Sexual infantilism: in pursuing and satisfying their
libido (sexual drive), the child might experience failure (parental and societal disapproval) and thus might associate anxiety with the given erogenous zone. To avoid anxiety, the child becomes
fixated, preoccupied with the psychological themes related to the erogenous zone in question. The fixation persists into adulthood and underlies the personality and psychopathology of the individual. It may manifest as mental ailments such as
neurosis,
hysteria, "
female hysteria", or
personality disorder.
Id, ego, and superego Oral stage The first stage of psychosexual development is the oral stage, spanning from birth until the age of one year, where in the infant's mouth is the focus of libidinal gratification derived from the pleasure of feeding at the mother's breast, and from the oral exploration of their environment, i.e. the tendency to place objects in the mouth. The child focuses on nursing, with the intrinsic pleasure of sucking and accepting things into the mouth. Since the
ego is not developed beyond the most rudimentary form at this stage (in the oral stage, the id is fully present, the ego begins to emerge and the super ego is not yet developed), every action is based upon the
pleasure principle of the
id. Nonetheless, the infantile ego is in the process of forming during the oral stage. In developing a
body image, infants are aware of themselves as discrete from the external world; for example, the child understands pain when it is applied to their body, thus identifying the physical boundaries between body and environment. The experience of delayed gratification leads to understanding that specific behaviors satisfy some needs; for example, crying gratifies certain needs.
Weaning is the key experience in the infant's oral stage of psychosexual development, their first feeling of loss consequent to losing the physical intimacy of feeding at their mother's breast. The child is not only deprived of the sensory pleasures of nursing but also of the psychological pleasure of being cared for, mothered, and held. However, weaning increases the infant's self-awareness, through learning that they do not control their environment. The experience of
delayed gratification leads to the formation of capacities for
independence (awareness of the limits of the self) and
trust (behaviors leading to gratification). Thwarting of the oral-stage – too much or too little gratification of
desire – might lead to an oral-stage
fixation, which can be the root of neurotic tendencies in the developed personality. In the case of too much gratification, the child does not adequately learn that they do not control the environment, and that gratification is not always immediate, thereby forming an immature personality. wherein the infant's
erogenous zone changes from the mouth (the upper digestive tract) to the
anus (the lower digestive tract), while ego formation continues. Toilet training is the child's key anal-stage experience, occurring at about the age of two years. It involves conflict between the id (demanding immediate gratification) and the ego (demanding delayed gratification) in eliminating bodily wastes, and handling related activities (e.g. manipulating excrement, coping with parental demands). The child may respond with defiance, resulting in an "anal expulsive character"—often messy, reckless, and defiant—or with retention, leading to an "anal retentive character"—typically neat, precise, and passive-aggressive. The feminine Oedipus complex has its roots in the little girl's discovery that she, along with her mother and all other women, lack the penis which her father and other men possess. Her love for her father then becomes both erotic and envious, as she yearns for a penis of her own. She comes to blame her mother for her perceived castration, and is struck by
penis envy, the apparent counterpart to the boy's castration anxiety. The name derives from the 5th-century BC Greek mythological character
Electra, who plotted
matricidal revenge with her brother
Orestes, against their mother and stepfather, for the murder of their father. (cf.
Electra, by Sophocles). According to Jung, a girl's decisive psychosexual experience is her daughter–mother competition for psychosexual possession of her father. Freud rejected Jung's term as psychoanalytically inaccurate: "that what we have said about the Oedipus complex applies with complete strictness to the male child only, and that we are right in rejecting the term 'Electra complex', which seeks to emphasize the analogy between the attitude of the two sexes". The resolution of the feminine Oedipus complex is less clear-cut than the resolution of the Oedipus complex in males. Freud stated that the resolution comes much later and is never truly complete. Just as the boy learned his sexual role by identifying with his father, so the girl learns her role by identifying with her mother in an attempt to possess her father vicariously. At the eventual resolution of the conflict, the girl passes into the latency period, though Freud implies that she always remains slightly fixated at the phallic stage. 'Penis envy' in the girl is rooted in feeling "inferior" to the opposite sex. As a result, the girl redirects her
desire for sexual union toward the father; thus, she progresses towards
heterosexual femininity that ideally culminates in bearing a child who replaces the absent
penis. After the phallic stage, the girl's psychosexual development includes transferring her primary erogenous zone from the infantile
clitoris to the adult
vagina. Freud considered a girl's Oedipal conflict to be more emotionally intense than that of a boy, potentially resulting in a submissive woman of an insecure personality. In both sexes,
defense mechanisms provide transitory resolutions of the conflict between the drives of the Id and the drives of the ego. The first defense mechanism is
repression, the blocking of anxiety-inducing impulses and ideas from the conscious mind. The second defense mechanism is
Identification, by which the child incorporates, to their ego, the personality characteristics of the same-sex parent. The boy thus diminishes his castration anxiety, because his identification with the father reduces the rivalry and suggests the promise of a future potency. The girl identifies with the mother, who understands that, in being females, neither of them possesses a penis, and thus they are not antagonists.
Latency stage The fourth stage of psychosexual development is the latency stage (from the age of 6 until
puberty), wherein the child consolidates the character habits they developed in the three earlier stages. Whether or not the child has successfully resolved the Oedipal conflict, the instinctual drives of the child are inaccessible to the ego, because they have been subject to the mechanism of repression during the phallic stage. Hence, because the drives are latent (hidden) and gratification is indefinitely delayed, the child must derive the pleasure of gratification from secondary process-thinking that directs the energy of the drives towards external activities, such as schooling, friendships, hobbies, etc. Any neuroses established during the latent stage of psychosexual development might derive from the inadequate resolution of the Oedipus conflict, or from the ego's failure in attempts to direct the energies towards socially acceptable activities. Modern perspectives on the latency stage focus on children's social development; for instance, Ruth Ludlam describes the perception of social hierarchy and the application and reception of cruelty as occupying the "entire space" of children's psychic existence during this stage.
Genital stage The fifth stage of psychosexual development is the genital stage (from puberty through adult life) and usually represents the greater part of a person's life. Its aim is the psychological detachment and independence from the parents. In the genital stage, the person confronts and seeks to resolve their remaining psychosexual childhood conflicts. As in the phallic stage, the genital stage is centered upon the genitalia, but the sexuality is consensual and adult, rather than solitary and infantile. The psychological difference between the phallic and genital stages is that the ego is established in the latter; the person's concern shifts from primary-drive gratification (instinct) to applying secondary process-thinking to gratify desire symbolically and
intellectually by means of friendships, a love relationship, family and adult responsibility. == Criticisms ==