Freud's Theory of Psychosexual Development 1

Freud's Theory of Psychosexual Development

Sigmund Freud proposed theories focused on the importance of events and experiences

during childhood and the mental disorders. Freud describes that the early experiences of a child

play a great role in the development of a child’s personality and this influences a child’s behavior

in every aspect of the life. Freud put forward his theory about child development as a series of

“psychosexual stages”. Satisfaction of libidinal desire is involved in each stage which later

serves a great role in adult personality. If any stage is not successfully completed by a child, it

would later influence his/her behavior and adult personality. This essay attempts to discuss in

detail Freud’s psychosexual theory, including its relationship with the adult neurotic behavior. It

also tries to, as the title suggests, evaluate the extent to which Freud's psychosexual can assist in

understanding a client’s presenting issues.

Understanding Psychosexual Development

To understand the Freud’s theory of psychosexual development we first need to know

about the psychosexual development. According to Sigmund Freud, what a person experiences

early in his life as a child has a great influence on the development of his/her personality.

According to Freud’s Psychoanalytic personality theory, the most basic element of personality

that is present at the time of birth is “id” which exists unconsciously. The id works on the

pleasure principle which demands the fulfillment of needs and satisfaction of desires. Hence it

generates an unconscious psychic energy within a person in initial stages of life which not only

endeavors to satisfy all his needs but also serves as a necessary force to develop his personality.

To better understand the concept of id let’s consider an example. Since id works on the

pleasure principle, which means that all the inner desires and needs should be given foremost
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priority and they should be satisfied as soon as possible, when we are hungry we are more likely

to divert attention towards refrigerator or food, and then we eat to satisfy our need. Similarly to

quench our thirst we drink water. But not all of our needs can be satisfied instantly. There are

needs whose satisfaction needs to be delayed until a particular time or until the things that satisfy

those needs are within our reach. So unfulfilled needs create tension within an individual, which

drives him to take action in order to satisfy those needs. The id principle also takes into account

the “primary process” to temporarily relieve an individual from the tension. This involves, for

example, fantasizing, daydreaming or hallucinating about the fulfillment of those needs to create

a mental picture within our mind. It must, however, be kept in mind that id is just one of the three

main components of an individual’s personality. The other two being: “ego” and “superego”. But

as mentioned earlier, only id is present at the time of birth and it exists unconsciously.1

Freud’s Theory of Psychosexual Development

Freud’s theories of understanding human behavior – psychoanalysis – have made great

contributions to the psychology. Many other psychologists at the time of Freud were inspired by

Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis and developed their own ideas bases thereon. These theories

are collectively known as “psychodynamic”, as they stress the factor that prompt behavior.

Biomedical views that every mental disorder has a physical origin were opposed by these

theories. In fact Freud believed that mental disorders and abnormal behavior at later stages in life

had its origin during the childhood and caused by the unconscious psychic energies within a

person.

Freud’s theory of psychosexual development is one of the most famous and controversial

in this field. According to his stage theory, personality of an individual develops through a series
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of different puerility stages. At these stages during the childhood the pleasure searching behavior

of id is focused on areas that are sensitive to sexual stimulation. Freud describes this libidinal

desire or “psychosexual energy” as the driving force of the behavior and which later on plays a

great role in formation of personality.

The stages of psychosexual developed are described in the following headings. For the

development of a healthy and complete personality the stages of psychosexual development as

described by Freud needs to be finished in a successful manner. If any of these stages are not

psychologically completed (for example due to any conflict), fixation will occur which is an

abnormal state in which development has stopped prematurely. And the individual will get

anxious and trapped in that stage for a larger span of time.

The Stages

The stages describe how the sexuality starts from the young ages of childhood and

develops until a person matures. Freud thought that sex is the primary instinct and therefore each

of the five stages describes the satisfaction of libidinal desire through different bodily parts. As

the sex instinct matured, a child’s attention is shifted from one body part to another for the

satisfaction of sexual desire.2 These stages are described as under.

1. The Oral Stage

This stage occurs from birth to eighteen months. At this very first stage an infant tries to

gratify the needs through mouth. Pleasure seeking activities are fulfilled through sucking,

swallowing and biting. Conflict may occur, for example, during the weaning process when some

other food is substituted for the mother’s breast milk in the diet of a child. If fixation occurs at
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this basic stage, a child may become excessively dependent on others and at the later stages of

life s/he will seek oral stimulation through, for example, smoking, drinking, nail-biting and

eating.

2. The Anal Stage

This stage occurs between eighteen months one to three years of age. The sexually

sensitive bodily area at this stage is anus. Pleasure seeking activities are fulfilled through

defecating or retaining faeces. Conflict at this stage occurs at the toilet training. To properly

develop controls over his/her bodily needs, a child needs to learn to use the toilet at the proper

time and in a proper way. Success at this stage is largely dependent on how parents teach, and

reward or punish as the case may be, their child at these ages. If a child learns to have control

over his bowel movements and bladder control, this developed a sense of achievement and

independence within a child that later develops his personality in good form. A child therefore

needs support from parents and encouragement at this stage.

3. The Phallic Stage

Occurs from three to six years of age. Child’s attention is now focused on genitals and

s/he seeks to derive pleasure from genital stimulation. At this stage children begin to notice

difference between opposite sexes and develop a desire for, or even envy, the opposite sex. Freud

suggested that at this stage boys begin to develop incestuous affection for their mother and even

begin to see their father as rivals for mother’s love. The term Oedipus complex has been coined

to reflect this behavior. Similarly girls at this stage, according to Freud, experienced the similar

feelings for their fathers and they even feel “penis envy” (i.e., the envy that female gender feels
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towards the male because males have penis). Girls’ first love object, just like boys, is the mother

due to the obvious reasons of care and feeding, but at the phallic stage father becomes a girl’s

new love object upon the girls’ discovery that boys have a penis which they don’t have. For this

behavior the term Electra complex has been used.5 Due to these believes some other

psychologists criticize Freud theory on the fact that it is demeaning to women and inappropriate.

4. The Latent Period

It occurs from age six up to puberty (around 11). At this stage the sexual activities and

satisfaction of libido remain dormant as most of the mental a bodily energies are focused on

developing physical and intellectual abilities through sports, playing and school homework. The

child as he enters into school focuses his attention on making friends, hobbies and interests. This

stage is significant to the development of individual personality because the sense of industry,

development of skills to work with people and objects and initiative without sense of inferiority

serves as a foundation for grownup adults who are satisfied in their love and work.1

5. The Genital Stage

Ranges from puberty onwards. This stage begins during when an individual begins to feel

strong sexual emotions for the opposite sex and this satisfies the libidinal desire. This because

the bodily changes triggered by puberty stimulate the sexual urges and the person now needs to

learn socially acceptable ways to express these urges. If all previous stages are successfully

completed, an individual will develop a concern for others and their welfare, and s/he will also

be caring and capable of understanding other’s needs. The fully developed sex instinct is then

satisfied by marrying opposite sex and raising children. 2

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Relationship with Adult Neurotic Behavior

Neurosis is a mental or personality disturbance not known to be attributed to any organic

dysfunction. It may include unusual human behaviors such as disturbances of sight and sound,

lack of ability to eat properly and paralysis of arms. Sigmund Freud developed his initial ideas,

conclusions and explanations on adult neurotic behavior based on his experiences with his

clients. He found that most of his clients’ disorders centered on the childhood sexual conflicts

and inability to complete a particular psychosexual stage successfully. Freud concluded from his

research that most of the neurosis problems faced during adulthood is directly related to non-

completion of the tasks of psychosexual development. When people suppress their unfulfilled

needs and sexual desires, neurotic behaviors result at later stages in life.3

Therefore, the neurotic adult behaviors are the manifestations of childhood libidinal

desires and sexual fantasies. And if the sex instincts at earlier stages of life are not dealt with and

gratified in correct way, the neurotic behavior at later stages will happen afterwards as a

consequence. Here we can again take the example in previous section. If a child has not properly

resolved the oral stage and fixation occurs, it may rather result in Oral-receptive personality

characterized by being overly dependent on others, needy and at the later on seek to reduce

tension through smoking drinking, and eating; or Oral-aggressive personality which is

characterized by hostile attitude and being verbally abusive to others. Likewise insufficient toilet

training may also result in anal-expulsive (i.e., lack of self-control and being careless) or anal-

retentive personality (i.e., looking for order and tidiness, and characterized by stubbornness and

perfectionism). Like this the Freud’s theory can help in understanding a client’s presenting

issues.
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Criticism on Freud’s Psychosexual Theory

The concept of unconscious motivation is accepted widely and considered to be one of

the greatest contributions made by Sigmund Freud in the field of developmental psychology.

Few contemporary developmentalists are still the strong proponents of Freudian theory.

However, a lot of developmental psychologists today have rejected Freud’s concept of

psychoanalysis on the basis that it’s empirical or scientific verification is very hard to come by.

Libido is impossible to quantify or measure and therefore cannot be tested. Likewise we cannot

measure the relative intensities of id, ego and superego.

Other psychologists criticize Freudian theory on the grounds that we can never know for

sure whether the early childhood experiences actually have a solid effect on the later

development of personality, since the length of time between the cause and effect is too long to

make any realistic assumptions about human behavior. This is so because the human behavior

keeps changing and depends on the circumstances. Furthermore, the arguments are made that the

Freud’s believes are founded on basis of studies on his patients and not any empirical research,

and the case studies were also done on adult patients instead of observation during the

childhood.4

A lot of people today prefer other theories, such as Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial

Development (1963), to Freud’s theory. This is because people don’t think that their personalities

and lives are so much dominated by the sexual instincts. Although Erikson consented with many

of the Freud’s ideas, there are two main points on which Freud’s theory differed from that of

Erikson’s. The first critical difference is that Erikson believed children are curious explorers who

learn to adapt to their environment rather than simply being slaves of their bodily needs and
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being shaped up by their parents. Secondly Erikson emphasized the role of cultural influences

and placed much less emphasis on the sexual instincts than Freud.7

Feminist Critique

Freud’s theory was concentrated mainly on the male psychosexual development and the

female development was not much emphasized. This is the reason why feminist critiques

regarded Freud’s theory as androcentric. Freud attempted to explain the theoretical explanation

of psychosexual development of female only at later stages of his career, and he also confessed

that he had trouble including the female sexuality and desires within the theory. As mentioned in

the earlier parts of the essay, due to the concept of “penis envy” many female psychologists have

criticized Freud’s theory on the grounds that it is demeaning to women and inappropriate.

Freud said, “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”. 1 He further wrote that after this

stage a girl develops all feminine characteristics and matures of her childish desires into giving

a birth to her own child. Many feminist critiques don’t believe it to be exactly the case and this,

therefore, has attracted a lot of criticism on Freud’s theory.

An Evaluative Argument on Freud’s Theory

Although it’s impossible to scientifically evaluate the rationality of the theory as most of

the psychoanalytic hypotheses are untestable, Freud’s greatest contribution was the identification

of unconscious motivation that exists from birth. Arguments continue regarding how significant

are the early experience with respect to later stages, but most of the contemporary psychologists

do agree that some of the childhood experiences play an important role in personality
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development and have long lasting effects. Freud also explained in detail the emotional aspect of

humans, such as love, fear, fatigue, anxiety etc. and how they have a lasting impression on our

lives. For these reasons, Freud has certainly changed our views about the human development. 2

The main question one may ask while evaluating the psychosexual theory is whether the

sex instinct really drives all our actions and influences our lives? The answers may vary

depending on the individual and his/her experiences. But it may be safe to say that besides sexual

desires other factors such as culture and environment also play an important role in forming our

personality and attitudes. Sigmund Freud also developed the method of “Talk Therapy” which

has become a very important part of different therapeutic techniques in determining the

substantial events and that may have an effect on client’s issues and difficulties. The “Talk

Therapy” method is being used even by those psychotherapists who criticize or reject the

Freudian theory.

To sum up, Freud devised one of the most famous and widely talked about psychological

personality theories of all time. His theory and ideas were mainly concentrated on the belief that

the biological needs and instincts, chiefly sex, plays the most vital role and are the driving forces

behind an individual’s every action. 6

Freud’s theory can play an important role in understanding a client’s presenting problem.

Firstly, when interviewing the client, we might ask questions based on the client’s childhood

experience, sex in particular, including abuses and fantasies. Then writing a mental health

assessment based on the client’s mental health history and childhood experience, including its

relevance and relation to the Freud’s psychosexual stages to establish any conflicts and fixation.

The final assessment is then used for developing a treatment plan for elimination a client’s

presenting problem.
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References

1
Freud, Sigmund. New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis. Norton, 1925, p. 212.
2
Shaffer, David R. and Kip, Katherine. Developmental Psychology: Childhood and

Adolescence. Wadsworth Publishing, 2009, pp. 43-44.

3
Patel, Sudha C. and Jakopac, Kim A. Manual of Psychiatric Nursing Skills. Jones & Bartlett

Learning, 2011, p. 490.

4
Videback, Sheila L. Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2010,

p. 44.
5
Schultz, Duain P. and Schultz, Sydney E. Theories of Personality. Wadsworth Publishing,

2004, p. 66.
6
Ives, Hendrick. Facts and Theories of Psychoanalysis. Routledge, 1999, p. 143.
7
B. R. Hergenhahn. An Introduction to the History of Psychology. Wadsworth Publishing,

2008, p. 544.