Is Freud's theory of psychosexual development like the 'curate's egg' - good in parts ?

This question immediately raises the problem, 'how are we to determine which parts of Freudian theory of psychosexual development are 'good'?' Freud may well have argued that the evidence he documented from his psychotherapy sessions is sufficient, psychologists in the phenomonological tradition would probably look to support these observations with some laboratory studies, whilst behaviourists would demand that the various aspects of the theory could only be recognised as 'good' after being exposed to the full rigours of the scientific method. I personally don't feel that one can hope to design a repeatable experiment that will decisively illustrate the existance of, for example, the Oedipus complex. On the other hand I also feel that we cannot simply accept a theory that has been moulded to fit a certain experimentors observations, coloured as they must be by his own personality, prejudices, and society. Therefore in this essay I will examine the empirical evidence from studies conducted on this most controversial of Freud's theories, and where that evidence appears on balance to give support to that particular theory, I will accept it as 'good'. As I said earlier some will regard this measure of worth as too lax to be of any use, whilst others will object to the application of science to the process of personality development, a process that is infinitely complex and unique, and so above science.

The title also demands an explanation of what is included in the term 'psychosexual theory', as so much of Freudian theory is almost organic in the way it is inter-linked. In this essay I will examine the theories of the oral and anal personality, and the Oedipus and penis-envy complexes. I have chosen to limit my study to these topics because the combination of being some of the most controversial of Freud's theories, and their relative suitability to empirical investigation, should ensure a plentiful supply of material from distinguished psychologists.

Freud's theories of the oral and anal personality are centred around the idea that the infant is able to experience sexual sensations, and that the basis for these sensations changes during early development. Initially the mouth is the primary 'erogenous' zone, beginning at the age of, then the anus becomes the centre of stimulation, normally from, and then finally the genitalia become the basis of sexual sensation. According to Freud deprivation or over-stimulation of these first two zones will lead to certain personality traits in adulthood, the third stage is associated with the Oedipal and penis envy complexes.

Characteristics of the oral personality were outlined by Blum and Daniel (1952). They included an extreme interest in food, social isolation, a need for liking and approval, concern with giving and receiving, low boredom tolerance, dependency, need to be ingratiating, inability to divide loyalties, depressive tendencies and suggestability. Firstly I will examine those experiments which have attempted to show the widespread existance of a personality which included most of these characteristics, I will then go on to examine the experiments that have tried to link the age of weaning, considered an event central to the degree of orality in an ...

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Goldman-Eisler (1951) conducted a study, the initial stage of which was to analyse a number of individuals to try and identify the two poles of orality. Two poles of orality did emerge, which Goldman-Eisler termed pessimistic oral and optimistic oral, pessimistic oral being that pole which corresponds with oral depravation (early weaning). However Goldman-Eisler's pessimistic oral personality type did not have the traits of impulsion, aggression and autonomy, which according to Goldman-Eisler, "psychoanalysts consider to be important traits of oral character". The fact that Blum and Miller (1952), in a study published one year later include dependency as a characteristic of the oral personality would seem to indicate some degree of confusion as to what exactly does constitute the oral personality.

Blum and Miller's study also attempted to provide evidence for the oral personality, but with a much different experimental method. They tried to link the primary trait of an orally deprived individual, numerous mouth and tongue movements and mouth touching with the hands, with the personality traits I listed two paragraphs previously. The experiment was to be carried out on a class of eight year olds in a U.S. school. Blum and Miller began by giving each child an orality rating, by observing the number of mouth movements and actions they made in a set period. They then designed and carried out an experiment to test each of the oral traits of personality, the experiments were all carried out in a normal class-room environment. As the methods all differed, and were quite complex I won't list them all, but to give an indication of the type of method I will outline how Blum and Miller graded the children on their interest in food. At dinner time the children were given a meal large enough to sate even the largest eight year old appetite, they were then offered as many one ounce pots of vannila ice-cream as they could eat, and the total for each child being recorded. Whilst this experimental design is attractively simple it does lead one to question to what extent the consumption was due to a liking to vanilla ice-cream, and to what extent the oral personality. Accepting this criticism Blum and Miller still found a P<.05 correlation between consumption of ice-cream and mouth movements. Other statistically significant links were also found concerning eagerness for others liking and social isolation. This experiment has been criticised by Kline (1972), a Freudian sympathist, on the basis that because the oral and anal personalities don't manifest themselves until* adulthood, the whole experiment is all but worthless. Eysenck and Wilson, who could be described as Freudian sceptics, point out that most oral personality traits could not be shown to exist in statistically significant results, and that the three significant links can be explained away; the interest in food by common sense, and the social isolation, and need for liking and acceptance, by the inevitable fatness and lack of sporting prowess that would result from eating upwards of thirty tubs of ice-cream a day. I would disagree with Eysenck and Miller's assertion that it is common sense that children who make a lot of mouth movements would necessarily be overly interested in food. However the results of the experiment do nothing to show the existance of an oral personality, the only evidence for a Freudian theory that it is possible to draw from this experiment is the possibility of a link between

However, even Kline, an experimentor sympathetic to Freud, admits that, "From the considerable number of studies attempting to relate child-rearing procedures to personality development only two give even slight support to the Freudian theory.

One of the studies Kline that was refering to was that discussed earlier, carried out by Frieda Goldman-Eisler in 1951 (1). After identifying the two sets of traits that constituted the opimisitc and pessimistic oral personalities, Goldman-Eisler attempted to demonstate a link between these personality types and age of weaning from the breast. The only significant result (P<0.05) that Goldman found was a link between those weaned relatively early, and a pessimistic oral personality. Eysenck and Wilson (1973) shed doubt on these findings, claiming that early weaning could be associated with a rejecting or unaffectionate mother, and that therefore the link may be genetic or environmental. In my opinion, whilst this criticism may be justified, the positive result is a significant one, providing the only real evidence for a link between weaning and personality traits. However there still remains a significant weakness in the concept of the oral personality. In all my reading for this essay I have been struck by the lack of concensus about what exactly constitutes such a personality; Blum and Daniel listed ten traits, Goldman-Eisler nineteen, and X in Y stated there were only three of any significance. With so many traits being suggested and with some traits selected by one experimentor being at odds with those selected by another, empirical research has not been, and is never going to be simple or conclusive. As such I think it must be stated that Freud's theory does not appear to have much support from epirical studies, and I would be unwilling to pronounce it 'good'.

The anal personality however is well-defined, and relatively simple, concerning a triad of traits; obstinancy, parsimony and orderliness. I will follow the same approach with the anal personality as I did with the oral; firstly examining whether such a pesonality exists in significant numbers, and secondly examining attempts to link the personality with toilet training practices, the key stage in the development of anal fixation.

The task of showing such a link is made extremely difficult, because in his original article Freud stated that an anal personality would result only when an individual of high anal eroticisim is severely toilet trained. By introducing the need for high anal eroticism, a characteristic referred to as the anal stamp, Freud has forced us to consider a constitutional variable, but has given no indication how those with the anal stamp be identified in childhood.

When Kline said that of the experiments that attempted to demonstrate a link between child-rearing practices and personality, "only two give even slight support to the Freudian theory", one of the experiments he was refering to was carried out by himself in 1968. In this he attempted to identify those individuals in which a combination of the anal stamp and potty training practices had resulted in an anal fixation, by showing them various 'Blacky' pictures (Blum, 1949). These showed scenes of a dog in various family situations, particularly significant for measuring anality were those in which Blacky appeared to be defecating. Kline measured anality by asking the subjects to tell a story based on the cartoon, a multiple-choice questionnaire, comments on the cartoon, and preference for any particular cartoon. These scores of anality were then compared with scores of anality based on four personality trait scales (Beloff scale, Hazari traits, Hazari symptoms, and the Ai3, a scale formulated by Kline himself). Three of these scales produced a significant correlation was found, (P<0.01), only the Hazari symptoms measure didn't show a significant correlation. Kline claims that these results obviously provide evidence that a link exists between anal fixation and a personality centred around obstinancy, parsimony, and orderliness. Eysenck and Wilson have criticised, even dismissed, this apparently successful attempt to apply science to a Freudian theory. They do this on three grounds, firstly Kline's experiment does not actually tackle a Freudian hypothesis, Kline has blamed the failure of earlier experiments on their failure to account for the anal stamp, yet, according to Eyesenck and Wilson, has failed to consider the equally significant role of toilet training practices.