Psychodynamic Content

For this section you need to be able to: a Describe and evaluate Freud’s theory of psychosexual development, including the five stages of development, the Oedipus complex, and the parts of personality associated with the first three stages, and including focusing on the explanation of gender development/behaviour. b Describe defence mechanisms including repression, and one other. Suitable examples: displacement, denial, projection and regression. c Evaluate Freud’s theory as an explanation of gender development/behaviour, including comparison with explanations from the Biological and Learning Approaches.

Freud believed that children pass through five stages of development, known as the psychosexual stages because of Freud’s emphasis on sexuality as the basic drive in development. These stages are: the oral stage, the anal stage, the phallic stage, the latency period and finally the genital stage.

He believed that children have sexual experiences and are capable of sexual pleasure (or gratification). This sexual pleasure is not thought to be the same as that of mature adults, but is derived from stimulation of any part of the body. During each stage, this pleasure is thought to be derived from a different organ of the body (or erogenous zone), depending where the libido (sexual energy) is directed during that stage. The sequence of these stages is biologically programmed, so children will always follow the same stages in the same order. Differences in satisfying the sexual urges at each stage will inevitably lead to differences in adult personality.

Problems occurring in any of these stages can lead people to become psychologically ‘stuck’ or fixated in that stage due to a trapping of unconscious energies. These issues will therefore manifest in adulthood as mental health problems.

Oral Stage: 0 – 1 years
The Erogenous zone is the mouth – nerve endings in the mouth and lips are highly sensitive at this stage. The child will be completely id driven and seeks constant and immediate gratification of its basic needs (food and comfort) through responsive nursing from the mother. The focus of all its attention is around the mouth, i.e. through breast or bottle feeding and crying. It will also be weaning on to solid food. Oral behaviours include; feeding, mouth movement, teething, sucking, biting, swallowing. Children see the mother feeding them as a representation of love. Children learn about their environment through their mouths, hence the reason why young children tend to put everything in their mouth. Insufficient or forceful feeding in this stage could both lead to fixation. Adult consequences of fixation include smoking, nail biting, chewing of pens, gum etc or overeating or vomiting gullibility, verbal hostility and sarcasm.

Anal Stage: 1 – 3 years
Erogenous zone shifts to the anus. The child will be starting to assert some independence of action, beginning to be potty trained by its parents and realising they have some control over their biological functions which they gain pleasure or displeasure from (praised when dry, told off for ‘accidents’.) e.g. Being asked to ‘hold-on’ when on a car journey. The child will withhold or expel bowel movements, pre-occupation with ‘messy play’ e.g. mud pies and sandpit. By randomly eliminating faeces, as the id would want, the child comes into conflict with the parents as they are trying to train the child. But resisting the urge to defecate means denying the id, which until now has been the main motivating source. This is where the ego develops to balance the conflict between the wants of the Id, and the parents’ wishes. These early ‘authority’ struggles are crucial in determining future adult relationships with authority. Adult Consequence of fixation include anal-expulsive personality – messy, disorganised, reckless, careless and defiant and anal-retentive personality – careful, ‘tight’ with money, obsessively tidy, meticulous, conforming and passive-aggressive.

Phallic Stage: 3 – 5/6 years
The genitals, although not in the same way as it is experienced by adults, become the main erogenous zones. The child becomes aware of gender differences between the sexes, attracted to the opposite sex parent; and starts to engage in gender specific play. The child practices genital exploration and masturbation/fondling, ‘showing’ games. The child becomes interested in their own genitals, and the anatomical differences between males and females. This interest marks the start of the Oedipus/Electra complexes in children, which is the main source of conflict in this stage as the child will also show fear and envy of the same sex parent, often demonstrating possessive behaviour with the opposite sex parent.Failure to successfully resolve these 2 conflicts in this stage can have negative effects on personality development because the development of the superego and gender appropriate behaviour (learning how to be a boy or a girl) is reliant on the conflict being resolved successfully so that the child identifies with the same sex parent. Adult Consequences or fixations for men include anxiety and guilty feelings about sex; fear of castration, and narcissistic personality (loving yourself). For women – It has been suggested by Freud that women never really progress past this stage fully, and that they always maintain a sense of inferiority and envy.

Latency Stage/Period: 5/6 years – puberty
During this period the child’s energy is directed away from the earlier sexual preoccupations of the initial stages, as all of the unacceptable thoughts and feelings, such as desire towards the parents, are repressed. Past conflicts should now have been resolved and the child is ready to move on to developing in other areas. All of the child’s energy is now put into developing new skills and acquiring knowledge, so education and developing social skills with peers becomes the focus. There are no particular erogenous zones for the child at this stage, and it is not thought that people can become fixated in this stage of development.

Genital Stage: Puberty onwards
During this stage the main erogenous zones are the genitals, but this time in terms of adult expression of sexuality. The child will become interested in opposite sex relationships after the latency stage, and be developing emergent feelings for physical sexual satisfaction. The child will practice masturbation and adult based sexual relationships i.e. interest in pornography and sexual exploration with others. With the onset of puberty, the earlier sexual drives re-emerge in the form of heterosexual desires assuming that earlier conflicts have been resolved, so this is the stage where important personal relationships start to develop with members of the opposite sex. Freud also believed that symbolic forms of sexual expression were also important, such as developing loving relationships. This stage is not thought to cause fixation – any difficulties that are experienced are thought to result from damage done in the earlier stages.

Oedipus Complex
The phallic stage, from three to five years old was the stage where the child’s sexual identification was established. During this stage Freud hypothesised that a young boy would experience what he called the Oedipus complex. This would provide the child with highly disturbing conflicts, which had to be resolved by the child identifying with the same-sexed parent.

Freud thought that, during the phallic stage, the young boy develops an intense sexual love for his mother. Because of this, he sees his father as a rival, and wants to get rid of him. The father, however, is far bigger and more powerful than the young boy, and so the child develops a fear that, seeing him as a rival, his father will castrate him. Because it is impossible to live with the continual castration-threat anxiety provided by this conflict, the young boy develops a mechanism for coping with it, using a defence mechanism known as ‘identification with the aggressor’. He stresses all the ways that he is similar to his father, adopting his father’s attitudes, mannerisms and actions, feeling that if his father sees him as similar, he will not feel hostile towards him.

Electra complex

According to Freud, girls start with the belief that they have already been castrated because they do not have a penis.  The young girl blames her mother for this and transfers her desires to her father.  She realises she cannot have a penis so substitutes this wish with the wish to have a baby with her father.  This puts her into conflict with her mother and she is fearful of losing her mother’s love.

To resolve the conflict and get rid of the fear she identifies with her mother and internalises her gender behaviour and moral code. Freud said that women would be morally inferior as their desire to identify with their mothers was driven by a less fearful consequence than for boys so girls have a weaker super-ego.

Defence mechanisms are strategies that are used to protect the ego (our rational conscious mind) from an imaginary threat. Although all defence mechanisms can distort reality, according to Freud we all use some of them at some time as they are a way of avoiding unwanted information ourselves or the outside world. Work on defence mechanisms was developed by Sigmund Freud’s daughter Anna Freud. Below are some examples of defence mechanisms

Repression is when an individual keeps anxiety proving thoughts out of their conscious awareness possibly as of way of coping.

Projection involves attributing one’s own unconscious motives on to another individual (or situation). For example, a person who has not come to terms with their own sexual drives may come to believe that other people engage in strange sexual practices.

Denial is when the individual does not acknowledge the existence of a threat.

Displacement is when an individual redirects thoughts and feelings from something which causes anxiety to a safer more acceptable one. For example being annoyed with your teacher and taking it out on a friend.

Evaluation of Freud’s psychosexual stages theory and gender explanation