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Critical Analysis of Freud’s Psychosexual Development
Although Freud’s Psychosexual Development is not highly used in today’s society, it was thought to be highly educated and knowledgeable when Freud first introduced this theory. Psychosexual development is biological and the predictor of the occurrence of certain behaviours. There are a total of five stages in psychosexual development including: oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital. Proper development should occur unless individuals suffer from traumatic experiences that prevent the libidinal energy from being satisfied. Libidinal energy stems from sexual impulses. If the individual happens to suffer a traumatic experience at a specific stage they become fixated in that stage. Once an individual becomes fixated at a certain stage they develop certain character types that are the result of their fixation (Ryckman, 2013). Monica Geller-Bing, a character from the popular television series F.r.i.e.n.d.s. is fixated in the anal stage of Freud’s psychosexual development. The stages of psychosexual development will be analyzed, criticized and used to interpret Monica Geller-Bing.
Psychosexual Development
The first stage of psychosexual development begins at birth and continues until the age of one and a half. The erogenous zone of this stage is the mouth in which is satisfied by food and water. Too much or too little attention to the infant can cause problems for then. There are two types of character types that result from individuals whom are fixated at the oral stage; oral receptive character and oral aggressive character. The oral receptive character is from too much attention, they become dependent on others for the fulfillment of their needs. In contrast, the oral aggressi...

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...nal stage due to the difficulty she had with toilet training. The show does flashbacks from when she was a teenager but it does not display her issues in infancy and childhood. Therefore, Monica’s character and personality traits could be a result from something else other than toilet training. Given that one can not assume that Monica’s traits are a result of toilet training there could potentially be other aspects that lead individuals to be fixated in the anal stage and develop anal characteristics. This displays a potential flaw in Freud’s psychosexual development. The anal fixation that develops certain character traits perfectly fits to Courtney Cox portrayal of Monica Geller-Bing. Analyzing characters from novels, television shows and movies through personality theories allows individuals to fully connect to characters and understand them to the next degree.

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