psychosexual development

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(psychology) In psychoanalytic theory, a series of four developmental stages (oral, anal, phallic, and Oedipal), relatively fixed in time, that are determined by the interaction between a person's biological drives and the environment.

Psychosexual development is the progressive evolution of infantile sexuality as it passes through the different stages or phases of psychic organization (oral, anal, phallic) with due regard for a prevalent erogenous zone, which organizes fantasies, and a certain type of object relation. Complete psychosexual organization is not reached until the arrival of puberty and a final phase of libidinal development, the genital phase.

Freud saw infantile sexuality as being active from the beginning of life. This broadened the notion of sexuality, giving it a range of extension that is specific to psychoanalysis.

In the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905d), Freud initially saw infantile sexuality as a sort of precursor of adult sexual perversions and a blueprint for pubertal genitality, but he later described it as the mainspring of psychic development. He used the term infantile sexuality in an effort to acknowledge the existence of the stimuli and the needs for satisfaction that involve specific body zones (erogenous zones) that seek pleasure independently of exercising a biological function. He therefore described the sexual instinct as becoming separate from the vital functions that ensure the preservation of the organism in accordance with the anaclitic model (whereby the sexual instincts initially depend on those vital functions). The pleasure bonus provided alongside the accomplishment of the function would, in a second stage, be sought for its own sake. Freud thus considered anaclisis, the erogenous zone, and autoeroticism to be three intimately linked criteria for the definition of infantile sexuality.

The Freudian scheme of the phases of libidinal development links two essential components at each stage: on the one hand, an organizing erogenous zone, along with the excitations and instinctual movements for which it is both the link and the source, and on the other, the modalities of the object relation linked to development of the ego.

In the Three Essays, Freud stressed the existence and importance of oral and anal erogenous zones (in addition to the genital which is the primary erogenous zone in adults), describing them as pregenital and highlighting the autoeroticism that is linked to them: sucking in relation to oral activity, retention/expulsion for anal erotism.

The specification of infantile genital organization as phallic organization nevertheless shows clearly that the prevalence of one erogenous zone is inseparable from a certain mode of symbolic organization. The Oedipus complex is organized around the idea of castration, which is represented in the unconscious as castration of the penis (Perron and Perron-Borelli, 1996). The loss of the breast and feces that are specific to the oral and anal stages can also be considered as early symbolic forms of genital castration.

The relationship between weaning—as implementing the absence of the mother—and the Oedipus complex introduces the structural point of view, which relativizes the developmental model of the stages and gives it its best perspective (Brusset, 1992).

In the normal evolution of sexuality the component instincts of childhood are progressively integrated into the genital sexuality of the adult. What remains of them is found in the foreplay that precedes the sexual act proper.

The potential for stimulation of these pregenital erogenous zones remains present in the body and in the mind and they tend to be reactivated on the occasion of later sexual experiences. Their degree of erotism is integrated into the genital sexuality of the adult. Excessive repression of these residues from the infantile period can lead to neurotic symptoms. Similarly, what persists in a prevalent and manifest manner in the perversions is repressed in neurosis. Hence Freud's famous aphorism: "Neurosis is the negative of perversion."

The phases Freud described between 1905 and 1923 correspond to successive organizations of the sexual instinct under the primacy of a given erogenous zone: the oral phase, sadistic anal phase, infantile genital or phallic phase, followed by the genital phase after puberty. He also distinguished at the same time the different stages leading from autoerotism to full object love, that is, the progression from autoerotism, narcissism, toward the homosexual or heterosexual object choice.

Three points deserve to be raised here in order to provide a better definition of the notion of psycho-sexuality as envisaged by Freud.

1. The body is first and foremost considered as the seat of the instincts (drives) and the source of the excitations aiming for satisfaction. In the Three Essays he makes a point of defining infantile sexuality as a criterion for organ pleasure and autoerotic satisfaction. However, in the course of the following years he integrated his earlier discoveries about the role of fantasies into this. He showed, specifically, how the fantasy works "by integrating the attachments of infantile sexuality can, depending on the case, result in conscious formations (daydreaming, for example) or, on the contrary, formations that are repressed into the unconscious" (Perron and Perron-Borelli, 1996).
2. It should be noted that these infantile manifestations of sexuality only come to play their full role "après coup." The adult pervert's exclusive fixation on certain components of infantile sexuality must be understood as a regression and a return to pregenital fixations.
3. Finally, infantile sexuality culminates toward the fourth or fifth year of life, the age when sexual tumult gradually enters a latency period, and is not reactivated until puberty when it leads to adult sexuality in the context of general maturity. There is therefore at this stage a halt, a decline in psychosexuality, and this period is then subjected to the infantile amnesia of the latency period. Freud related this diphasic establishment of sexual life, which can be observed only in human beings, to events in humanity's prehistory.

In any case, it is during the period of latency "that are built up the mental forces which are later to impede the course of the sexual instinct and, like dams, restrict its flow" (1905d, p. 177).

After the Three Essays, Freud gave the oedipal conflict its full organizational value, normal libidinal development being defined in psychoanalytic theory as the integration of the polymorphously perverse aspects of infantile sexuality under the primacy of the genital organization.

Following the Three Essays, Freud's successive contributions (1913-24) continued to expand on the general outline of the stages of libidinal development.

Karl Abraham tried to find the etiopathogenic basis for all of psychopathology in this model. He distinguished two stages within each of the first two phases (oral and sadistic oral, anal and sadistic anal) and he further stressed the link existing between the specific erogenous zone and the modalities of object relation particular to it.

Many authors after him, such as the proponents of Ego-Psychology (Heinz Hartmann, Ernst Kris, and Rudolph Loewenstein), used the outline of libidinal development and made it a major element in a genetic psychology that could be integrated into a general psychology. Others, on the contrary, particularly in France (Jean Laplanche and Jean-Bertrand Pontalis; Brusset, 1992; Perron, Perron-Borelli, 1996) insisted on the importance of the notion of organization. Each stage or phase of development creates a structure, in the modern sense of a self-regulated functional system tending toward equilibrium. Each of these phases in psychosexual development organizes not only the present state of mental functioning but also its future state. Infantile genital organization therefore defines the oedipal phase as the great organizer of mental functioning, laying down in the infantile phase of sexuality what will become the genital organization of the adult.

Bibliography

Brusset, Bernard (1992). Le Développement libidinal. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

Freud, Sigmund (1905d). Three essays on the theory of sexuality. SE, 7: 123-243.

Mijolla, Alain de, and Mijolla-Mellor, Sophie de (Eds.). (1995). Psychanalyse. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

Perron, Roger, and Perron-Borelli, Michele. (1996). Le Complexe d'Œdipe (2nd edition). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

Further Reading

Davison, Susan, rep. (1998). Panel: A contemporary review of the psychosexual phases of development. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 79, 164-167.

Lester, Eva P. (1976). On the psychosexual development of the female child. Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, 4, 515-528.

Siskind, Diana. (1994). Arrests of psychosexual development and separation-individuation. Psychoanalytical Inquiry, 14, 58-82.

—JEAN-FRANÇOIS RABAIN

In Freudian psychoanalytic theory, the influence that sexual growth has on personality development from birth to adult life, with the phases of sexual maturation designated as oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: (psychoanalysis) the process during which personality and sexual behavior mature through a series of stages: first oral stage and then anal stage and then phallic stage and then latency stage and finally genital stage

Part of a series of articles on Psychoanalysis

Constructs Psychosexual development Psychosocial development Conscious • Preconscious • Unconscious Id, ego, and super-ego Libido • Drive Transference • Sublimation • Resistance Important Figures Sigmund Freud • Carl Jung Alfred Adler • Otto Rank Anna Freud • Margaret Mahler Karen Horney • Jacques Lacan Ronald Fairbairn • Melanie Klein Harry Stack Sullivan Erik Erikson • Nancy Chodorow Susan Sutherland Isaacs Ernest Jones • Heinz Kohut Important works The Interpretation of Dreams Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" Civilization and Its Discontents Schools of Thought Self psychology • Lacanian Analytical psychology • Object relations Interpersonal • Relational Attachment • Ego psychology

Psychology Portal

The concept of psychosexual development, as envisioned by Sigmund Freud at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, is a central element in the theory of psychology. It consists of five separate phases: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. In the development of his theories, Freud's main concern was with sexual desire, defined in terms of formative drives, instincts and appetites that result in the formation of an adult personality.

Terminology associated with Freud's stages of psychosexual development has found wide, popular usage in a variety of registers and fields of activity (see, Freud and Popular Culture).

Introduction

Freud theorized that the libido developed in individuals by changing its object, through the process of transference. He argued that humans are born "polymorphous perverse"^[1], meaning that any number of objects could be a source of pleasure. However, to this day, there is no scientific justification of this theory and generally not an accepted model among practicing psychologists. Following a biological logic, Freud established a rigid model for that "normal" sexual development of the human being, or the "libido development". Each child passes through five psychosexual stages. During each stage, the id focuses on a distinct erogenous zone on the body. The term "psychosexual infantilism," refers to those who become fixated in this way and fail to mature through the psychosexual stages into heterosexuality. Freud related the resolutions of the stages with adult personalities and personality disorders.

Despite their popularity among psychoanalytical psychologists, Freud's psychosexual theories are commonly criticized as being sexist. For example, Freud stated that young females develop "penis envy" toward the males during their psychosexual development. In response, Karen Horney, a German Freudian psychoanalyst, argued that young females develop "power envy" instead of "penis envy" toward the male.

Freud's model of psychosexual development

Stage	Age Range	Erogenous zone(s)	Consequences of Fixation
Oral	0-18 months	Mouth	Orally aggressive: Involves chewing gum or ends of pens. Orally Passive: Involves smoking/eating/kissing/fellatio/cunnilingus[2]
Anal	18-36 months	Bowel and bladder elimination	Anal-retentive: Obsession with organization or excessive neatness Anal-expulsive: Reckless, careless, defiant, disorganized, Coprophiliac
Phallic	3-6 years	Genitals	Oedipus complex (in boys only according to Freud) Electra complex (in girls according to Jung not Freud)
Latency	6 years-puberty	Dormant sexual feelings	(People do not tend to fixate at this stage, but if they do, they tend to be extremely sexually unfulfilled.)
Genital	Puberty and beyond	Sexual interests mature	Frigidity, impotence, unsatisfactory relationships

Oral phase

The oral stage in psychology is the term used by Sigmund Freud to describe the child's development during the first eighteen months of life, in which an infant's pleasure centers are in the mouth. This is the first of Freud's psychosexual stages.

This is the infant's first relationship with its mother; it is a nutritive one. The length of this stage depends on the society. In some societies it is common for a child to be nursed by its mother for several years, whereas in others the stage is much shorter. Suckling and eating, however, compose the earliest memories for infants in every society. This stage holds special importance because some, especially those in tribal societies commonly found in the Southwest Pacific and Africa, consider the stomach to be the seat of emotions.

Anal phase

The next stage of psychosexual development is centered around the rectum, but can also include bladder functions. This phase usually occurs from eighteen months to thirty-six months of age. In this stage children learn to control the expulsion of feces causing their libidinal energy to become focused in this area. The added awareness of this erogenous zone arises in children from concentrating on controlling their defecation. They come to see it as just another way to experience pleasure, and begin to take pride in either defecating in a fashion that may be considered socially unacceptable, or, in the case of very strict parents, they may begin to resist the urge to defecate to the extent where it becomes pathological. Two types of characters can develop out of this: the expulsive and the retentive. The expulsive character would have been prone to malicious excretion either just before they were placed on the toilet or just after they were removed from the toilet. The retentive character takes pleasure in holding in the feces in spite of his or her parents' training. The child comes to view the feces as a possession which he does not want to relinquish. Freud postulated that such children develop into adults who are usually neat, organized, careful, meticulous, and obstinate.

Phallic phase

At thirty-six months to about seventy-two months of age the libidinal energy shifts from the anal region to the genital region. At this point, according to Freud's model, the Oedipus or Electra complex can develop. The Oedipus complex is central to the psychodynamic fixations in this time period for men; the Electra complex for women.

Around this time in males, according to Freud, the young boy falls in love with his mother and wishes that his father was not in the way of his love. At this point he notices that women have no penis and fears that the punishment of his father for being in love with his wife is castration. This fear is enhanced if he is castigated for masturbation at this stage. Once the fear of retaliation has subsided the boy will learn to earn his mother's love by becoming as much like his father as possible. Thus, the superego is born. He will adopt his father's beliefs and ideals as his own and move on to the latency stage.

Freud's theory regarding the psychosexual dynamic present in female children in this point of their psychosexual development is termed, though not by Freud himself, the Electra complex. According to Freud, young girls, after they come to the realization that they have no penis, begin to blame the mother for having taken it, and look to the father as a substitute for the loss that they perceive. This is termed "penis envy." Freud's theory of feminine sexuality, particularly penis envy, has been sharply criticized in both gender and feminist theory.

Latency phase

The latency period begins sometime around the age of six and ends when puberty starts to begin. Freud believed that in this phase the Oedipus complex was dissolved and set free, resulting in a relatively conflict-free period of development. In this phase, the child begins to make connections to siblings, other children, and adults. This phase is typified by a solidifying of the habits that the child developed in the earlier stages.

Genital phase

The genital stage starts at puberty, allowing the child to develop opposite sex relationships with the libidinal energy again focused on the genital area. According to Freud, if any of the stages are fixated on, there is not enough libidinal energy for this stage to develop untroubled. To have a fully functional adulthood, the previous stages need to be fully resolved and there needs to be a balance between love and work.

Criticism of Freud's theory of psychosexual development

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Feminist critique

Freud's theories were decidedly androcentric, which is why he has received a great deal of criticism from feminists, as well as from gender theory practitioners. Freud had difficulty incorporating female desire into his theories. Freud attempted to provide a theoretical explanation for feminine psychosexual development only rather late in his career. Freud personally confessed a lack of understanding of female sexuality and did not hold out hope that psychology would ever explain the phenomenon.

Freud argued that young girls followed more or less the same psychosexual development as boys. Whereas the boy would develop a castration conflict, the girl would go on to develop penis envy, "the envy the female feels toward the male because the male possesses a penis." The envy is rooted in the fact that without a penis, the female cannot sexually posess the mother as driven to by the Id. As a result of this realization, she is driven to desire sexual union with the father. After this stage, the woman has an extra stage in her development when the clitoris should wholly or in part hand over its sensitivity and its importance to the vagina. The young girl must also at some point give up her first object-choice, the mother, in order to take the father as her new proper object-choice. Her eventual move into heterosexual femininity, which culminates in giving birth, grows out of her earlier infantile desires, with her own child taking place of the penis in accordance with an ancient symbolic equivalence. Freud wrote: "girls feel deeply their lack of a sexual organ that is equal in value to the male one; they regard themselves on that account as inferior and this envy for the penis is the origin of a whole number of characteristic feminine reactions."

References

1. ^ Myre, Sim (1974). "Guide to Psychiatry, 3^rd edition" Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh and London, ISBN 0 443 01161 3. page 396
2. ^ Myre, Sim (1974). "Guide to Psychiatry, 3^rd edition" Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh and London, ISBN 0 443 01161 3. page 35, page 407

See also

• Developmental psychology
• Human development
• Human sexuality
• Sexual fetish
• Paraphilia

Human development: biological - psychological
Stages	Infancy • Childhood • Adolescence • Adulthood - Early adulthood • Middle adulthood • Late adulthood
Development	Child development • Youth development • Ageing & Senescence
Theorists-theories	John Bowlby-attachment • Jean Piaget-cognitive • Lawrence Kohlberg-moral • Sigmund Freud-psychosexual • Erik Erikson-psychosocial

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