Toddler Sex

During my Psychology class, I learned that many of Freud’s theories incorporate how sexual urges shape identity. According to Graham Hammill, Freud “salvages his central thesis that the reality of the unconscious is sexual” (Hammill 75). In other words, Freud believed that our unconscious is ruled by erotic feelings throughout our whole life. Sigmund Freud developed psychosexual stages to give meaning to the foundation of an individual’s personality. He believed that young children experience sexual pleasures that have a lasting impact on their adult personality. Using distinctive psychosexual stages, Freud categorized where children focus their erotic feeling into five stages. The five psychosexual stages are the oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages. At the most basic level, the oral stage occurs during the first years of life and erotic simulation comes from sucking and biting. During the toddler years is the anal stage. This is when children get erotic pleasure through bowel movement (potty training). Next is the phallic stage; this is when the genitals come into play. This is also the stage of the Oedipal Complex. It is when children develop strong feelings for the opposite sex parent and realize that the other sex has different genitals. The latency stage is when nothing really happens from ages 6-12. Lastly, the genital stage begins at puberty and stretches onward. Freud believed childhood disturbances in these psychosexual stages cause personality disturbances in adulthood. Freud believed that fixation, or having difficulty moving onto the next stage, is caused by either excessive gratification or neglect of a child’s needs. In each new psychosexual stage individuals face new challenges. According to Freud, these challenges are pivotal to the formation of personality.

Many people have come to questions Freud’s development of the psychosexual stages. Are these stages actual results of sexual urges during childhood? One issue is that Freud broadly defines what “sexual” is. Sex is “defined neither by an object of attraction nor by a particular activity” and it becomes “synonymous with excitation” (Hammill 75). To some, this theory might sound “hard to understand, strange, sometime even antiquated or lacking in practical relevance” (Hartmann 2333). Was Freud really trying to justify adult personality problems by blaming it on the neglect of childhood sexual urges? Whether you think so or not, the reality is that “Freud’s groundbreaking work took a profound influence on science and culture” (Hartmann 2332). By developing the psychosexual stages, Freud addressed the belief that adult personality is directly correlated with childhood events.

Sources:

Hammill, Graham. "Psychoanalysis and Sexuality." 73-79. Rosemont Publishing & Printing Corporation, 2005. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. Web. 5 Dec. 2010.

Hartmann, Uwe. "Sigmund Freud and His Impact on Our Understanding of Male Sexual Dysfunction." Journal of Sexual Medicine 6.8 (2009): 2332-2339. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 5 Dec. 2010.

Picture Source:

Hartmann, Uwe. "Sigmund Freud and His Impact on Our Understanding of Male Sexual Dysfunction." Journal of Sexual Medicine 6.8 (2009): 2334. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 5 Dec. 2010.