According to Freud, sexual drive, along with aggression, is the central factor in determining the personalities of human beings and the main driving force that gives reason to, and influences what we do and who we become. He asserts that if each psycho- sexual–oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital – stage is not resolved, fixation at that particular stage, and thereafter personality and behavioural problems might occur in latter life. More importantly, infantile sexuality, which encompasses the first three stages, is said to play an imperative role in the shaping the personalities of adults. Freud believes that while boys and girls would progress similarly during the earlier oral and anal stages, it is at the phallic stage where complications in undergoing a two-fold change in sexual object and leading sexual organ might make it more difficult for girls to progress through this stage, if at all. His work experiences dealing with neurotic women has also led him to proclaim that, “Now will you have escaped worrying over this problem – those of you of are men; to those of you who are women this will not apply – you are yourselves the problem”.[1] He believes that women’s constant need for attention and attention from their parents -and in later life, their husbands- leads them to have illnesses, which “are the result of intentions”[2], albeit unconsciously. His cure for such hysteria is through psychoanalysing the patient and convincing the patient of this ‘fact’. …show more content…
However, she is also equally guilty of making similar mistakes as her own criticisms are based upon and reflective of a shallow and selective reading of Freud’s own
Freud starts his report by informing the readers of the incompleteness of his analysis and preparing them for a fragmented case. He admits that though the two dreams of Dora were recorded immediately after his session, “the case history itself was only committed to writing from memory, after the treatment was at an end […] thus the record is not absolutely – phonographically - exact” (4). Already, it becomes clear that the case will be based off of potentially invalid information. Freud attempts to defend this cause of skepticism by stating that the recollection remained fresh and heightened in his mind by his personal interest in the case (4). Freud clearly recognizes the opportunity for criticism due to the lack of information and accompanying lack of validity in his arguments, but he’s more intent on completing the report and proving his sexual desire and dream interpretat...
Despite the fact that Bennett made great strides for the improvement of patient treatment in asylums, she faced brutal attacks from people who legitimately disagreed with her opinion of surgery as well as people that refused to accept women in the study of psychiatry (543-544). Sigmund Freud is an excellent example of a male authority taking charge of a subject that he does not understand. Although Freud is largely recognized as a prestigious man of psychoanalysis, he had many outlandish ideas towards women, and he admitted to not understanding the complexities surrounding women. He clung to gender stereotypes and depicted the female as an inferior being, eternally jealous of men (Lax 394). The weak and incapable portrayal of female in Freud’s psychoanalytical theories reflects the ability of women to enter this new study of psychology.
The oral stage takes place from birth until age 1, which involves the infant’s mouth as the focus of gratification derived from the pleasure of oral exploration of his or her environment and receiving primary nourishment from one’s mother’s breast. In addition to this, the anal phase takes place from age 1 until age 3, which involves the infant’s more erotic zone changing from the mouth to the anus. Finally, the phallic stage takes place from age 3 until age 6, which involves the child’s genitalia becoming his or her primary aphrodisiacal zone. It is in this third infantile development stage that children become aware of their bodies and the bodies of others. They gratify physical curiosity by undressing and exploring each other and their genitals, and so learn the physical and sexual differences between genders. These stages reflect base levels of desire, but they also involve fear of loss and mistreatment. To keep all of this conflict buried in one’s unconscious, Freud argued that one develops defenses: selective perception, selective memory, denial, displacement, projection, regression, fear of intimacy, and fear of death, among
Through case study, the psychodynamic approach was developed by Sigmund Freud. Freud visited Charcot’s, a laboratory in Paris investigating people suffering from hysteria. There, Freud began patient case studies (Crain, p. 254). Freud developed 5 stages of human development known as the Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency and Genital stages. The Oral stage is from the ages of birth to 18 months. This stage engages in oral activities such as sucking. Next the Anal stage begins around age 18 months to 3 years of age. Freud suggests that during the Anal stage a child focuses on the pleasure of purging from the rectal area. The Phallic stages, none as the masturbation stage, when a child get’s pleasure from focusing on his genital areas usually happens during ages 3 years to 6 years of age. After the Phallic stage come the Latency stages. Latency is when children at the ages of 6 to 12 years old work to develop cognitive and interpersonal skills suppressing sexual interests but those 12 years and older fall into the Genital stages. During the Genital stage those suppressed sexual interests re-occur and the need to find gratification dependent on finding a partner (Craig & Dunn, p 12)
Freud believed that one’s sex instinct was the most determining factor of his or her personality; however, instead of relating sex to the mature class of humanity, he instead targeted infants and children (4). He generated a process of psychosexual stages in which each stage focuses in on a sensual body part and a corresponding time period in life (4). The stages are as followed, starting from birth: Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, Genital (4). Furthermore, each stage comes with its own conflict that arises when one is in this stage. He correlates that if this conflict is not solved during the set period of time, it can cause a fixation, thus bringing on personality traits in their adulthood relating back to that certain stage (4). For example, for one who is in the Anal stage (1 to 3 years) the conflict is toilet training. If the child remains too long or too briefly in this stage, later on in the future they could be more excessively cleanly or even destructive and rebellious (4). Perhaps the stage that was targeted with the most criticism, was the Phallic Stage or the Genitals stage occurring from 3 to 5 or 6 years (4). This stage mainly declared that young boys are more drawn to their mother and become more hostile towards their fathers, hinting to the underlying ideas that the young boys are sexually drawn to their mother. In a vice versa scenario,
Psychoanalytic Theory itself has, what seems to be, two contradictory halves: Freudian psychoanalysis and Lacanian psychoanalysis. The first half focuses solely on the author and the unconscious mind; the second considers the unconscious, but prefers to concentrate on outside influences by deconstructing the text itself. According to Freud, interpretation is achieved by examining conflicts and symbols, such as Freudian slips and dream images. These outlets are help to determine whether an individual’s external behavior coincides (or conflicts) with their internal emotion. Freud placed emphasis on sexuality and the Oedipus complex, which is the idea of repressed sexual feelings toward a parent of opposite sex. He also defined three levels of the subconscious mind: the ego, the super-ego, and the id. Barry explains that the stages align with “the consciousness, the conscience, and the unconscious” respectively (93). On the other hand, Lacan, a follower of Freud, concentrated on the relationship between an author and his or her work. He claimed the two were inexorably connected, that objectivity is nonexistent. In an essence: an author’s personality is used to interpret the text and, in contrast, the text is used to gain insight about the author. Regardless of the emphasis, psychoanalytic criticism engages an
Freud emphasized that early childhood experiences are important to the development of the adult personality, proposing that childhood development took place over five stages; oral, anal. Phallic, latent and genital. The phallic stage is the most important stage which contains the Oedipus complex. This is where the child (age 4 - 6 yrs) posses the opposite sex parent and wants rid of the same sex parent. Freud argued that if the conflict is not resolved in childhood then it could cau...
One of Freud’s major research accomplishments was his findings on infant sexuality also known as the Psychosexual Stages. The first stage is the oral stage which is 0-1 years of age. This is the stage where sensual/sexual life begins, in the form of sucking the thumb, biting, and breast suck...
Among those individuals that do not progress in the proper way into the genital phase, can still be playing out the psychodrama in various displaced, abnormal, or exaggerated ways. Primal desires of course can be quickly repressed but even among the mentally sane they could always rise again in dreams and in literature. The most critical conflict that the child must successfully resolve. healthy personality and sexual development and this all occurs during... ...
Sigmund Freud proposed a theory of psychoanalytic development; he stated that early childhood experiences and practices affect later development in adulthood. Freud’s stages of psychosexual development comprised of five stages: the oral stage (0 – 1 year), the anal stage (1 – 3 years), the phallic stage (3 – 6 years), the latency period (6 – puberty) and the genital stage (puberty –
Sigmund Freud developed the psychosexual stages of development to describe the chronological process of development that took place from birth through later adulthood. The stages of psychosexual are oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital. Freud developed that as children grow they progress from self-pleasing sexual activity to reproductive activity. Through this developmental process one will develop adult personality. Freud put much emphasis on sexual context of how ones libido, which is one sexual desires played a role in each stage of development. Freud emphasizes that individuals will strive to obtain pleasures in each stage of development, which becomes the basis of ones personality.
The aim of this essay is to clarify the basic principles of Freud’s theories and to raise the main issues.
From a Freudian perspective, human development is based on psychosexual theory (Wedding & Corsini, 2014). Psychosexual theory indicates that maturation of the sex drives underlies stages of personality development (Shaffer et al., 2010). It was Freud’s perspective that there are three components of personality (the id, ego, and superego) that become integrated into his five stage theoretical model. The id was the biological or drive component that is innate from birth. The sole purpose of the Id is satiate an individual’s internal drives (Wedding & Corsini, 2014). The ego is the conscious portion of our personality that mediates between our id and superego. Throughout development the ego reflects the child’s emerging ability to...
Freud believed that humans develop through stages based on particular erogenous zones. Freud theorized that to gain a healthy personality as an adult, a person would have to successfully complete a certain sequence of five stages. Within the five stages of Freud’s psychosexual development theory, Freud assumed there would be major consequences if any stage was not completed successfully. The stages, in order, were the oral stage, the anal stage, the phallic stage, the latency stage, and the genital stage. In general, Freud believed that an unsuccessful completion of any stage would make a person become fixated on that particular stage. The outcome would lead the person to either over indulge or under indulge the failed stage during adulthood. Freud truly believed that the outcomes of the psychosexual stages played a major part in the development of the human personality. Eventually, these outcomes would become different driving forces in every human being’s personality. The driving forces would determine how a person would interact with the world around them. The results from Freud’s theory about the stages of psychosexual development led Freud to create the concept of the human psyche; Freud’s biggest contribution to
The theory does a good job at delineating the stages of psychosexual development; our childhood has a great influence on our personalities. Referring to Freud’s ‘psychosexual stages’, it is very clear that parents’ role in an infant’s life is the foremost step to structure the personality. Not to forget, the oral and anal stages are focal fundamental to character traits in a person’s behavior. The inner ‘instincts’ of sexuality and aggression meeting with the socially acceptable norms creates a conflict zone, wherein it is decided what we are to do and what we would become.