Freud’s Theory of Psychosexual Development Freud’s theory of psychological development described how the personality developed over the course of childhood. While the theory is well-known in psychology, it is also one of the most controversial. Freud believed that personality developed through a series of childhood stages in which the pleasure-seeking energies of the id become focused on certain erogenous zones. This psychosexual energy – “libido” – was posited as one of the basic primal…