: PSYCHO SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY

STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT

Although Freud had little first hand experience with children (including his own), his developmental theory is almost exclusively a discussion of early childhood. To Freud the first 4 or 5 years of life, or the infantile stage, are the most crucial for personality formation. This stage are the most crucial for personality formation. This stage is followed by a 6 or 7 year period of latency during which time little or no sexual growth takes place. Then at puberty, a renaissance of sexual life Occurs, and the genital stage is ushered in psycho sexual development eventually culminates in maturity.

Infantile Period 

One of Freud’s (1905 : 1953b, 1992 / 1961b) most important assumptions is that infants posses s sexual life and go through a period of pregenital sexual development during the first 4 or 5 years after birth. At the time Freud originally postulated the existence of infantile sexual, the concept, though not new, was met with some resistance. Today, however, nearly all aloes observes accept the idea that children delight in pleasure gained through the erogenous zones, show an interest in the genitals, and even manifest sexual excitement, childhood sexuality differs from adult sexuality in that it is not capable of reproduction and is exclusively autoerotic, with both children and (is not capable of reproduction and is ex) adults, however, the sexual instinct can be satisfied through organs other than the genitals. The mouth and anus are particularly sensitive to erogenous stimulation.

Freud 1917-1963 divided the infantic stage into the three phases according to which of the three primary erogenous zones is undergoing the most salient development. The oral phase begins first and is followed by the analphase and the phallic phase in that order. The three infantic stages overlap, with earlier phases continuing after the onset of later ones.

Oral Phase

Because the mouth is the first organ to provide on infant with pleasure, Freud’s first infantile stage of development is the oral phase, Infants obtain life sustaining nourishment through the oral cavity. But beyond that, they also gain pleasure through the act of sucking.

The sexual aim of early oral activity is to incorporate or receive one’s body the instinctual object choice that is the nipple. During this oral receptive phase, infants feel needs are usually satisfied with a minimum of frustration and anxiety. As they grow older, however, they are more likely to experience feelings, increased time lapses between feedings, and eventual weaning. These anxieties are generally accompanied by feelings of ambivalence toward their love object (mother) and by the increased ability of their budding ego the defend itself against the environment and against anxiety (Freud 1933-1964).

Infants defense against the environment is greatly aided by the emergence of teeth. At this point they pass into a second oral phase, which Freud called the oral sadistic period. During this phase, infants respond to others biting cooing, closing their mouth, smiling and crying. Their first autoerotic experience is thumb sucking, a defense against anxiety that satisfies their sexual but not their nutritional needs.

As children grow older, the mouth continues to be an erogenous zone, and by the time they become adults, they are capable of gratifying their oral needs in a variety of ways, including sucking candy, chewing gum, biting pencils, over rating, smoking cigarettes, pipes and cigars and making biting sarcastic remarks. 

Anal phase

The aggressive instinct, which during the first year of life takes the form of oral sadism, reaches a fuller development the second year when the anus emerges as a sexually pleasurable zone, because this period is characterized by satisfaction gained through aggressive behavior and through the excretory function. Freud called it the sadistic anal phase of development but current psychoanalysts simply refer to it as the anal phase. The phase is divided into two subphases the early anal and later anal.

During the early anal period, children receive satisfaction by destroying of iosing object. At this time, the destructive nature of the sadistic instinct is stronger than the erotic one and children often behave aggressively toward their parents for frustrating them with toiler training.

Then when children enter the late and period, they sometimes take a friendly interest toward their feces, on interest that stems from the erotic pleasure of defecating. Frequently children will present their feces to the parents as a valued prize if their behavior is accepted and praised by their parents, then children are likely to grow into generous and magnanimous adults. On the other hand if their “gift” is rejected in a punitive fashion. Children may adopt another method of obtaining anal pleasure with holding the feces until the pressure becomes both painful and erotically stimulating. This method of narcissistic and masochistic pleasure lays the foundation for the anal character people who continue to receive erotic satisfaction by keeping and possessing objects and by arranging them in an excessively neat and orderly fashion, Freud hypothesized that people who grow into and characters were, as children. Overly resistant to toilet training, often holding back their feces and prolonging the time of training beyond that usually required. This anal eroticism becomes transformed into the anal traid of orderliness, stinginess, and  obstinacy which typifies the adult anal character.

Not all the erotic impulses are transformed into these three adult character traits. Some are more completely repressed and emerge in the form of neurotic symptoms and others find expression during the pallic and genital periods of development.

During the oral and anal stages, no basic distinction exists between male and female psychosexual growth children of either gender can develop an active or a passive orientation. The active attitude often is characterized by what Freud considered the masculine qualities of dominance and sodism, whereas the passive orientation is usually marked by the feminine qualities of voyeurism and masochism. However, either orientation or any combination of the two can develop in both girls and boys.

Phallic Phase

At approximately 3 or 4 year of age, children begin in third stage of infantile development the phallic phase, a time when the genital area becomes the leading erogenous zone. This stage is marked for the first time by a dichotomy between male and female development, a disjunction that Freud believed to be due to the anatomical difference between the sexes, Freud took Napoleop’s remark that “History is destiny” and changed in to “Anatomy is destiny” this dictum underlies Freud’s belief that physical difference between males and females account for many important psychological differences.

Male Oedipus Complex  

Freud (1925 – 1916) believed that preceding the phallic stage on infant boy forms on identification with is father, that is he wants to be is father, later he develops a sexual desire for his mother that is he wants to be his father. These two wishes do not appear mutually contradictory to the underdeveloped ego, so they are able to exist side by side for a time, when the boy finally recognizes their inconsistency, he gives his identification with his father and retains the stronger feeling the desire to have his mother. They boy now sees his father as a rival for the mother’s love desire to away with his father and possess his mother in a sexual relationship. This condition of rivalry toward the father and in cestuous feelings toward the maher is known as the simple male Oedipus complex the term is taken from the greek tragedy by Sophocles in which Oslipus, king of Thebes, is destined by late to kill his father and marry is mother.

Female Oedipus complex :-

The phallic phase take a different and more complicated path is girls than the one it follows for boys. To understand it, we must realize that for girls the castration complex, which takes the form of penis envy, precedes the Oedipus complex. The opposite is true with boys, for whom the castration complex follows and breaks up the Oedipus complex.

Differences between boy’s and girl’s Oedipus complexes are due to anatomical differences between the sexes. Like boys, pre-oedipal girls as some that all other children have genitals similar to their own, soon they discover that boys not only possess different genital equipment, but apparently something extra girls then become envious of this appendage feel cheated and desire to have a penis. This experience of penis envy is a powerful foree in the formation of girls personality unlike castration anxiety in boys, which is quickly repressed, penis envy may last for year in one form or another, Freud believed that penis envy is often expressed as a wish to be a boy or a desire to have a man. Almost universally it is carried over into a wish to have a body, and eventually it may find expression in the act of giving birth to a  body, especially a boy.

Parallel paths of the simple male and female phallic phases

Male pallic phases	Female phallic phase
·        Oedipus complex (sexual desires for the mother / father)	·        Castration complex in the form of penis envy
·        Castration complex in the form of castration anxiety shatters the Oedipus complex	·        Oedipus complex develops as an attempt to obtain a penis
·        Identification with the father	·        Gradual realization that the oedipal desires are self defeating

Latency period :-

Freud believed that, from the 4^th or 5^th year until puberty, both boys and girls usually, but not always go through a period of dormant psychosexual or discourage  development. This latency stage is brought about partly by parent’s attempts to punish or discourage sexual activity in their young children. If parental suppression is successful, children will repress their sexual instinct and direct their psychic energy toward school work, friendship hobbies, and other nonsexual activities.

Continued latency is reinforced through constant suppression by parents and teachers and by internal feelings of shame, guilt, and morality. The sexual instinct of course, still exists during latency but its aim has been inhibited. The sublimated libido now shows itself  in social and cultural accomplishments. During this time children from groups or aliques, an impossibility during the infantile period when the sexual drive was completely autoerotic.

Genital period

Puberty signals or reawakening of the sexual aim and the beginning of the genital period. During puberty the diphasic sexual life of a person enters a second stage. Which has basic differences from the infantile period (Freud, 1923 – 1916b). First, adolescents give up autoeroticism and direct their sexual energy toward another person instead of toward themselves, second reproduction is now possible. Third although penis envy may continue to linger in girls, the vagina finally obtains the same status for them the male organ had for them during infancy, parallel to this, boys now see the female organ as a sought – after object rather than a source of trauma, fourth, the entire sexual instinct takes on a more complete organization, and the component instincts that had operated some what independently during the early infantile period gain a kind of synthesis during adolescence, thus the mouth, anus, and other pleasure – producing areas take an auxiliary position to the genitals, which now attain supremacy as an erogenous zone.

This synthesis of Eros, the elevated status of the female genital organ, the reproductive capacity of the life instinct and ability of people to direct their libido outward rather then onto the self represent the major distinctions between infantile and adult sexuality. In several other ways, however, Eros remains unchanged, If may continue to be repressed, sublimated or expressed in masturbation or other sexual acts. The subordinated erogenous zones also continue as vehicles of erotic pleasure the mouth, for example retains many of its infantile activities, a person may discontinue thumb sucking but may possible add smoking or prolonged kissing. 

Maturity

The genital period begins at puberty and continues throughout the individuals life time. It is a stage attained by everyone who reaches physical maturity. In addition to the genital stage, Freud alluded to but never fully conceptualized a period of psychological maturity, a stage attained after a person has passed through the earlier development periods in a ideal manner. Unfortunately, psychological maturity seldom happens, because people have too many opportunities to develop pathological disorders or neurotic predispositions.

References

1.      Balduin A, F personality structure of personality

2.      Theories of personality – Calvin S. Hall, Gardner Lindzey Thon B. Compbell.