Question

Exercise 1: Freud's Psychosexual Stages of Development - This assignment is designed to assess the viability of Freud's theory regarding the Psychosexual Stages of Development.

Complete the table by describing what occurs in Freud's Oral, Anal, and Phallic stages of Psychosexual development, as well as providing real-life examples of a fixation in adult life for each stage.

This assignment is worth 25pts.

Stage	Description (3 pts each)	Fixation Example in Adult Life (5 pts each)
Oral Stage
Anal Stage
Phallic Stage

Answer 1

• Freud (1905) proposed that psychological development in childhood takes place in a series of fixed psychosexual stages: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital.
• Fixation refers to the theoretical notion that a portion of the individual's libido has been permanently 'invested' in a particular stage of his development. It is assumed that some libido is permanently invested in each psychosexual stage and thus each person will behave in some ways that are characteristic of infancy, or early childhood.
• In the first stage of personality development, the libido is centered in a baby's mouth. It gets much satisfaction from putting all sorts of things in its mouth to satisfy the libido, and thus its id demands. Which at this stage in life are oral, or mouth orientated, such as sucking, biting, and breastfeeding.
• Freud said oral stimulation could lead to an oral fixation in later life. We see oral personalities all around us such as smokers, nail-biters, finger-chewers, and thumb suckers in adults. Oral personalities engage in such oral behaviors, particularly when under stress.
• Anal stage:-The libido now becomes focused on the anus, and the child derives great pleasure from defecating. The child is now fully aware that they are a person in their own right and that their wishes can bring them into conflict with the demands of the outside world (i.e., their ego has developed).
  
• Freud believed that this type of conflict tends to come to a head in potty training, in which adults impose restrictions on when and where the child can defecate. The nature of this first conflict with authority can determine the child's future relationship with all forms of authority.
• Early or harsh potty training can lead to the child becoming an anal-retentive personality who hates mess, is obsessively tidy, punctual and respectful of authority. They can be stubborn and tight-fisted with their cash and possessions.
• The anal expulsive, on the other hand, underwent a liberal toilet-training regime during the anal stage. In adulthood, the anal expulsive is the person who wants to share things with you. They like giving things away.
• Phallic stage:-Sensitivity now becomes concentrated in the genitals .The child becomes aware of anatomical sex differences, which sets in motion the conflict between erotic attraction, resentment, rivalry, jealousy and fear which Freud called the Oedipus complex (in boys) and the Electra complex (in girls).
• This is resolved through the process of identification, which involves the child adopting the characteristics of the same sex parent.
• 
  In the young boy, the Oedipus complex or more correctly, conflict, arises because the boy develops sexual (pleasurable) desires for his mother. He wants to possess his mother exclusively and get rid of his father to enable him to do so.
• Irrationally, the boy thinks that if his father were to find out about all this, his father would take away what he loves the most. During the phallic stage what the boy loves most is his penis. Hence the boy develops castration anxiety.
• The little boy then sets out to resolve this problem by imitating, copying and joining in masculine dad-type behaviors. This is called identification, and is how the three-to-five year old boy resolves his Oedipus complex.
• Identification means internally adopting the values, attitudes, and behaviors of another person. The consequence of this is that the boy takes on the male gender role, and adopts an ego ideal and values that become the superego.
• For girls, the Oedipus or Electra complex is less than satisfactory. Briefly, the girl desires the father, but realizes that she does not have the same male genital organ.  
• The girl resolves this by repressing her desire for her father and substituting the wish for a male genital organ with the wish for a baby. The girl blames her mother for her 'castrated state,' and this creates great tension. The girl then represses her feelings (to remove the tension) and identifies with the mother to take on the female gender role.
• Latency Stage :-No further psychosexual development takes place during this stage. The libido is dormant. Freud thought that most sexual impulses are repressed during the latent stage, and sexual energy can be sublimated towards school work, hobbies, and friendships.
• Much of the child's energy is channeled into developing new skills and acquiring new knowledge, and play becomes largely confined to other children of the same gender.
• As with the other psychosexual stages, Freud believed that it was possible for children to become fixated or "stuck" in this phase. Fixation at this stage can result in immaturity and an inability to form fulfilling relationships as an adult.
• Genital stage:-
• This is the last stage of Freud's psychosexual theory of personality development and begins in puberty. It is a time of adolescent sexual experimentation, the successful resolution of which is settling down in a loving one-to-one relationship with another person in our 20's. Sexual instinct is directed to heterosexual pleasure, rather than self-pleasure like during the phallic stage.
• For Freud, the proper outlet of the sexual instinct in adults was through heterosexual intercourse. Fixation and conflict may prevent this with the consequence that sexual perversions may develop.
• For example, fixation at the oral stage may result in a person gaining sexual pleasure primarily from kissing and oral sex, rather than sexual intercourse.