In
Freudian
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
, psychosexual development is a central element of the
psychoanalytic
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might be ...
sexual drive theory. Freud believed that personality developed through a series of childhood stages in which pleasure seeking energies from the child became focused on certain erogenous areas. An erogenous zone is characterized as an area of the body that is particularly sensitive to stimulation. The five psychosexual stages are the
oral
The word oral may refer to:
Relating to the mouth
* Relating to the mouth, the first portion of the alimentary canal that primarily receives food and liquid
**Oral administration of medicines
** Oral examination (also known as an oral exam or oral ...
, the
anal
Anal may refer to:
Related to the anus
*Related to the anus of animals:
** Anal fin, in fish anatomy
** Anal vein, in insect anatomy
** Anal scale, in reptile anatomy
*Related to the human anus:
** Anal sex, a type of sexual activity involvin ...
, the
phallic
A phallus is a penis (especially when erect), an object that resembles a penis, or a mimetic image of an erect penis. In art history a figure with an erect penis is described as ithyphallic.
Any object that symbolically—or, more precisely ...
, the
latent
Latency or latent may refer to:
Science and technology
* Latent heat, energy released or absorbed, by a body or a thermodynamic system, during a constant-temperature process
* Latent variable, a variable that is not directly observed but inferred ...
, and the
genital
A sex organ (or reproductive organ) is any part of an animal or plant that is involved in sexual reproduction. The reproductive organs together constitute the reproductive system. In animals, the testis in the male, and the ovary in the female, a ...
.
The erogenous zone associated with each stage serves as a source of pleasure. Being unsatisfied at any particular stage can result in
fixation.
On the other hand, being satisfied can result in a healthy personality. Sigmund Freud proposed that if the child experienced frustration at any of the psychosexual developmental stages, they would experience
anxiety
Anxiety is an emotion which is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different than fear in that the former is defined as the anticipation of a future threat wh ...
that would persist into adulthood as a
neurosis
Neurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving chronic distress, but neither delusions nor hallucinations. The term is no longer used by the professional psychiatric community in the United States, having been eliminated from th ...
, a functional mental disorder.
Background
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...
(1856–1939) observed that during the predictable stages of early childhood development, the child's behavior is oriented towards certain parts of their body, e.g. the mouth during
breast-feeding
Breastfeeding, or nursing, is the process by which human breast milk is fed to a child. Breast milk may be from the breast, or may be expressed by hand or pumped and fed to the infant. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that brea ...
, the
anus
The anus (Latin, 'ring' or 'circle') is an opening at the opposite end of an animal's digestive tract from the mouth. Its function is to control the expulsion of feces, the residual semi-solid waste that remains after food digestion, which, d ...
during toilet-training. He argued that adult
neurosis
Neurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving chronic distress, but neither delusions nor hallucinations. The term is no longer used by the professional psychiatric community in the United States, having been eliminated from th ...
(functional mental disorder) often is rooted in childhood sexuality, and consequently suggested that neurotic adult behaviors are manifestations of childhood sexual fantasy and desire. That is because human beings are born "
polymorphous perverse", infants can derive sexual pleasure from any part of their bodies, and that socialization directs the instinctual libidinal drives into adult heterosexuality.
[Myre, Sim (1974) ''Guide to Psychiatry'', 3rd ed. Churchill Livingstone:Edinburgh and London, p. 396] Given the predictable timeline of childhood behavior, he proposed "libido development" as a model of normal childhood sexual development, wherein the child progresses through five psychosexual stagesthe oral; the anal; the phallic; the latent; and the genitalin which the source pleasure is in a different
erogenous zone
An erogenous zone (from Greek , ''érōs'' "love"; and English ''-genous'' "producing", from Greek , ''-genḗs'' "born") is an area of the human body that has heightened sensitivity, the stimulation of which may generate a sexual response, su ...
.
Freudian psychosexual development
Sexual infantilism: in pursuing and satisfying their
libido
Libido (; colloquial: sex drive) is a person's overall sexual drive or desire for sexual activity. Libido is influenced by biological, psychological, and social factors. Biologically, the sex hormones and associated neurotransmitters that act up ...
(sexual drive), the child might experience failure (parental and societal disapproval) and thus might associate anxiety with the given erogenous zone. To avoid anxiety, the child becomes
fixated, preoccupied with the psychologic themes related to the erogenous zone in question. The fixation persists into adulthood and underlies the personality and psychopathology of the individual. It may manifest as mental ailments such as
neurosis
Neurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving chronic distress, but neither delusions nor hallucinations. The term is no longer used by the professional psychiatric community in the United States, having been eliminated from th ...
,
hysteria
Hysteria is a term used colloquially to mean ungovernable emotional excess and can refer to a temporary state of mind or emotion. In the nineteenth century, hysteria was considered a diagnosable physical illness in women. It is assumed that ...
,
female hysteria
Female hysteria was once a common medical diagnosis for women, which was described as exhibiting a wide array of symptoms, including anxiety, shortness of breath, fainting, nervousness, sexual desire, insomnia, fluid retention, heaviness in the a ...
, or
personality disorder
Personality disorders (PD) are a class of mental disorders characterized by enduring maladaptive patterns of behavior, cognition, and inner experience, exhibited across many contexts and deviating from those accepted by the individual's culture ...
.
Oral stage
![BabySuckingFingers](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/BabySuckingFingers.jpg)
The first stage of psychosexual development is the
oral stage
In Freudian psychoanalysis, the term oral stage or hemitaxia denotes the first psychosexual development stage wherein the mouth of the infant is their primary erogenous zone. Spanning the life period from birth to the age of 18 months, the oral s ...
, spanning from birth until the age of one year, wherein the infant's mouth is the focus of
libidinal gratification derived from the pleasure of feeding at the mother's breast, and from the oral exploration of their environment, i.e. the tendency to place objects in the mouth. The
id dominates, because neither the
ego nor the
super ego
The id, ego, and super-ego are a set of three concepts in psychoanalytic theory describing distinct, interacting agents in the psychic apparatus (defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche). The three agents are theoretical cons ...
is yet fully developed, and, since the infant has no
personality
Personality is the characteristic sets of behaviors, cognitions, and emotional patterns that are formed from biological and environmental factors, and which change over time. While there is no generally agreed-upon definition of personality, mos ...
(identity), every action is based upon the
pleasure principle. Nonetheless, the infantile ego is forming during the oral stage; two factors contribute to its formation: (i) in developing a
body image
Body image is a person's thoughts, feelings and perception of the aesthetics or sexual attractiveness of their own body. The concept of body image is used in a number of disciplines, including neuroscience, psychology, medicine, psychiatry, ps ...
, they are discrete from the external world, e.g. the child understands pain when it is applied to their body, thus identifying the physical boundaries between body and environment; (ii) experiencing delayed gratification leads to understanding that specific behaviors satisfy some needs, e.g. crying gratifies certain needs.
[Leach, P. (1997) ''Your Baby and Child: From Birth to Age Five'' 5th edition. New York:Knopf p. 000]
Weaning
Weaning is the process of gradually introducing an infant human or another mammal to what will be its adult diet while withdrawing the supply of its mother's milk.
The process takes place only in mammals, as only mammals produce milk. The infan ...
is the key experience in the infant's oral stage of psychosexual development, their first feeling of loss consequent to losing the physical intimacy of feeding at mother's breast. Yet, weaning increases the infant's self-awareness that they do not control the environment, and thus learns of
delayed gratification
Delayed gratification, or deferred gratification, is the resistance to the temptation of an immediate pleasure in the hope of obtaining a valuable and long-lasting reward in the long-term. In other words, delayed gratification describes the pro ...
, which leads to the formation of the capacities for ''independence'' (awareness of the limits of the self) and ''trust'' (behaviors leading to gratification). Yet, thwarting of the oral-stage – too much or too little gratification of
desire
Desires are states of mind that are expressed by terms like "wanting", "wishing", "longing" or "craving". A great variety of features is commonly associated with desires. They are seen as propositional attitudes towards conceivable states of aff ...
– might lead to an oral-stage
fixation, characterized by passivity, gullibility, immaturity,
unrealistic optimism, which is manifested in a manipulative personality consequent to ego malformation. In the case of too much gratification, the child does not learn that they do not control the environment, and that gratification is not always immediate, thereby forming an immature personality. In the case of too little gratification, the infant might become passive upon learning that gratification is not forthcoming, despite having produced the gratifying behavior.
Anal stage
![Chinese_boy_with_open-crotch_pants_and_diaper](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Chinese_boy_with_open-crotch_pants_and_diaper.jpg)
The second stage of psychosexual development is the
anal stage
The anal stage is the second stage in Sigmund Freud's theory of psychosexual development, taking place approximately between the ages 18 months and three years. According to Freud, the anus is the primary erogenous zone and pleasure is derived ...
, spanning from the age of eighteen months to three years, wherein the infant's
erogenous zone
An erogenous zone (from Greek , ''érōs'' "love"; and English ''-genous'' "producing", from Greek , ''-genḗs'' "born") is an area of the human body that has heightened sensitivity, the stimulation of which may generate a sexual response, su ...
changes from the
mouth
In animal anatomy, the mouth, also known as the oral cavity, or in Latin cavum oris, is the opening through which many animals take in food and issue vocal sounds. It is also the cavity lying at the upper end of the alimentary canal, bounded on ...
(the upper digestive tract) to the
anus
The anus (Latin, 'ring' or 'circle') is an opening at the opposite end of an animal's digestive tract from the mouth. Its function is to control the expulsion of feces, the residual semi-solid waste that remains after food digestion, which, d ...
(the lower digestive tract), while the ego formation continues. Toilet training is the child's key anal-stage experience, occurring at about the age of two years, and results in conflict between the id (demanding immediate gratification) and the ego (demanding delayed gratification) in eliminating bodily wastes, and handling related activities (e.g. manipulating excrement, coping with parental demands). The style of parenting influences the resolution of the id–ego conflict, which can be either gradual and psychologically uneventful, or which can be sudden and
psychologically traumatic.
The ideal resolution of the id–ego conflict is in the child's adjusting to moderate parental demands that teach the value and importance of physical cleanliness and environmental order, thus producing a self-controlled adult. Yet, if the parents make immoderate demands of the child, by overemphasizing toilet training, it might lead to the development of a
compulsive personality, a person too concerned with neatness and order. If the child obeys the id, and the parents yield, they might develop a self-indulgent personality characterized by personal slovenliness and environmental disorder. If the parents respond to that, the child must comply, but might develop a weak sense of
self
The self is an individual as the object of that individual’s own reflective consciousness. Since the ''self'' is a reference by a subject to the same subject, this reference is necessarily subjective. The sense of having a self—or ''selfhood ...
, because it was the parents' will, and not the child's ego, which controlled the toilet training.
Phallic stage
The third stage of psychosexual development is the
phallic stage
In Freudian psychoanalysis, the phallic stage is the third stage of psychosexual development, spanning the ages of three to six years, wherein the infant's libido (desire) centers upon their genitalia as the erogenous zone. When children become ...
, spanning the ages of three to six years, wherein the child's genitalia are their primary
erogenous zone
An erogenous zone (from Greek , ''érōs'' "love"; and English ''-genous'' "producing", from Greek , ''-genḗs'' "born") is an area of the human body that has heightened sensitivity, the stimulation of which may generate a sexual response, su ...
. It is in this third infantile development stage that children become aware of their bodies, the bodies of other children, and the bodies of their parents; they gratify physical curiosity by undressing and exploring each other and their genitals, and so learn the
physical
Physical may refer to:
*Physical examination
In a physical examination, medical examination, or clinical examination, a medical practitioner examines a patient for any possible medical signs or symptoms of a medical condition. It generally co ...
(sexual) differences between "male" and "female" and the
gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...
differences between "boy" and "girl". In the phallic stage, a boy's decisive psychosexual experience is the
Oedipus complex
The Oedipus complex (also spelled Œdipus complex) is an idea in psychoanalytic theory. The complex is an ostensibly universal phase in the life of a young boy in which, to try to immediately satisfy basic desires, he unconsciously wishes to have ...
, his son–father competition for possession of mother. This
psychological complex derives from the 5th-century BC
Greek mythologic character
Oedipus
Oedipus (, ; grc-gre, Οἰδίπους "swollen foot") was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. A tragic hero in Greek mythology, Oedipus accidentally fulfilled a prophecy that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother, thereby ...
, who unwittingly killed his father,
Laius
In Greek mythology, King Laius (pronounced ), or Laios ( el, Λάϊος) of Thebes was a key personage in the Theban founding myth.
Family
Laius was the son of Labdacus. He was the father, by Jocasta, of Oedipus, who killed him.
Mytholog ...
, and sexually possessed his mother,
Jocasta
In Greek mythology, Jocasta (), also rendered Iocaste ( grc, Ἰοκάστη ) and also known as Epicaste (; ), was a daughter of Menoeceus, a descendant of the Spartoi Echion, and queen consort of Thebes. She was the wife of first Laius, t ...
. Analogously, in the phallic stage, a girl's decisive psychosexual experience is the
Electra complex
In neo-Freudian psychology, the Electra complex, as proposed by Carl Jung in his ''Theory of Psychoanalysis'', is a girl's psychosexual competition with her mother for possession of her father. In the course of her psychosexual development, the c ...
, her daughter–mother competition for psychosexual possession of father. This psychological complex derives from the 5th-century BC Greek mythologic character
Electra
Electra (; grc, Ήλέκτρα) is one of the most popular mythological characters in tragedies.Evans (1970), p. 79 She is the main character in two Greek tragedies, '' Electra'' by Sophocles and '' Electra'' by Euripides. She is also the centra ...
, who plotted
matricidal revenge with
Orestes
In Greek mythology, Orestes or Orestis (; grc-gre, Ὀρέστης ) was the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, and the brother of Electra. He is the subject of several Ancient Greek plays and of various myths connected with his madness and ...
, her brother, against
Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra (; grc-gre, Κλυταιμνήστρα, ''Klytaimnḗstrā'', ), in Greek mythology, was the wife of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, and the twin sister of Helen of Troy. In Aeschylus' ''Oresteia'', she murders Agamemnon – said by Eu ...
, their mother, and
Aegisthus
Aegisthus (; grc, Αἴγισθος; also transliterated as Aigisthos, ) was a figure in Greek mythology. Aegisthus is known from two primary sources: the first is Homer's ''Odyssey'', believed to have been first written down by Homer at the en ...
, their stepfather, for their murder of
Agamemnon
In Greek mythology, Agamemnon (; grc-gre, Ἀγαμέμνων ''Agamémnōn'') was a king of Mycenae who commanded the Greeks during the Trojan War. He was the son, or grandson, of King Atreus and Queen Aerope, the brother of Menelaus, the husb ...
, their father, (cf. ''
Electra
Electra (; grc, Ήλέκτρα) is one of the most popular mythological characters in tragedies.Evans (1970), p. 79 She is the main character in two Greek tragedies, '' Electra'' by Sophocles and '' Electra'' by Euripides. She is also the centra ...
'', by Sophocles).
Initially,
Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts in ...
equally applied the Oedipus complex to the psychosexual development of boys and girls, but later developed the female aspects of the theory as the ''feminine Oedipus attitude'' and the ''negative Oedipus complex'';
yet, it was his student–collaborator,
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...
, who coined the term ''Electra complex'' in 1913. Nonetheless, Freud rejected Jung's term as
psychoanalytically inaccurate: "that what we have said about the Oedipus complex applies with complete strictness to the male child only, and that we are right in rejecting the term 'Electra complex', which seeks to emphasize the analogy between the attitude of the two sexes".
![1869 Frederic Leighton - Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/1869_Frederic_Leighton_-_Electra_at_the_Tomb_of_Agamemnon.jpg)
Oedipus: Despite mother being the parent who primarily gratifies the child's desires, the child begins forming a discrete sexual identity – "boy", "girl" – that alters the dynamics of the parent and child relationship; the parents become the focus of infantile
libidinal energy. The boy focuses his libido (sexual desire) upon his mother, and focuses jealousy and emotional rivalry against his father – because it is he who sleeps with mother. To facilitate uniting him with his mother, the boy's id wants to kill father (as did Oedipus), but the ego, pragmatically based upon the
reality principle
In Freudian psychology and psychoanalysis, the reality principle (german: Realitätsprinzip) is the ability of the mind to assess the reality of the external world, and to act upon it accordingly, as opposed to acting on the pleasure principle.
A ...
, knows that the father is the stronger of the two males competing to possess the one female. Nevertheless, the boy remains ambivalent about his father's place in the family, which is manifested as
fear of castration by the physically greater father; the fear is an irrational, subconscious manifestation of the infantile Id.
Electra: Whereas boys develop
castration anxiety
Castration anxiety is the fear of emasculation in both the literal and metaphorical sense. Castration anxiety is an overwhelming fear of damage to, or loss of, the penis—one of Sigmund Freud's earliest psychoanalytic theories. Although Freud ...
, girls develop
penis envy
Penis envy (german: Penisneid) is a stage theorized by Sigmund Freud regarding female psychosexual development, in which young girls experience anxiety upon realization that they do not have a penis. Freud considered this realization a defining m ...
that is rooted in anatomic fact: without a penis, she cannot sexually possess mother, as the infantile id demands. As a result, the girl redirects her
desire
Desires are states of mind that are expressed by terms like "wanting", "wishing", "longing" or "craving". A great variety of features is commonly associated with desires. They are seen as propositional attitudes towards conceivable states of aff ...
for sexual union upon father; thus, she progresses towards
heterosexual
Heterosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction or sexual behavior between people of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to ...
femininity that culminates in bearing a child who replaces the absent
penis
A penis (plural ''penises'' or ''penes'' () is the primary sexual organ that male animals use to inseminate females (or hermaphrodites) during copulation. Such organs occur in many animals, both vertebrate and invertebrate, but males do n ...
. Moreover, after the phallic stage, the girl's psychosexual development includes transferring her primary erogenous zone from the infantile
clitoris
The clitoris ( or ) is a female sex organ present in mammals, ostriches and a limited number of other animals. In humans, the visible portion – the glans – is at the front junction of the labia minora (inner lips), above the ope ...
to the adult
vagina
In mammals, the vagina is the elastic, muscular part of the female genital tract. In humans, it extends from the vestibule to the cervix. The outer vaginal opening is normally partly covered by a thin layer of mucosal tissue called the hymen ...
. Freud thus considered a girl's Oedipal conflict to be more emotionally intense than that of a boy, potentially resulting in a submissive woman of insecure personality.
Psychologist
Karen Horney
Karen Horney (; ; 16 September 1885 – 4 December 1952) was a German psychoanalyst who practised in the United States during her later career. Her theories questioned some traditional Freudian views. This was particularly true of her theories of ...
has disputed this theory, calling it inaccurate and demeaning to women. She proposed that, in fact men experience feelings of inferiority because they cannot give birth to children, a concept she referred to as
womb envy
In psychology, womb envy denotes the envy that men may feel of the biological functions of the female (pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding). The neo-Freudian psychiatrist Karen Horney (1885–1952) proposed this as an innate male psychological t ...
.
Psychologic defense: In both sexes,
defense mechanism
In psychoanalytic theory, a defence mechanism (American English: defense mechanism), is an unconscious psychological operation that functions to protect a person from anxiety-producing thoughts and feelings related to internal conflicts and o ...
s provide transitory resolutions of the conflict between the drives of the Id and the drives of the ego. The first defense mechanism is ''
repression'', the blocking of memories, emotional impulses, and ideas from the conscious mind; yet it does not resolve the id–ego conflict. The second defense mechanism is ''
Identification
Identification or identify may refer to:
*Identity document, any document used to verify a person's identity
Arts, entertainment and media
* ''Identify'' (album) by Got7, 2014
* "Identify" (song), by Natalie Imbruglia, 1999
* Identification ( ...
'', by which the child incorporates, to their ego, the personality characteristics of the same-sex parent; in so adapting, the boy diminishes his
castration anxiety
Castration anxiety is the fear of emasculation in both the literal and metaphorical sense. Castration anxiety is an overwhelming fear of damage to, or loss of, the penis—one of Sigmund Freud's earliest psychoanalytic theories. Although Freud ...
, because his likeness to father protects him from father's wrath as a rival for mother; by so adapting, the girl facilitates identifying with mother, who understands that, in being females, neither of them possesses a penis, and thus they are not antagonists.
[Bullock, A., Trombley, S. (1999) ''The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought'' Harper Collins:London pp. 205, 107]
Dénouement: Unresolved psychosexual competition for the opposite-sex parent might produce a phallic-stage
fixation leading a girl to become a woman who continually strives to dominate men (viz.
penis envy
Penis envy (german: Penisneid) is a stage theorized by Sigmund Freud regarding female psychosexual development, in which young girls experience anxiety upon realization that they do not have a penis. Freud considered this realization a defining m ...
), either as an unusually
seductive woman (high self-esteem) or as an unusually submissive woman (low self-esteem). In a boy, a phallic-stage fixation might lead him to become an aggressive, over-ambitious, vain man. Therefore, the satisfactory parental handling and resolution of the
Oedipus complex
The Oedipus complex (also spelled Œdipus complex) is an idea in psychoanalytic theory. The complex is an ostensibly universal phase in the life of a young boy in which, to try to immediately satisfy basic desires, he unconsciously wishes to have ...
and of the
Electra complex
In neo-Freudian psychology, the Electra complex, as proposed by Carl Jung in his ''Theory of Psychoanalysis'', is a girl's psychosexual competition with her mother for possession of her father. In the course of her psychosexual development, the c ...
are most important in developing the infantile super-ego, because, by identifying with a parent, the child internalizes
morality
Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of cond ...
, thereby, choosing to comply with societal rules, rather than having to reflexively comply in fear of punishment.
Latency stage
The fourth stage of psychosexual development is the
latency stage
The latency stage is the fourth stage of Sigmund Freud's model of a child's psychosexual development. Freud believed that the child discharges their libido (sexual energy) through a distinct body area that characterizes each stage.
The stages ar ...
that spans from the age of six years until
puberty
Puberty is the process of physical changes through which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of sexual reproduction. It is initiated by hormonal signals from the brain to the gonads: the ovaries in a girl, the testes in a boy. ...
, wherein the child consolidates the character habits they developed in the three earlier stages of psychologic and sexual development. Whether or not the child has successfully resolved the
Oedipal conflict
The Oedipus complex (also spelled Œdipus complex) is an idea in psychoanalytic theory. The Complex (psychology), complex is an ostensibly universal phase in the life of a young boy in which, to try to immediately satisfy basic desires, he Uncons ...
, the instinctual drives of the child are inaccessible to the ego, because their
defense mechanism
In psychoanalytic theory, a defence mechanism (American English: defense mechanism), is an unconscious psychological operation that functions to protect a person from anxiety-producing thoughts and feelings related to internal conflicts and o ...
s repressed them during the phallic stage. Hence, because said drives are latent (hidden) and gratification is delayed – unlike during the preceding oral, anal, and phallic stages – the child must derive the pleasure of gratification from secondary process-thinking that directs the libidinal drives towards external activities, such as schooling, friendships, hobbies, etc. Any
neuroses
Neurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving chronic distress, but neither delusions nor hallucinations. The term is no longer used by the professional psychiatric community in the United States, having been eliminated from th ...
established during the fourth, latent stage, of psychosexual development might derive from the inadequate resolution either of the Oedipus conflict or of the ego's failure to direct their energies towards socially acceptable activities.
Genital stage
The fifth stage of psychosexual development is the
genital stage
The genital stage in psychoanalysis is the term used by Sigmund Freud to describe the final stage of human psychosexual development. The individual develops a strong sexual interest in people outside of the family.
In Freud and later thinkers
The ...
that spans
puberty
Puberty is the process of physical changes through which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of sexual reproduction. It is initiated by hormonal signals from the brain to the gonads: the ovaries in a girl, the testes in a boy. ...
through adult life, and thus represents most of a person's life; its purpose is the psychological detachment and independence from the parents. The genital stage affords the person the ability to confront and resolve their remaining psychosexual childhood conflicts. As in the phallic stage, the genital stage is centered upon the genitalia, but the sexuality is consensual and adult, rather than solitary and infantile. The psychological difference between the phallic and genital stages is that the ego is established in the latter; the person's concern shifts from primary-drive gratification (instinct) to applying secondary process-thinking to gratify desire symbolically and
intellectually
In the study of the human mind, intellect refers to, describes, and identifies the ability of the human mind to reach correct conclusions about what is true and what is false in reality; and how to solve problems. Derived from the Ancient Gree ...
by means of friendships, a love relationship, family and adult responsibility.
Criticisms
Scientific
A usual criticism of the scientific (
experimental
An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when ...
) validity of the
Freudian psychology
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might be ...
theory of human psychosexual development is that
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...
was personally
fixated upon
human sexuality
Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied ...
; therefore, he favored defining
human development Human development may refer to:
* Development of the human body
* Developmental psychology
* Human development (economics)
* Human Development Index, an index used to rank countries by level of human development
* Human evolution, the prehistoric ...
with a
normative
Normative generally means relating to an evaluative standard. Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good, desirable, or permissible, and others as bad, undesirable, or impermissible. A norm in ...
theory of psychologic and sexual development.
[Frank Cioffi (2005) "Sigmund Freud" entry ''The Oxford Guide to Philosophy'' Oxford University Press:New York pp. 323–324] The
phallic stage
In Freudian psychoanalysis, the phallic stage is the third stage of psychosexual development, spanning the ages of three to six years, wherein the infant's libido (desire) centers upon their genitalia as the erogenous zone. When children become ...
proved more complex, as it drew on clinical observations that Freud interpreted as supporting the
Oedipus complex
The Oedipus complex (also spelled Œdipus complex) is an idea in psychoanalytic theory. The complex is an ostensibly universal phase in the life of a young boy in which, to try to immediately satisfy basic desires, he unconsciously wishes to have ...
.
In ''Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-year-old Boy'' (1909), Freud presented a case study of the boy "
Little Hans
Herbert Graf (10 April 1903 – 5 April 1973) was an Austrian-American opera producer. Born in Vienna in 1903, he was the son of Max Graf (1873–1958), and Olga Hönig. His father was an Austrian author, critic, musicologist and member of Sig ...
" (Herbert Graf, 1903–73) who had a
fear of horses, as well as fear of his father. Freud posited that these two fears were related, and derived from both external factors such as the birth of his sister, and internal factors like an Oedipal desire to replace father as companion to mother, as well as
guilt
Guilt may refer to:
*Guilt (emotion), an emotion that occurs when a person feels that they have violated a moral standard
*Culpability, a legal term
*Guilt (law), a legal term
Music
*Guilt (album), ''Guilt'' (album), a 2009 album by Mims
*Guilt ( ...
for enjoying the
masturbation
Masturbation is the sexual stimulation of one's own genitals for sexual arousal or other sexual pleasure, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation may involve hands, fingers, everyday objects, sex toys such as vibrators, or combinatio ...
normal to a boy of his age. Hans expressed a wish to procreate with mother, which Freud considered proof that he desired her sexually. Hans did not, however, see a connection between his fears, and it was Freud who concluded that they both resulted from Hans feeling intimidated by the presence of a penis much larger than his own. Freud further stated that "Hans had to be told many things that he could not say himself," and that "he had to be presented with thoughts, which he had, so far, shown no signs of possessing".
Freud also stated that his patients commonly had memories and fantasies of childhood seduction. Many critics hold that these were much more likely to have been constructs which Freud created and forced upon his patients.
[Crews, F. C. (2006). ''Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays.'' Shoemaker & Hoard. .] According to
Frederick Crews
Frederick Campbell Crews (born 20 February 1933) is an American essayist and literary critic. Professor emeritus of English at the University of California, Berkeley, Crews is the author of numerous books, including ''The Tragedy of Manners: M ...
, the seduction theory that Freud abandoned in the late 1890s acted as a precedent to the wave of
false allegations of childhood sexual abuse
A false allegation of child sexual abuse is an accusation against one or more individuals claiming that they committed child sexual abuse when no abuse has been committed by the accused. Such accusations can be brought by the alleged victim, or by ...
in the 1980s and 1990s.
Feminist
Contemporaneously, Sigmund Freud's psychosexual development theory is criticized as
sexist
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers primaril ...
and
phallocentric Phallocentrism is the ideology that the phallus, or male sexual organ, is the central element in the organization of the social world. Phallocentrism has been analyzed in literary criticism, psychoanalysis and psychology, linguistics, medicine and h ...
,
because it was informed with his introspection (self-analysis). To integrate the female
libido
Libido (; colloquial: sex drive) is a person's overall sexual drive or desire for sexual activity. Libido is influenced by biological, psychological, and social factors. Biologically, the sex hormones and associated neurotransmitters that act up ...
(sexual desire) to psychosexual development, he proposed that girls develop "
penis envy
Penis envy (german: Penisneid) is a stage theorized by Sigmund Freud regarding female psychosexual development, in which young girls experience anxiety upon realization that they do not have a penis. Freud considered this realization a defining m ...
".
In response, the German
Neo-Freudian
Neo-Freudianism is a Psychoanalytic theory, psychoanalytic approach derived from the influence of Sigmund Freud but extending his theories towards typically social or cultural aspects of psychoanalysis over the biological.
The neo-Freudian School ...
psychoanalyst
Karen Horney
Karen Horney (; ; 16 September 1885 – 4 December 1952) was a German psychoanalyst who practised in the United States during her later career. Her theories questioned some traditional Freudian views. This was particularly true of her theories of ...
, counter-proposed that girls instead develop "
Power envy", rather than penis envy. She further proposed the concept of "
womb and vagina envy
In psychology, womb envy denotes the envy that men may feel of the biological functions of the female (pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding). The Neo-Freudianism, neo-Freudian psychiatrist Karen Horney (1885–1952) proposed this as an innate mal ...
", the male's envy of the female ability to bear children; yet, contemporary formulations further develop said envy from the biologic (child-bearing) to the psychologic (nurturance), envy of women's perceived right to be the kind parent.
Anthropologic
![Wmalinowski trobriand isles 1918](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Wmalinowski_trobriand_isles_1918.jpg)
Contemporary criticism also questions the universality of the
Freudian
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...
theory of personality (id, ego, super-ego) discussed in the essay ''
On Narcissism
''On Narcissism'' (german: Zur Einführung des Narzißmus) is a 1914 essay by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis.
In the paper, Freud sums up his earlier discussions on the subject of narcissism and considers its place in sexual develop ...
'' (1914), wherein he said that "it is impossible to suppose that a unity, comparable to the ego can exist in the individual from the very start". Contemporary cultural considerations have questioned the normative presumptions of the Freudian psychodynamic perspective that posits the son–father conflict of the
Oedipal complex
The Oedipus complex (also spelled Œdipus complex) is an idea in psychoanalytic theory. The complex is an ostensibly universal phase in the life of a young boy in which, to try to immediately satisfy basic desires, he unconsciously wishes to have ...
as universal and essential to human psychologic development.
The anthropologist
Bronisław Malinowski
Bronisław Kasper Malinowski (; 7 April 1884 – 16 May 1942) was a Polish-British anthropologist and ethnologist whose writings on ethnography, social theory, and field research have exerted a lasting influence on the discipline of anthropol ...
's studies of the
Trobriand islanders
The people of the Trobriand Islands are mostly subsistence farming, subsistence Horticulture, horticulturalists who live in traditional settlements. The social structure is based on matrilineal clans that control land and resources. People particip ...
challenged the Freudian proposal that psychosexual development (e.g. the Oedipus complex) was universal. He reported that in the insular matriarchal society of the Trobriand, boys are disciplined by their maternal uncles, not their fathers (impartial, avuncular discipline). In ''
Sex and Repression in Savage Society
''Sex and Repression in Savage Society'' is a 1927 book by anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski. It is considered "a famous critique of psychoanalysis, arguing that the 'Oedipus complex' described by Freud is not universal."Connell, R. W. (200 ...
'' (1927), Malinowski reported that boys dreamed of feared uncles, not of beloved fathers, thus,
power
Power most often refers to:
* Power (physics), meaning "rate of doing work"
** Engine power, the power put out by an engine
** Electric power
* Power (social and political), the ability to influence people or events
** Abusive power
Power may a ...
– not sexual jealousy – is the source of Oedipal conflict in such non–Western societies. In ''Human Behavior in Global Perspective: an Introduction to Cross-Cultural Psychology'' (1999), Marshall H. Segall et al. propose that Freud based the theory of psychosexual development upon a misinterpretation.
Furthermore, contemporary research confirms that although personality traits corresponding to the oral stage, the anal stage, the phallic stage, the latent stage, and the genital stage are observable, they remain undetermined as fixed stages of childhood, and as adult personality traits derived from childhood.
See also
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Psychosexual Development
Developmental stage theories
Freudian psychology