2. Psychosexual stages
Freud‟s ideas about the development of
personality and its formation.
Innately determined stages through which we all
pass and strongly shape the nature of our
personality.
3. Libido and Fixation
Terms to know
Libido refers to the forces, mostly pleasure oriented,
that energises the personality, particularly the id.
Release of libido is closely related to pleasure, but
the focus and expression changes as we develop.
In each stage, we obtain different kinds of pleasure
and leave behind a small amount of our libido.
If an excessive amount of libido energy is tied to a
particular stage, however, fixation occurs.
4. Fixation
Can stem from too little or too much gratification
during the particular stage.
Because too much „psychic energy‟ is left behind,
less is available for full adult development.
Outcome = adult personality reflecting the
stage/s at which fixation has occurred.
5. ORAL STAGE
In the first stage – ORAL (0-18 months) we seek
pleasure mainly through the mouth.
Too little gratification = a personality that is overly
dependent on others
Too much gratification = an excessively hostile
personality, particularly with verbal attacks
6. ANAL STAGE
Roughly 2-3 years
Toilet training conflicts
Freud argued that these conflicts form
the basis of attitudes towards order and
disorder, giving and withholding, and
messiness and cleaniness.
People with anal fixations exhibit a
variety of behavioural tendencies:
Anal expulsive – the child who rebels
openly against going in the toilet.
Translates in the adult as a person who
sees messiness as a statement of
personal control and somewhat
destructive/hostile
Anal retentive – the child who is terrified
of making a mess and rebels passively.
7. PHALLIC STAGE
3-6yrs
Shifts to genitals.
Freud believed the penis was the focus for both boys AND
girls.
For boys, when they realise that girls do not have a penis,
would think that the penis can be lost or cut off =
castration anxiety
For girls, they would feel that they were missing something
important and could not be complete without it = penis
envy
Conflict in this stage is the feeling of sexual awakening.
Freud believed boys develop both sexual attraction AND
jealousy of their fathers during this stage = Oedipus
Complex.
8. Oedipus Complex
Sexual attraction more of sexual curiousity that becomes
mixed up with the boy‟s feelings of love and affection for
his mother.
Jealousy of the father = anxiety and fears that his father
may castrate him.
To deal, the boy will repress his sexual feelings for his
mother (defence mechanism) and identify with his father.
If a child does not have a same-sex parent to identify with,
or the sexual attraction is encouraged, fixation occurs.
Fixation = immature sexual attitudes as an adult, exhibit
promiscuous sexual behaviour, “mummy‟s boy”.
9. Latency Stage
Remember that by the end of the phallic stage,
sexual feelings are repressed.
From age 6 – puberty, children will remain in the
latency stage.
In this stage, children grow and develop
intellectually, physically and socially but not
sexually.
Boys play with boys, girls with girls.
