Sometimes children can become 'fixated' in one of the above stages. A fixation in a stage can be caused by a number of reasons, and results in the respective stage's personality structure (i.e. the id, ego or superego), becoming dominant. A fixation in the oral stage caused by insufficient breastfeeding may result in an 'orally frustrated' personality, where the child will become frustrated, greedy, addictive, envious and impatient. If a fixation in the oral stage is due to too much pleasure in breastfeeding, the child may become reliant on others and gullible. A third oral fixation caused by excessive pleasure from biting is the 'oral sadistic' personality, which may lead the child to be cynical and sarcastic. An 'anally retentive' personality may develop as a result of deriving pleasure from retaining fæces in toilet training. This can lead to the 'anal triad': orderliness, miserliness and obstinance. If pleasure is derived from pleasure in expulsion of fæces, the child may develop an 'anal expulsive' personality, becoming extravagant, messy, manic and creative. Lack of identification with an adult during the phallic stage may lead to a 'phalically fixated' personality, whereby the child becomes hysterical, exhibitionist and narcissistic, and exaggerates masculinity or femininity. This is particularly relevant, since the phallic stage is when boys develop the Œdipus Complex and girls develop the Electra Complex. According to Freud, the Œdipus Complex develops as the boy develops a desire for his mother. He sees his father as a rival, and as a result becomes scared that his father will castrate him, but resolves the conflict by identifying with him and adopting many of his traits and morals. The Electra Complex is developed when a girl realises she has no penis, and believes she has already been castrated. This leads to penis envy and subsequent blame of the mother, and affection is drawn towards the father, who has a penis. The penis envy is then resolved by a desire for a child.
Resolution of conflict is a significant part of Freud's theory. He identified several 'defence mechanisms' which are used to resolve conflict. For example, if a traumatic event occurs, the victim's ego may push the memory into the unconscious: this is called repression. Another example of a defence mechanism is intellectualisation, whereby the ego acknowledges what it is doing by stripping it of any emotional content and justifying it by other means. For example, a doctor performing surgery justifies cutting open a body by noting that it is in his/her profession and he/she has been trained to do such procedures in order to save lives.
Freud's theory has received much criticism. For example, it is argued that his theory is unscientific since it is unfalsifiable: any outcome could be taken as support for the theory. For example, if a person is troubled due to abuse at a young age, it can be said that this has had a lasting effect on the development of the person's personality, therefore supporting the theory. If the same person had the same troubles but either had not been abused or could not remembering being abused, it could be interpreted that the person had repressed the memory of the abuse, also supporting the theory.
It is also possible that the case studies on which Freud's psychodynamic theory is based do not hold much external validity. Case studies focus on one person at a time, and therefore may not relate back to the general population as a whole. It should also be noted that Freud's patients were mostly white, middle-class, adult Viennese women. This brings about issues with population validity as it is a very selective sample, and cross-cultural variations or even variations between classes may occur. Temporal validity is also of concern, as the case studies were carried out in the Victorian era in Austria, in a time of great sexual repression. Bayan and Hayes (1994) suggest that this may have been the reason why so many of Freud's patients had repressed sexual memories, and it may have also influenced his possible overemphasis on sex as a factor in personality development. The majority of Freud's clients were also psychologically abnormal, as he did no research on the general population to test his theory. This means that it may not apply to healthy people at all, and may not be as useful for determining personality development as it is for determining the negative long-term effects on less mentally-stable people of experiences at a young age.
Direct parts of Freud's theory have also been targeted, for example Horney (1924) and Thompson (1943) suggested that females do not have penis envy: instead they envy the social status of males, which can perhaps be symbolised by a penis. They also found that it may be men, and not women, who regard a lack of penis as an inferiority. Similarly, Segall said that Freud overlooked the idea that boys envy their father for their power status, and suggested that more cultures need to be examined. Malinowski conducted a study in a different culture (the avuncular culture of the Trobriand Islands), where children are brought up by their uncles, with their father's primary position being the lover of the mother. In this culture, children had better relationships with their fathers, suggesting that it is status envy rather than penis envy or desire for mother that the child has.
More generally, Hall and Lindzey (1970) suggested that Freud's theory may have lasted so long and been taken so seriously as it is both broad and deep and has an exciting literary quality. The nature of the case studies perhaps appeals more to the general population than would scientific experiments with little literary value, leading people to accept the theory more.
But nonetheless, Freud's psychodynamic theory has received much support from research. For example, Myers (2000) described a 'repressive coping style', whereby people who feel the need to bee social accepted and show low levels of anxiety are slow to report negative memories, and were good at forgetting when asked to do so. Myers and Brewin (1994) found that female repressors are likely to have had experience hostility from their fathers at a young age. Also in support for this is a study by Williams (1994), who found that 17 years after sexual abuse, 38% of the victims had no recollection of the incident(s), and even more reported that there had been a time when they could not remember.
Freud also had an ideographic approach to understanding the way people think and feel: he developed his theories by using in-depth case studies. It is also undeniable that Freud's theories have contributed a lot to psychology: it showed that the mind is complex and that some mental processes are unconscious, for example, which also takes the factor of guilt away from mentally ill patients (though it arguably shifts guilt to the parents). It also showed that childhood experiences can have a lasting effect on a person's personality, and that children mature through a series of stages, which both can be supported by research into attachments, for example by Bowlby, Ainsworth, and Schaffer and Emerson (1964). Indeed, Freud's theories have lasted for a long time, and continue to offer suggestions as to why people develop in the ways that they do.
