Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), was an influential Austrian psychologist and the founder of psychoanalysis. Freud went on to produce several theories, such as his theory on psychosexual development, which will be the focus of this assignment. Using the case study of a six-year-old patient, I will discuss the key principles of Freud’s theory on psychosexual development. Including, comprehensive definitions of the concepts used, and the stages of Freud’s psychosexual development. Lastly using Freud’s theory, I will explain how the patient’s current behaviour, could impact her behaviour in adulthood.
The case study presents; Jane, a six-year-old female, whom has recently, started to suck her thumb, habitually. This behaviour overlaps, with the birth
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Regression is one of the defence mechanisms identified by Freud. According to Freud there are times when people are faced with circumstances that make them feel at such unease and threatened, that they cannot deal with it and they protect themselves, by retreating to an earlier stage of development. Many children who use regression as a defence mechanism, may begin to suck their thumb again.
Freud’s Psychosexual Stages of Development
Freud identified five stages of psychosexual development, namely: The oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latency stage and genital stage.
The oral stage of development, begins at birth (even prenatally) and ends approximately, when the child is one-year old. The source of libido or pleasure and conflict, is the mouth. The child will enjoy sucking, feeding, and putting things in their mouth. The psychological theme here is dependency. Babies can do very little for themselves, and this would be the time where they are cared for deeply by their mothers and their most intimate bonding time. When a child is deprived of this and his/ her needs are not properly fulfilled it can lead to an oral fixation or overindulgence in their later life. Fixation in this stage could lead to problems such as smoking, nail biting, pen chewing, overeating, alcoholism, sarcasm and verbal hostility. (Sammons,
The psychosexual stages of development played an important role in human development also. Freud believed it was vital for every human to experience each stage fully; otherwise the consequences of the missed stage(s) would manifest later in the life cycle—a defense mechanism called “fixation.” Fixation occurs when there is conflict at a certain stage in psychosexual development.
During the oral stage, which occurs from birth to 1 year, the infant's primary source of interaction occurs through the mouth, so the rooting and sucking reflex is especially important. The mouth is vital for eating, and the infant derives pleasure from oral stimulation through gratifying activities such as tasting and sucking. Because the infant is entirely dependent upon
Freud suggests five stages of psychosexual development that occur during childhood include the oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latency stage, and the genital stage. He believes that these stages could predict whether a child becomes a well-adjusted adult in the
Apart from the features mentioned above, the core assumption of the psychoanalytic perspective is that a person’s personality depends on childhood experiences. In this psychosexual development theory, Freud assumed that all children go through five stages. These are the oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latency stage and genital stage. He believed that a fixation would occur if a child experienced extreme problems or pleasure. (Eysenck, 1994)
Describe developmental milestones from birth to 36 months articulating the influences of individual development, temperament and cultural norms.
Freud believed that gender identity was built from our interactions and learned from our environment, but was informed by our biological makeup. His theory of gender identity development is constructed in stages as the child grows older, first the oral stage, then the anal stage, then the critical stage in which the child’s gender identity is constructed called the genital stage. The genital stage requires
Sigmund Freud is a very known psychologist from the early scholars of the psychology world. One of His most significant outlooks and study was in the sexology field. Sexology had already been constituted as a separate form of enquiry some time before the appearance of Freud’s most important contribution, The three essays on the theory of sexuality (1905) and many of the terms that we tend to identify with Freud, such as libido, component instincts, erotogenic zones, catharsis, autoerotism and narcissism were already in circulation. (Akroterion. 58, 79-96, Dec. 2013) Some have argued that Freud did not acknowledge the contribution of sexology to psychoanalysis sufficiently in his studies and findings. But others may find this statement as overstated. Further in my research you will read how Freud’s work contributed greatly to the sexology dialogue and psychosexual development.
Sigmund Freud's psychosexual theory and Erik Erikson's psychosocial theory are two important psychoanalytic theories on human development
According to Freud’s psychosexual theory, personality develops across 5 sexual stages while Erikson’s develops among 8 social stages. Freud’s theory has fewer stages due to his belief that the last stage of identity develops during adolescence, while Erikson’s theory had more stages because he believed an individual’s identity continually evolved over their entire lifetime (Hoare, 2005). The 5 stages of Freud’s theory: Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency and Genital, will be discussed, compared and contrasted with Erikson’s 8 stages: Trust vs. Mistrust, Autonomy vs. Doubt, Initiative vs. Guilt, Industry vs. Inferiority, Identity vs. Role Confusion, Intimacy vs. Isolation, Generativity vs. Stagnation, and Integrity vs. Despair (Passer, Smith, Atkinson, Mitchell & Muir, 2011). Each stage in Erikson’s theory involves a
Psychosexual development is one of the key concepts of Freud’s psychodynamic theory, it implied that children began to develop their sexual maturity as soon as they were born (Hough, 2006). The theory contained five main stages (Kahn, 2002).
It starts shortly after birth, when the infant experiences nourishment for the first time. While feeding, the child learns that pleasure can be obtained from the very sensitive organ that is the mouth. The child might suck on his thumb, which provides pleasure even if there is no milk, which is the first form of auto-erotic pleasure that humans experience. Children will also experience their first frustrations in that stage, for example hunger and thirst, and their first aggressive impulses, such as biting, yelling, and crying (Kahn 42). The main conflicts that arise in that stage are weaning, feeding, and thumb sucking. Scheduled feeding, and ignoring the baby's cries to be fed outside of scheduled times, teaches the baby that his needs are less important than others'. Punishing a child for sucking his thumb teaches him that pleasure is shameful and bad. Weaning to early or too late might lead to an oral fixation (43). Severe oral fixations can lead to eating disorders and extreme passivity and dependence, will mild oral fixations lead to eating when stressed or lonely, mild passivity and dependence, and a craving for oral stimulation (Wood et al.
Compared Personality Assessment using Freud’s Psychosexual Stages theory and Costa and McCrae’s Five Factor Model
The first theory that can relate to this issue is Sigmund Freud’s theory of psychosexual development. And this is sexual and emotional development during our life course. And there is three parts to this, the id, ego, and superego. For the id it is the unconscious personality and this is present from birth. It strives for the needs, the wants, and all desires. And this relates to my story because my needs where not met at time where I needed it the most. My mom did not give that attention that so many people received from their parents at birth. I had to look for that attention somewhere else. My grandparent where there once made sure I was getting all of it. Freud’s theory also says that we cannot satisfy all this these need because we might be selfish towards other people’s need. We cannot always get what we want because we want. As humans we know that we cannot have things that is not ours. The second theory that best explain the situation I am in is Ainsworth and her colleague’s theories of attachment and John Bowlby’s theory. According to the book attachment is closeness with someone or a bond and if that is broken there is issues that comes with it. Bowlby says attachment is very important for the survival of the baby. A baby needs that person the can always depend on no matter what. They cannot go about their day without that person. And they have something called separation anxiety. And that is exactly what I went through when I left Ghana. Io had a separation
Sigmund Freud is a well known psychologist who discovered the branch of psychology called psychoanalysis, this branch focuses on treating mental disorders by recognizing the relationships between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind (Cobarrubias). Freud went on to develop a well respected structure of personality including one’s id, superego, and ego. A person's id must be controlled to satisfy their social needs while the superego and ego direct the control and gratification into a social environment (MacLeod). These three major personality elements lead to Freud's famous development of the Psychosexual stages. In 1905, Freud proposed that psychological development in children takes place in a series of five “Freudian stages” consisting of oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital (MacLeod). These stages can be recalled by creating a mnemonic for the subject like, “Old Age People Love Grapes”. Each of these stages present a conflict that the child must resolve before progressing to the next stages (Macleod). Some of the stage conflicts might require extra time and effort to overcome, possibility leading to fixations. My brother has been displaying a smoking behavior for quite some time, leading me to believe he might of had a fixation during his oral stage of psychosexual development. I believe his fixation came from his oral stage of life because that is when the child is first exposed to feeding and sucking on basically anything an infant can get a hold of.
Elucidating the veracity of this inborn infantile sexual pleasure, David said: Parents in some culture are well aware of the