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Strengths and weaknesses of Freud's psychosexual development theory
Strengths and weaknesses of Freud's psychosexual development theory
Strengths and weaknesses of Freud's psychosexual development theory
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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.
Freud states that women feminism are similar to the male that both causes a problem between language and the boundaries in expression. According to these problems it heavily reflects womens position in the patriarchal society. Freud is able to discuss many different varieties of the male and female role. He begins with the female infatuation to be masculine is ego-syntonic. This phase is called ‘phallic’. The clash between both female and male wanting to gain the upper hand. The motive source of sexual life is called the
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
Numerous advances led to Sigmund Freud’s inspirational Stages of Psychosexual Development, and it was Freud that introduced a clear theory explaining the process by which infants develop into adults. The transition from the Oral, Anal and Phallic stages begins to help us understand some of the processes that might lead to understanding attachment issues. Freud argued that humans are born “polymorphously perverse,” the idea that any number of objects could be a source of pleasure. While relief from stress observed in a child might be interpreted as simply the absence of emotional pain, on a deeper level, re-attachment and physical closeness to a caregiver after prolonged separation should result in a pleasurable experience. Setting aside for the moment the sexual aspects of Freud’s theory, the basis of his premise remains one of the human connection that is gained through some form of physical contact, be it obtained from others or themselves. (Stevenson, 2001)
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)
Personality-This are characteristically patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that makes a person to be unique from other individuals. It mainly consists of who you are, who you have been and what you will become. There are a number of different theories that have emerged to explain different aspects of personality. Some focus on explaining how personality develops while others focus on individual differences in personality. According to Freud, the mind is divided into the conscious mind which is composed of all things we are aware of and the unconscious mind which has things we are not aware of. He also goes on and divides the human personality into: the identity, Ago and the superego. He terms the Identity as the most primitive part and it’s the source of all the basic wants. It is generally unconscious and hence serves as the main source of libidinal energy. Ego component focuses on reality matters and ensures satisfaction of the identity in a realistic manner that is safe and socially accepted. The superego component holds internalized behavior and standards we learn from the surrounding environment like our parents and society. Freud came up with four stages of psychosexuality: Oral, Anal, Phallic and Genital. At each stage different parts of the body are able to produce pleasure hence they serve as the main source of pleasure, frustration and self-expression. If at all a conflict remains unresolved at any particular stage, the individual might remain fixated at that particular point of development. A fixation can involve an overdependence or obsession with something related to that phase of development. When a person is considered to have oral fixation is one who stuck in the oral stage of development him/her posse’s...
From a psychoanalytic perspective, one could say that these issues stemmed from the anal psychosexual stage of her infancy (between 1 and 3 years of age) (3). Robert even comments, "you strike me as a woman that won 't do anything she doesn 't want to do" (4). The phrase "anal retentive", comes from Freud theory that if a child that experiences a conflict in the anal psychosexual stage, then they may develope personality traits that are aqauinted with a child 's efforts dealing with using the bathroom. These traits being: being methodical, stubbornness, and being controlling.
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...
Freud emphasizes on the life history of individuals. As a result, he created 3 parts of human personalities. The first one being Id which is the largest portion of the mind. This portion is unconscious which results in being present at birth. The next one is ego; this portion is conscious and begins to emerge in early infancy. Lastly is superego which is the conscience. This part begins to develop from ages three to six. Freud also explains the five psychosexual stages which are oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. “Psychoanalytic theory suggested that personality is mostly established by the age of five.” (Cherry, n.d.). All five psychosexual stages help establish a personality at a young age.
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.
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...
Adopting a mixed method required a precise exercise for selecting groups of respondents used for the quantitative and qualitative portion of the research. As established the questionnaire based on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions was administered to 273 undergraduates students inside a university in Southern Guangdong province of China. Subsequent factions were selected inside the same institution with a strict criterion regarding the age of the cluster, 100 employees composed of the personnel commissioned in multiple positions. To complete the collection supplemental candidates were selected inside Hallsmart Enterprise a Japan-China joint venture implicated in the fabrication and development of electrical appliances. The specific characteristics of the first group and the second group has been detailed in Appendix E with the particular information regarding their demographic and personal details relative to the study.
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.