The second stage, called the anal stage, happens between eighteen months old until the child’s three years old. The main physical focus during this stage is the anus (elimination). Freud believed the baby’s sexual pleasure centred around the anus at this time. The psychological theme at this age is self-control and obedience. These things are not just related to toilet training but the baby must also learn to control urges and behaviours. What goes wrong here is either parents being too controlling or not controlling enough. Freud was a great believer in moderation. Anal fixation, which Freud reckons is caused by too much punishment during toilet training or too much praise has two possible outcomes. If a child has too much praise during this stage, he’ll/she’ll turn out with a ‘anal expulsive personality’, which means a lack of self control, being generally messy and careless. A ‘anal retentive personality’ is the opposite to ‘anal expulsive personality’ as this personality is a stingy one, with a compulsive seeking of order and tidiness. The person would be generally stubborn and a perfectionist according to Freud’s theory.
The third stage is called the phallic, and it happens between three years old and six years old.The physical focus is the penis. Freud believed that boys and girls both focused on the penis. (Boys: why hasn’t she got one? Girls: why haven’t I got one?). Children become particularly interested in playing with their genitals at this stage. The psychological theme at this stage is morality and sexuality. Children, according to Freud have sexual feelings for the opposite sexed parent at this stage and boys suffer a castration anxiety, where the son believes his father knows about his desire for his mother and hence fears his father will castrate him. He then represses his desire and defensively identifies with his father. Girls suffer a penis envy, where the daughter is initially attached to her mother, but then a shift of attachment occurs when she realizes she lacks a penis. She desires her father whom she sees as a means to obtain a penis substitute (a child). She then represses her desire for her father and incorporates the values of her mother and accepts her inherent 'inferiority' in society.
The latency stage happens between six years old, until the child starts his puberty. According to Freud, the child didn’t develop much here, and nothing really takes place. The latency stage is the period of relative calm. The sexual and aggressive drives are less active and there is little in the way of psychosexual conflict.
The genital stage takes place post puberty and the physical focus are the genitals. The attention is again on the libido, but this time, it’s in a grown up way. The psychological theme at this stage is maturity, creation and enhancement of life. So this is not just about creating a new life, but also about intellectual and artistic creativity. The task is to learn how to add something constructive to life and society. If for instant, at this stage, a person falls in love with someone, he’ll/she’ll grow up to be psychologically well-adjusted and balanced. According to Freud to achieve this state you need to have a balance of both love and work.
The importance of relationships with others as a child is a key factor of our psychological functioning later in our life, especially those relationships with family members. There is a big emphasis placed on the relationship between a developing child and its parents, according to Freud. He believed that the quality of the relationship with parents is reflected in how well the child progresses through each stage of development. Adults are often transference, which is the process by which emotions and desires originally associated with one person, such as a parent or sibling, are unconsciously shifted to another person. An emotion directed at one relationship becomes transferred on to new relationships. This idea is used in psychodynamic therapy where patients build a transference relationship with their therapist.
According to Freud, the mind can be divided into two main parts: which includes everything that we are aware of. This is the aspect of our mental processing that we can think and talk about on a daily basis. Freud called this ordinary memory the The second part is the , which is a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories that outside of our conscious awareness. Most of the contents of the unconscious are unacceptable or unpleasant, such as feelings of pain, anxiety, or conflict. According to Freud, the unconscious continues to influence our behavior and experience, even though we are unaware of these underlying influences.
Perhaps Freud’s single most enduring and important idea was that the human personality has more than one aspect. Freud saw the adult personality structured into three parts – the id, the ego and the super-ego all developing different stages in our lives. These are systems, not part of the brain or in any way physical.
The id consists of all the inherited components of personality. The id is the part of our personality which responds directly and immediately to the instincts.
The ego ideally works by reason whereas the id is chaotic and totally unreasonable. Like the id, ego seeks pleasure and avoids pain, but unlike the id, the ego is concerned with devising a reality strategy to obtain pleasure.
The super-ego’s function is to control the id’s impulses, especially those with society forbids, such as sex and aggression
One of the major influences in the urges we are born with is our instincts which are mainly sexual or aggressive in nature. Freud believes that people have two drives – Eros and Thanatos. Eros is a life instinct whilst Thonatos, which means death, is a destructive drive. Eros is a positive drive, which includes emotions such as love, and socializing. Freud later called this the libido. Thonatos is a drive towards death. It co-works with negative emotions such as hatred and feeling scared and it can determine someone to be anti-social, from bullying to even murder.