Personality Development-Psychosexual Stages

Tue, 25 Jul 2017 12:01:39 +0000

According to Sigmund Freud, personality develop through a series of psychosexual stages. He explained five stages of personality development. Each stage occur at different age from childhood till adulthood. During each stage from which a child pass through, they experience conflict between the social norms and their sexual urges. Another important concept which is discussed in Freud psychosexual stages is fixation, which states that, unresolved conflict during a particular stage may have impact on the personality, but not in childhood but in adulthood. Freud has associated all the stages with biological functions which assumed as focus of pleasure in a given stage or time. Following are the psychosexual stages of personality development, oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latency stage and genital stage.

Oral Stage

Focal point of pleasure in oral stage is baby mouth. During the first 12 to 18 month when the baby is born, child bite, suck, chew and mouth almost anything whatever they are able to put in their mouth. According to Freud mouth is the source of attaining sexual pleasure at this stage. Fixation at this stage occur due to feeding the baby every time when he cries, child should learn that there is a schedule of gratifying his oral needs. Otherwise child may withdraw the breast or bottle, which will result in fixation. The effect of fixation at oral stage may be excessively talking, eating and smoking in adulthood.

Anal Stage

At the age of 18 months till three years parents starts the toilet training of child; this stage is categorized as anal stage. During this stage the pleasure point of child shift from mouth to anal region. Retention and expulsion of feces are the sources of obtaining pleasure for a child. Fixation may occur in this stage due to demanding nature of trainer (which is usually mother) which results in unusual rigidity extremely orderliness or sloppiness in adulthood.

Phallic Stage

At the age of 3 to 6 years there is another drastic shift in the source of pleasure. Now the source of pleasure is shifted to genitalia. Children seek pleasure by touching or self-stimulating their genitals. During this stage, the oedipal conflict occurs which is boys develop sexual feelings towards their mothers and consider their father as rival for the affection of their mother. For girls this stage differs from boys they develop sexual feeling for their father and wish that they had a penis. For lacking the anatomical part girls blame their mothers. They think that they are castrated by their mother.

Latency Stage

At this stage oedipal conflict is resolved male and female both move forward to the next stage of personality development. Latency stage last till puberty, during this stage sexual interest become inactive even in unconscious. During adolescence the sexual feelings resurface which lead to the final stage

Genital stage

This stage extend till the death, the attainment of pleasure in this stage is sexual intercourse.

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