Stages of Development
To Freud, the first 4 or 5 years of life, or the infantile stage, are the most crucial for
personality formation. This stage is followed by a 6- or 7g-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. Psychosexual development eventually culminates in maturity.
Oral Phase (0- 1.5 years of age)
Because the mouth is the first organ to provide an infant with pleasure, Infants obtain life-sustaining nourishment through the oral cavity, but beyond that, they also gain pleasure through the act of sucking.
During oral-receptive phase, infants feel no ambivalence toward the pleasurable object
and their needs are usually satisfied with a minimum of frustration and anxiety.
During the oral-sadistic period, infants respond to others through biting, cooing, closing their mouth, smiling, and crying.
Anal Phase (1.5 to 3 years of age)
This period is characterized by satisfaction gained through aggressive behavior and
through the excretory function, This phase is divided into two subphases, the early anal and the late anal.
During the early anal period, children receive satisfaction by destroying or losing
objects.
Then, when children enter the late anal period, they sometimes take a friendly interest toward their feces. If their behavior is accepted and praised by their parents, then children are likely to grow into generous and magnanimous adults. However, if their “gift” is rejected in a punitive fashion, children may adopt another method of obtaining anal
pleasure—withholding the feces until the pressure becomes both painful and erotically stimulating. This mode 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.
Phallic Phase (3-5 years of age)
At approximately 3 or 4 years of age, children begin a third stage of infantile
development— the phallic phase, a time when the genital area becomes the leading
erogenous zone Parallel Paths of the Simple Male and Female Phallic Phases
Male Phallic Phase
1. Oedipus complex (sexual desires for the mother/hostility for the father)
2. Castration complex in the form of castration anxiety shatters the Oedipus complex
3. Identification with the father Female Phallic Phase
4. Strong superego replaces the nearly
completely dissolved Oedipus
complex
Female Phallic Phase
1. Castration complex in the form of penis envy
2. Oedipus complex develops as an attempt to obtain a penis (sexual desires for the father; hostility for the mother)
3. Gradual realization that the Oedipal
desires are self-defeating
4. Identification with the mother
5. Weak superego replaces the partially
dissolved Oedipus complex
Latency Period (5-13 years of age)
Freud believed that, from the 4th or 5th year until puberty, both boys and girls usually, but not always, go through a period of dormant psychosexual development. This latency stage is brought about partly by parents’ attempts to punish or discourage sexual activity in their young children. If parental suppression is successful, children will repress their
sexual drive and direct their psychic energy toward school, friendships, hobbies, and
other nonsexual activities
Genital (12- adulthood)
Genital period has basic differences from the infantile period.
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 that the penis 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 drive takes on a more complete organization, and the component drives that had operated somewhat 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.
All tasks from the previous four stages are integrated into the mind allowing for the onset of healthy sexual feelings and behaviours.
Maturity
The genital period begins at puberty and continues throughout the individual’s lifetime.
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 developmental periods in an ideal manner.
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