Sigmund Freud's 5 Stages of Psychosexual Development

The current of psychoanalysis started by Sigmund Freud more than 100 years ago in one of the main influences of contemporary western culture.

If his theories about the workings of the unconscious have served as influences in many areas of the humanities and art, it is no less true that a good part of his approaches have to do with sexuality human. The theory of psychosexual development with its different stages is the embodiment of this idea, and that is why historically it has received a lot of attention.

Sexuality according to Freud

For Freud, human sexuality is one of the main sources of vital energy that drives human behavior. This energy, which was given the name of libido, is the source of the impulses that, for the father of psychoanalysis, make us tend towards certain short-term goals and, at the same time, force us to other instances of our psyche to repress these tendencies so as not to put ourselves in danger or not to conflict with the environment in which we live.

The vital energy that is expressed through sexuality, according to Freud, is already present from the first weeks of our life, which means that our sexual aspect is not born in the

adolescence, as many researchers of his time maintained.

But the repercussions of this do not have to do simply with locating the beginning of our sexual development at one point or another on our vital calendar. It has profound implications for the way you Freud related our personality with our intimate side, affective and impulse-based.

The development of the unconscious

One of the essential ideas behind Freud's theory of psychosexual development is that the way in which he manages libido satisfaction during childhood leave some traces in our unconscious that will be noticed during adult life.

Thus, if factors external to a child make him unable to satisfy these tendencies as he would like (for example, due to reprimands from his parents), this anguish is translated into a fixation that has to do with ideas related to a specific erogenous zone (which does not have to be in the genital).  For Freud, therefore, both biology and nurture are involved in psychosexual development.

Other followers of the psychodynamic current ended up rejecting Freud's deterministic view, according to which the unconscious part of ourselves constantly manipulates us without us being able to do too much about it. However, this way of thinking led Freud to create the theory of psychosexual development, one of the most remembered in the history of psychology.

The stages of development and their fixations

From the different ways in which the growth stage of minors conditions the appearance of one or another type of fixation, Sigmund Freud  formulated the theory that would link sexuality with the development of the Freudian unconscious.

In it, it is proposed that in the first years of our lives we go through different stages of development linked to sexuality and different fixations, and that what happens during them will influence the way in which the unconscious conditions the person once they have reached the adulthood. That is, each of the stages of psychosexual development would mark the tempos that define what type of actions are necessary to express libido in a satisfactory way and which ones can create conflicts that remain unconsciously embedded in us.

The drive phases of psychosexual development

From the psychosexual theory of personality development, it is understood that the past history of each person determines the way in which the power relationship is modeled. between the unconscious structures of the individual, on the one hand, and the structures that struggle not to express these elements that belong outside of consciousness, by the other.

Thus, the way a person behaves will depend on the way in which he has faced the different stages of psychosexual development and the characteristic challenges of each phase.

As for the father of psychoanalysis libido is assumed as the main type of energy that moves people, these challenges and conflicts of each maturation phase will have a more or less veiled connection with their way of experiencing sexuality (understood in a very broad sense in which all kinds of symbolisms).

According to Freudian theory,  stages of psychosexual development and their characteristics are as follows.

1. Oral stage

The oral stage occupies approximately the first 18 months of life, and in it appear the first attempts to satisfy the demands promoted by the libido. In it, the mouth is the main area in which pleasure is sought. The mouth is also one of the main areas of the body when exploring the environment and its elements, and this would explain the propensity of the little ones to try to "bite" everything.

If babies are strongly prevented from using their mouths to satisfy themselves, this could produce a blockage that would cause certain problems to be fixed in the unconscious (always according to Freud).

2. Anal stage

This stage would occur from the end of the oral stage and up to 3 years of age. It is trapped from the phase in which they begin to control the sphincter in defecation. For Freud, this activity is linked to pleasure and sexuality.

The fixations related to this phase of psychosexual development have to do with accumulation and spending, linked to the thrifty spirit and discipline in the first case, and to disorganization and waste of resources in the first case. second. However, according to the father of psychoanalysis, these spending and saving dynamics would not be expressed solely or mainly through money management.

3. Phallic stage

This instinctual phase would last between 3 and 6 years, and its associated erogenous zone is that of the genitals. In this way, the main pleasant sensation would be to urinate, but it would also originate in this phase the beginning of curiosity about the differences between men and women, boys and girls, starting with the obvious dissimilarities in the shape of the genitals and ending with interests, ways of being and dressing, etc.

Furthermore, Freud related this phase to the appearance of "Oedipus complex", in which male children feel attraction towards the person who plays the role of mother and feel jealousy and fear towards the person who plays the role of father. Regarding girls who go through this stage of psychosexual development, Freud "slightly adapted the idea with the Oedipus Complex so that you encompass these, despite the fact that the concept had been developed to make sense mainly in the males. It was later that Carl Jung proposed the Electra complex as a female counterpart to Oedipus.

4. Latency stage

This phase begins around the age of 7 and extends until the beginning of puberty.. The latency stage is characterized by not having a specific associated erogenous zone and, in general, by representing a freezing of sexual experimentation by children, partly because of all the punishments and reprimands received. That is why Freud described this phase as one in which sexuality is more camouflaged than in the previous ones.

The latency stage has been associated with the appearance of modesty and shame related to sexuality.

5. Genital stage

The genital stage appears with puberty and continues thereafter. It is related to the physical changes that accompany adolescence. Furthermore, in this phase of psychosexual development the desire related to the sexual becomes so intense that it cannot be repressed as effectively as in previous stages.

The erogenous zone related to this vital moment is once again that of the genitals, but unlike what happens in the phallic phase, here the competences necessary to express sexuality through more abstract and symbolic bonds of union that have to do with consensus and attachment with other people. It is the birth of adult sexuality, in contrast to another linked only to simple instant gratifications and obtained through stereotypical activities.

Freudian theory, in context

The theory of psychosexual development can lead to a certain alarmism if it is thought that poor management of the education of minors during these phases can leave them with trauma Y all kinds of disorders if the ideas of Freud are not well understood. However, keep in mind that this theory during was formulated and developed at a point when psychology had just been born.

When Sigmund Freud developed his theories, it was based on concrete cases of patients he knew, that is In other words, his way of investigating was based on a mixture of case studies and interpretation of the symbolic contents of people's behavior. He hardly established hypotheses that could be contrasted with reality, and when he did, he limited himself to observing, not conducting experiments. The theory of psychosexual development was no exception to this rule.

Nor does it make much sense to investigate the usefulness of the theory of psychosexual development using statistical analysis, because the formulation of these ideas was based on the interpretation that was done about the actions of the patients and their past.

Partly because of this and partly because Freudian psychoanalysis does not adhere to the epistemology used in current science, there is no reason to think that this theory serves to explain and predict problems related to sexuality and the socialization of women. people. That means that psychosexual theory cannot be used to detect red flags about whether children or adolescents develop correctly or not, nor can it serve to ensure that mental disorders are due to this kind of mechanisms.

Bibliographic references:

• Bullock, A., Trombley, S. (1999) The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought. London: Harper Collins.
• Grunbaum, A. (1985). The foundations of Psychoanalysis: a philosophical critique. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Quidonoz, J.M. (2005). Reading Freud. A Chronological Exploration of Freud's Writings. New York: Routledge.
• Mannoni, O. (2015). Freud: The Theory of the Unconscious. London: Verse.
• Scott, J. (2005). Electra after Freud: Myth and Culture. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
• Sigmund, F. (2012). Three essays on sexual theory. Buenos Aires: Editorial Alliance.