful conflict resolution leads to establishment of one-to-one relationship whereas failure leads to sexual perversions (Kauth, 38). For instance, fixation suffered during oral stage may lead to gratification from just kissing instead of sexual penetration (Kline, 64). Conclusion Psychosexual stages of development are expounded in the psychosexual theory presented by Sigmund Freud. They explain psychosexual attributes portrayed by human beings as they grow and develop from infancy through childhood and adolescence to adulthood. The early stages are critical for future personality development of human beings as they involve conflicts which have to be successfully resolved to advance to the subsequent stages. Successful completion of each stage depends on two aspects. They include frustration and overindulgence. Frustration refers to inadequate satisfaction of the stage’s needs while overindulgence refers to excellent satisfaction of the stage’s needs. Frustration leads to lagging behind t as all needs are not satisfied. On the other hand, overindulgence may lead to reluctance to move away from the excellent benefits enjoyed. Frustration, overindulgence or both may lead to fixation which results to personality deformations. Works cited Brenner, Chadli. The mind in conflict. New York: International Universities Press, 1982. Print. Carroll, Janell L. Sexuality Now: Embracing Diversity. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010. Print. Chodorow, Nathaniel J. Heterosexuality as a compromise formation: Reflections on the psychoanalytic theory of sexual development. Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought, 1992 15: 267–304. Domoney, Claudine. Psychosexual problems. Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Reproductive Medicine, 2009 : 291-295.  Fonagy, Peter. A genuinely developmental theory of sexual enjoyment and its implications for psychoanalytic technique. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 56.1 (2008): 11-36. Gehart, Diane. Theory and Treatment Planning in Counseling and Psychotherapy. New York: Cengage Learning, 2012. Print. Gooren, Louis. The Biology of Human Psychosexual Differentiation. Hormones and Behavior 50.4 (2006): 589-601. Hughes, Ian. Minireview: sex differentiation. Endocrinology, 2001 142 (8): 3281–3287 Irwin, Robert. Thirty years of psychosexual nursing. Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 2006 21(4): 445-461. Kauth, Michael R. True Nature: A Theory of Sexual Attraction. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum, 2000. Print. Kline, Paul. Psychology and Freudian Theory. Exeter: Routledge, 2014. Print Newman, Barbara M, and Philip R. Newman. Development through Life: A Psychosocial Approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012. Print. Nevid, Jeffrey S. Essentials of Psychology: Concepts and Applications. Belmont: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2012. Print. Plotnik, Rod, and Haig Kouyoumjian. Introduction to Psychology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2011. Print. Shaffer, David R. Social and Personality Development. Australia: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2009. Print. Read More