Sigmund Freud's Five Stages Of Psychosexual Development

Personality is the consistent and distinctive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in which an individual engages. Within personality, there are a number of personality styles which define who people are. Personality styles are defined as organized patterns of behavioral characteristics of an individual. Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, believed that personality was derived from constant and unique interaction of conflicting psychological forces that operate on three different levels of consciousness: consciousness, pre-consciousness, and unconsciousness. The conscious mind is defined as a relatively small part of our minds that we are aware of at the moment. This includes what you are thinking about at one specific moment in time. If you are …show more content…
Each stage contains a fixation of a part of the body. The five stages of psychosexual development include: the oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latency stage, and genital stage. The oral stage, from newborn to one years old, is the period of time in which the child derives pleasure by engaging in oral activities. Such activities include biting, sucking, and chewing. This stage is derived from the id. Adults who become fixated on this stage often become extremely clingy and emotionally dependent on others. As well, this stage is usually initiated by stress. The conflict of this stage is the process of weaning, and the resolution is the fixation of the anal stage. The anal stage, from ages one to three, is the period of time in which the child derives pleasure from defecation. The authority of defecation is removed from the child and now into the parent's hands. If a child becomes too closely reformed to the demands of parents during the potty-training process, as an adult they can experience anal retentive qualities. If a child has an overly laxed experience with potty-training, the results could be the child growing into an anal expulsive adult. The conflict of this stage is potty training, and the resolution is having proper toilet …show more content…
In boys, erotic attraction is towards their mother figure, while in girls, erotic attraction is toward their father figure. As well, during this stage boys develop a fear that the father will punish them for their sexual desires toward his mother, which is called Oedipus complex. Electra complex is young girls anger toward their mother because they believe they have inflicted harm on them by removing their penis. The conflict of this stage is developing a phallic character, and the resolution is controlling the urges of the phallic