Category: Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development

Two influential theorists in psychology are Freuds psychodynamics theory and Bowlby’s evolutionary theory of attachment. Both these theorists look at developmental psychology, this is something that looks at how thoughts and behavior changes throughout an individual’s life starting from childhood, most developmental changes occur during this time. The debate surrounding nature vs nurture is a long-lasting aspect of developmental psychology, in this debate nature is defined as something that determines our behaviour, personality and our ability through genetics, and nurture is where our upbringing and life experiences are thought to determine who we become as people.

Positive social and emotional development is essential, these are part of the development which influences an individual’s empathy, self-confidence and the ability to develop meaningful and lasting relationships. Also, developing a feeling of significance to those around them. In childhood social and emotional development quite often affects other parts of development. Starting from a young age, caregivers play a big role in a young person’s development as they tend to have the most dependable relationship. Sometimes developments don’t progress as was initially thought. Freuds thoughts were that if we were to become fixated at an early stage of psychosexual development this would determine our personalities and character traits later in life, if one became fixated in the oral stage which means they get comfort orally then later in life they may become big drinkers, eaters or even smokers as they struggle with dependency.

Bowlby believed that early attachment would later influence romantic relationships and our parenting skills, he sees attachment as monotropic, this is where children tend to form an attachment to a single person. This attachment is believed to create a model for relationships in the future, which the child may expect from others. Freuds theory of Psychodynamic has been based on the thought that the different parts of a person’s mind conflicts with one another wanting different things. These parts of the mind are called the Id, the ego and the superego these are developed during childhood in the stages of psychosexual development, the five stages are oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital. The id is powered by something called the ‘pleasure principle’, which makes every effort for instant fulfilment of all that is wanted, desired and needed, this aspect of personality is completely unconscious and is something that is present from birth. The ego works in a way that is based on the ‘reality principle’, which tries to fulfil the id’s desires in the most appropriate ways.

The reality principle works out the pros and cons of an action before deciding whether to follow through with the id’s desires or not. The ego works in the conscious, preconscious and unconscious mind this usually develops during the oral stage of psychosexual development. The superego is the final part of an individual’s personality to develop, it is the aspect that helps us see right from wrong. Like the ego, the superego works in the conscious, preconscious and unconscious mind and develops in the phallic stage of the psychosexual development. During the phallic stage is when the Oedipus and the Electra complex is thought to occur, Freuds thoughts were that Boys develop sexual desires for their mother and they want rid of their father to enable them to have their mother all to themselves. On the other hand, he thought that girls had desires for their father which was thought to develop the desire to become a boy, later repressing her thoughts and spending more time with her mother being part of the female gender role. Freud sits on the nature side of the nature vs nurture debate.

Freuds Case study of Little Hans was developed in 1909 when Little Hans’ father approached him about Hans developing a fear of horses. Hans father was a supporter of Freud so when Hans developed his fear his father referred him straight on to him. Freud decided to help and went on to believe Hans’ fear was down to occurrences in his unconscious mind. Freud used the case study of Little Hans to support his views on where fears originate from, the Oedipus complex and sexuality during childhood. Freud thought Hans’ fears alongside his dreams and fantasies symbolised his unconscious mind passing through the phallic stage of psychosexual development. During the time of the study Hans’ was thought to have developed anxiety surrounding leaving the house in case he saw a horse; this would have impacted his emotional development. Some of the weaknesses for the study are that Hans’ father knew of Freud and his theories before approaching him maybe tailoring his answers and studies so that they fit into Freuds psychosexual aspect of his psychodynamic theory.

Another weakness being that Hans’ fear could have developed when he witnessed a horse dying in the street as a child. Some strengths to this study are that Hans was afraid of things that resembled his father and he dreams about his mother resulting in him no longer allowed to stay in his parent’s bed presenting the jealousy aspect. Bowlby’s evolutionary theory of attachment focuses on the relationships between people and the bond they may have, mainly looking at the start of childhood and the attachment between caregivers and their children. Some of the concepts included in Bowlby’s theory are Monotropy, the internal working model, the Critical period and Maternal deprivation. Monotropy is the idea that infants have an innate ability to attach to a single caregiver, Bowlby suggested that if this bond did not happen then it could lead to possible negative consequences leading into adulthood. Bowlby suggested that the critical period is the time before the child becomes two and a half, this is when a child should have formed an attachment by, or the child will not develop attachment at all. Bowlby used the term Maternal deprivation to refer to separation from mother and child in the first 5 years of their life resulting in no attachment.

The internal working model is a term used for how people feel about themselves, the development of this begins from a young age and is determined by the interactions the child would have had from people surrounding them. An example of this would be if a child grew up with little to no interaction from their primary caregiver whom was very distant and negative then said child would develop a negative working model with the belief they are not good enough and on the flip side if a child grew up in a caring and loving environment they would be more likely to develop an internal working model that would end in success and would heighten their self-esteem. Bowlby sits on the nature side of the nature vs nurture debate. Bowlby’s 44 thieves’ study was developed in 1944. Bowlby believed that the disturbance of the relationship between the mother and her child in the first 5 years of life may lead to a higher rate of crime, antisocial behaviour and difficulty with emotions as this time is most important to socialisation. To test his theory of maternal deprivation he studied 44 young thieves alongside 44 others who had been referred to him with emotional issues. Each of the children’s IQs were tested and they also had their emotional attitudes towards the IQ assessed by a psychologist.

A social worker interviewed the parents to find out if there was any separation from the child in the early years. Reports were made from both the psychologist and the social worker on the findings of their interaction with the children and their parents, Bowlby then had interviews with the children and parents, diagnosing 32% of the thieves with affectionless psychopathy. Bowlby concluded that more than half of the young offenders had been separated from their mothers for some time during the first 5 years of their lives, whereas the group of children that had been referred to him with emotional abuse only had 2 cases of separation during this time. The separation seemed to have caused problems with social development as it would seem that the youths that thieved were potentially attention seeking as they missed out on some in the critical period. One of the strengths of this study is that it backs up his deprivation hypothesis, it also backs up that deprivation can lead to emotional issues. One of the weaknesses of this study is that it could be classed as unreliable as it would have been reliant on memories. To conclude two theories of development have been considered, Freud’s theory of psychodynamic and Bowlby’s theory of evolution. The most influential theorist is Bowlby as his theories have contributed so much to our knowledge of attachment and how important it is whereas Freuds theories haven’t got much evidence and are quite outdated.

1. Cherry K, 14/07/2019, Freuds psychosexual stages of development https://www.verywellmind.com/freuds-stages-of-psychosexual-development-2795962
2. Mcleod S, 05/02/2017, Bowlby’s attachment theory https://www.simplypsychology.org/bowlby.html
3. Cherry K, 28/09/2019, Freud’s Id, Ego, and Superego https://www.verywellmind.com/the-id-ego-and-superego-2795951

​According to The Advocates for Human Rights, street harassment is unwelcome or unwanted verbal, non-verbal, physical, or visual conduct based on sex or of a sexual nature which occurs with the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of a person. Street harassment can also be based on race, disability, class, gender identity, or other social identities. Acts considered to be street harassment are as follows: sexually explicit, racist, ableist, transphobic, and other derogatory comments; unwelcome comments about one’s appearance, accent, and sexuality; leering, making vulgar gestures, flashing, or exposing oneself; threatening to remove an item of clothing; whistling, honking, barking, and kissing noises; following someone or blocking their path; sexual touching ang grabbing without one’s consent; and public masturbation. (SVAW, 2018)

​UC San Diego Center on Gender Equity and Health released a book entitled Measuring #MeToo: A National Study on Sexual Harassment and Assault. They discussed that street harassment often begins around puberty. Their findings showed that half of harassed people were harassed by age 17, and that almost 1 in 4 women had experienced street harassment by age 12. They also conducted a survey on 811 women, and 99% of the 811 women answered they have experienced street harassment. The findings from this survey is as follows: 95% of the respondents were targets of leering or excessive staring; 94% were targets of malicious honking and whistling; 87% were targets of sexist comments; 82% were targets of vulgar gestures; 81% were targets of sexually explicit comments from unknown men; 77% were targets of kissing noises from men; 75% have been followed by a stranger in public; 62% say their paths have been purposely blocked by a man; 57% reported being touched or grabbed in a sexual manner by a stranger in public; and 37% have had a stranger masturbate at or in front of them in public.

The NORC at the University of Chicago conducted a nationally representative survey of 1,182 women and 1,037 men. The findings from the survey regarding street harassment are as follows: 76% of women and 35% of men have experienced verbal sexual harassment; 49% of women and 18% of men have experienced unwelcomed sexual touching; 27% of women and 11% of men have experienced being physically followed; and 30% of women and 12% of men experienced unwanted genital flashing.

​According to New (2014), comments, gestures, actions, or attention that intended to hurt, offend, or intimidate another person, wherein the perpetrator is focused on the victim’s aspects such as physical appearance, body parts, sexual orientation, or sexual activity. This can be verbal, by making offensive comments about someone, digital, by sending inappropriate text messages, pictures, or videos, and physical, by touching someone that did not give out their consent to be touched. This doesn’t just occur to girls, as boys can harass girls, girls can harass boys, boys may harass other boys, and girls may harass other boys. This is also not limited to people of the same age, as adults can harass teens, and in rare occasions, teens can harass adults. Sexual harassment can include: making sexual jokes, comments, or gestures about someone; spreading sexual rumors; showing someone inappropriate sexual pictures or videos; asking someone to send you naked pictures of herself or himself; posting or sending sexual comments, pictures, or videos on social networks; and touching, grabbing, or pinching someone in a sexual manner. Impacts of assault can be serious and long-lasting. Both sexual and non-sexual assaults in adolescence are associated with higher-than-normal levels of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic symptoms and risks for being victims again. This is one of the most reliable findings in the growing science of how negative childhood experiences lead to poorer physical and mental health later in life.

​​According to Fogarty (2009), the effects of being victimized by sexual harassment include: distractions from school performance and satisfaction; an increased likelihood of missing or withdrawing from school; a decline in academic performance; experiencing negative emotions such as anger, betrayal, confusion, depression, and anxiety; a drop in self-esteem and a feeling a lack of control over his/her own life; psychosomatic stress symptoms; suicidal thoughts, early dating, substance abuse, self-harm, and eating disorders for girls; and victims can become perpetrators.

​According to the Psychosexual Stages of Development, the genital stage is initiated around the time puberty begins, and ends when the individual dies. In his Psychosexual Stages of Development, the genital stage is considered to be the latest stage and the highest level of maturity. This is the time adolescents begin to experiment sexually. The sexual and aggressive drives that were present in the phallic stage returns. However, in this stage, sexual instinct is directed to heterosexual pleasure, rather than self-pleasure during the phallic stage. For Freud, the proper outlet of the sexual instinct in adults was through heterosexual intercourse. But, fixations and conflicts may prevent this with the consequence that the individual may developed sexual perversions. During the psychosexual development, at each stage, children face a conflict that must be resolved in order to move successfully on to the next stage. A fixation by definition is a persistent focus on the id’s pleasure. These occur when an issue or conflict arises in a certain psychosexual stage and remains unsolved, which leaves the individual focused or ‘fixated’ on this stage and unable to move on to the next. (Freud, 1905)

​According to the Personality Theory by Freud (1923), the human psyche has more than one aspect and is structured into three parts, namely, the id, ego, and superego. These develop at different stages in our lives. During the genital stage the ego and superego have become more developed. This allows the individual to have more realistic way of thinking and establish an assortment of social relations apart from the family.

​The Id is the component of the personality that is primitive and instinctual. It operates according to the pleasure principle, wherein every wishful impulse should be satisfied immediately, regardless of the consequences. It is the impulsive and unconscious part of our psyche as it responds to basic urges, needs, and desires directly and immediately. It consists of all the inherited components of personality present at birth, which includes the sex instinct and the aggressive instinct. It remains infantile in its function throughout an individual’s lifespan and does not change with time or experience because it is not in touch with the external world. It is not affected by reality, logic, or the world itself, as it operates within the unconscious part of the mind. (Freud, 1923)

​According to Freud (1923), the ego is the mediator between the unrealistic id and the external real world. It is the component of the personality that is in charge of decision-making. It operates according to the reality principle, wherein it works out realistic ways of satisfying the id’s demands, but often compromising or postponing satisfaction in order to avoid negative consequences implemented by society. It considers social realities and norms, etiquette, and rules in deciding how to behave. Like the id, the ego seeks pleasure and avoids pain, but unlike the id, the ego is concerned with creating a realistic strategy to obtain pleasure. Freud made the analogy of the id being a horse while the ego is the rider – The ego is ‘like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse (Freud, 1923, p. 15). Through reality testing, if a plan of action does not work, then it is though through again and again until a solution is found. This allows the person to control their impulses and demonstrate self-control.

​The superego contains the values and morals of society which are learned from one’s parents and others. It develops around the ages of 3 and 5, during the phallic stage of psychosexual development. The superego controls the id’s impulses, especially those which society forbids such as sex and aggression. It also persuades the ego to side with moralistic goals rather than simply realistic ones. It consists of two systems, the conscience, and the ideal self. The conscience can punish the ego by causing feelings of guilt. The ideal self is an imaginary picture of how you ought to be, such as how to treat other people and how to behave as a member of society. The superego can punish the ideal self when an individual misbehaves through guilt and can reward the ideal self when an individual behaves properly through pride. Both the ideal self and conscience are largely determined in childhood from parental values and how you were raised. (Freud, 1923)

​According to Lamm (2008), paraphilias, or sexual perversions, are a class of sexual disorders with arousal in response to sexual stimuli that isn’t associated with normal behavioral patterns. People with paraphilias experience intense sexual urges to nonhuman object, the suffering or humiliation of oneself or others, or children or non-consenting persons. Pedophilia and exhibitionism are the most commonly observed paraphiliac behaviors. The number of male paraphiliacs are significantly larger than the number of female paraphiliacs.

​Welldon (1991), in her book Psychology and Psychopathology in Women – A Psychoanalytic Perspective, challenges Freud’s concept that perversion fell solely within the male domain, and argues that women are equally capable of perversion. Female perversion manifests itself through self-harm, eating disorders, physical and sexual abuse of children, infanticide, and physical or sexual assault of others. A woman can express her perversion through her reproductive organs and the maternal representations of motherhood. According to Motz (2001), women with perversions are symbolically seeking revenge on their own internalized, often cruel and perverse mother. They identify their own body with the body of the mother, which is why they attack the whole body. Likewise, they express violence towards a narcissistic extension of themselves when they attack their children.

Summery:

During counseling or psychotherapeutic sessions, there are a lot of persons that introduce their partner as their absolute sweetheart and companion, while criticize them, as well, regarding their incompetence with respect to gratification or provision of anticipated sexual or romantic desires. Many of them may describe their partner as asexual, hypoactive or dishonest, while their own displeasure or jealousness may have root in a mismatch between sensual yearnings and spiritual longings. Now a question may arise that whether sex-object is equal to love-object, or they are unalike things with different intentions and tasks. Developmentally, while the sex-object may or may not be at the same time a love-object, the love-object can not be anything except than an ultimate item derived from sex-drive, though in a more sublimated shape. If we see sex-object and love-object as unalike items with diverse goal lines, such a distinction may assist patients toward achievement of better insight with respect to their judgments, object-related conflicts and ambivalences, which possibly will guide their expectations towards more realistic objectives and less bewilderment as regards their constant displeasures.

Key Words: object; sex-object; love-object; sexuality.

Introduction: One of the major interesting questions in the realm of emotive behavior and psychodynamic analyses involves assessment of object-related cathexis and the specific attention that is paid to object’s sensual or loving aspects (1, 2). During counseling or psychotherapeutic sessions, there are a lot of patients that introduce their partner as their absolute sweetheart and companion, while criticize them, as well, regarding their incompetence with respect to gratification or provision of anticipated sexual or romantic desires. Many of them may describe their partner as asexual, hypoactive or dishonest, while their own displeasure or jealousness may have root in a mismatch between sensual yearnings and spiritual longings. Now a question may arise that whether sex-object is equal to love-object, or they are unalike things with different intentions and tasks, which have been nominated by way of evolution thru history. If so, then how therapist or counselor can help their clients to gain insight regarding their mate and correct or modify their expectations according to their genuine desires and partner’s competencies. Essentially, is such a separation possible? Is it sensible to reduce, conceptually, companion’s position from an adoring lover to merely an actor of sexual role? For enlightenment of query, some review of associated concepts seems valuable.

Background: In general, the basic assumption of contemporary object relations theories is that all internalizations of relationships with significant others, from the beginning of life on, have different characteristics under the conditions of peak affect interactions and low affect interactions (3). Under conditions of low affect activation, reality-oriented, perception-controlled cognitive learning takes place, influenced by temperamental dispositions (i.e., the affective, cognitive, and motor reactivity of the infant), leading to differentiated, gradually evolving definitions of self and others (3). These definitions start out from the perception of bodily functions, the position of the self in space and time, and the permanent characteristics of others. As these perceptions are integrated and become more complex, interactions with others are cognitively registered and evaluated, and working models of them are established. Inborn capacities to differentiate self from non-self, and the capacity for cross-modal transfer of sensorial experience, play an important part in the construction of the model of self and the surrounding world (4). The capacity for mutually satisfying relationships has been traditionally attributed to the ego, although self-other relationships are more properly a function of the whole person, the self, of which the ego is a functional component (5). Significance of object relationships and their disturbance – for normal psychological development and a variety of psychopathological states – was fully appreciated relatively late in the development of classical psychoanalysis (6). The evolution in the child’s capacity for relationships with others, progressing from initial relations with maternal and other caretaking figures to social relationships within the family and then to relationships within the larger community, is related to this capacity (6). Development of object relationships may be disturbed by retarded development, regression, or conceivably by inherent genetic defects or limitations in the capacity to develop object relationships, or impairments and deficiencies in early caretaking relationships (7). The earliest manifestations of infantile sexuality arose in relation to bodily functions that had been regarded as basically nonsexual, such as ‘feeding and development of bowel and bladder control’. But Freud saw that these functions involved degrees of sensual pleasure which he interpreted as forms of psychosexual stimulation, and divided them into a succession of developmental phases, each of which was thought to build on the completion of the preceding phases namely the oral, anal, and phallic phases. Urethral, latency, and genital phases were added, later, to complete the picture (8). For each of the stages of psychosexual development, Freud delineated specific erotogenic zones that gave rise to erotic gratification. Freud’s basic schema of the psychosexual stages was modified and refined by Karl Abraham, who further subdivided the phases of libido development, dividing the oral period into a sucking and biting phase, and the anal phase into a defective-expulsive (anal sadistic) and a mastering-retaining (anal erotic) phase. Finally, he hypothesized that the phallic period consisted of an earlier phase of pre-genital love, which was designated as the true phallic phase and a later, more mature, genital phase (8). From the very beginning of the child’s development, Freud regarded the sexual instinct as ‘anaclitic,’ in the sense that the child’s attachment to the feeding and mothering figure is based on the child’s utter physiological dependence on the object (9). This view of the child’s earliest attachment would seem consistent with Freud’s understanding of infantile libido based on his discovery that sexual fantasies of even adult patients were typically centered on early relationships with their parents. Specifically, he postulated that the choice of a love object in adult life and the love relationship itself were dependent on an important degree on the nature and quality of the child’s object relationships during the earliest years of life (9). On the other hand, while psychoanalysts generally theorize that paraphilia represent a regression to or a fixation at an earlier level of psychosexual development, resulting in a repetitive pattern of sexual behavior that is not mature in its application and expression (10), behaviorists suggest that the paraphilia begins via a process of conditioning and nonsexual objects can become sexually arousing if they are frequently and repeatedly associated with a pleasurable sexual activity. Anyhow, development of a paraphilia is not usually a matter of conditioning alone; there must usually be some predisposing factor, such as difficulty forming person-to-person sexual relationships or poor self-esteem (11). Current theories, largely resulting from direct empirical and experimental observations of children in child analyses and developmental studies rather than merely relying on the reconstruction of childhood experiences based on the data from adult analyses, are inclined to focus less on libidinal phase specificity, with the further supposition of programmatic progression of libidinal stages, progressing through the sequence of stages from oral to genital in prescribed order, and place greater emphasis on the complex integration of multiple developmental influences, including maturational factors, temperamental dispositions, object relations involvements and vicissitudes, affective development, cognitive development, language acquisition, and so on (12). There is accordingly a greater inclination to view libidinal stages as more loosely organized, intermingled, and not necessarily rigidly sequential (13).

Discussion: In the realm of sexual behavior, sex-object is an entity (animate or inanimate, total or in part) that initiates the psychosexual processes and speed up achievement of orgasm, as the final stage of psychosexual excitement, whether in a heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual person or essentially in a person with paraphilia. Typically and disregard to its known or unknown roots, it has a fixed and specific character, along with subjective significance, in every one. One of its peculiar characteristics is the obsessed gravity with witch it inspires or preoccupies person’s thoughts, usually unintentionally, in reality or imaginarily. Therefore it has a quality similar to an overvalued idea, not obsessive idea, because it is alloplastic and ego-syntonic and so satisfactory, not ego-dystonic and stressful. Without that and in the realm of sexual activities, fulfillment of orgasm is impossible or so difficult or delayed. In general, it acts as a link between sensual orientation and erotic actions, which can be displaced or substituted according to the psychosexual developmental stages. On the other hand, love-object is usually acknowledged by intellectuals and poets in the ground of romance, though many times it maybe recognized by people as equal to sex, eroticism or sexual love. It usually pertains to animate people, whether male or female objects, and can be reinforced by sexual performance. It is the main subject of many of novelists or lyricists, who commonly describe love as sublimation of spirits or enhancement of human feelings, a process that starts with the appearance of love-object during social and interpersonal relationships. As like as sex-object, it is also usually an involuntary process and substitutable and may change according to the surroundings and happenings, though with more emotional sequels. For example, in contrary to the first one, it can be mingled with ambivalence or turned more easily into its opposite pole (animosity or hatred), while such a thing is not imaginable with respect to the sex-object, which may stay alive even after changeover (like persistence of masturbation in a married person). Also, love-object can be survived during an apparently asexual route, like a passionate rapport between unconsummated couples, or in spite of presence of sexual dysfunctions (hypoactive sexual desire disorder, sexual aversion disorder, orgasmic disorder, erectile disorder, vaginismus, dyspareunia, etc.). So, while the sex-object is, in general, free from social interactions or external pressures, and totally dependent on internal drives and specific item or process, the love-object is not free from societal communications and surroundings forces (Table 1). In addition, while the sex-object is directly and essentially linked with sexual fulfillments, the love-object may or may not be concluded to sensual accomplishments. Developmentally, while the sex-object may or may not be at the same time a love-object (love object can be in the continuation of sex-object), the love-object can not be anything except than an ultimate item derived from sex-object, though in a more sublimated, less sexualized, and extra spiritualized shape. Persons with paraphilia, like pedophilia, exhibitionism, voyeurism, frotteurism, transvestic fetishism, sexual masochism, sexual sadism, fetishism, and zoophilia, are typically and obsessively in search of erotic gratification and do not feel love towards their favored objects, and after attainment of desired sensual pleasure and orgasm leave them behind easily. Persons with alexithymia or obsessive compulsive personality traits, as well, usually do not feel love towards others, at least straightforwardly and knowingly (consciously). But then again, persons who fall in love, habitually, asks for unification and perseverance of relationship and do not tolerate separation effortlessly. Hence, in keeping with the aforesaid facts we may conclude that sex-object and love-object are two unalike items with unalike goal lines. Acknowledgement of this fact by counselor or analyst may help clients, too, to discern these two from each other. For sure, such a distinction may assist patients toward achievement of better insight (14, 15) with respect to their judgments, object-related conflicts and ambivalences, which possibly will guide their expectations towards more realistic objectives and less bewilderment with respect to their constant displeasures. In this regard, firstly, the partners should have insight regarding their peculiar desires; are they in search of more sexy pleasures or higher sophisticated psychic happiness? Secondly, are their wishes comparable (analogous) to their partner’s cravings? If not, after probing by counselor or psychotherapist, so may they adjust their yearnings accordingly? Thirdly, disregard to plausible gender-based differences that demands specific studies, is principally thorough assimilation of these two possible? Theoretically and evolutionarily it seems conceivable because psychoanalytically and chronologically a direct and continual association between sex-object and love-object is supposable and both of them are end product of sexual instinct; but practically and ultimately it is not so feasible, because historically the sociocultural evolution of human being has been faster or broader than obvious biological evolution (16, 17). Since sexuality, as well, is scientifically a psychosexual process, not simply an organic act, so it is not independent from psychosocial variables (18, 19). Unfortunately, an individual who may not appreciate this point and may not separate different objects from each other may possibly be condemned to feel persistent cheerlessness and in need of recurrent revision concerning the obtainable objects. Auspiciously, the said understanding, disrespect to presumable unconscious origins, is definitely obtainable in the realm of conscious or semi-conscious analysis (20, 21).

Introduction

Psychology is the scientific study of behaviour, cognitive and emotions. Psychology is an academic and applied field involving the study of behaviour, mind and thought and the subconscious neurological bases of behavior. This research project is all about the lifespan development, learning theory and psychological disorder all explaining the theories and different real world scenarios.

Lifespan development

Sigmund freud theory of psychological development

Sigmund freud’s psychological theory proposed that the behavior and development of a person are influenced by the interactions between the conscious and unconscious aspects of that person’s mind. Freud proposed that psychological development in childhood takes place during five psychosexual stages: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. Each of the psychosexual stages is associated with a particular conflict that must be resolved before the individual can successfully advance to the next stage. The resolution of each of these conflicts requires the expenditure of sexual energy and the more energy that is expended at a particular stage, the more the important characteristics of that stage remain with the individual as he/she matures psychologically (simply psychology 2019).

The genital stage is the final stage of Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual development and begins at the start of puberty when sexual urges are once again awakened. Through the lessons learned during the pervious stages, adolescents direct their sexual urges onto opposite sex peers, with the primary focus of pleasure is the genitals. Where in earlier stages the focus was solely on individual needs, interest in the welfare of others grows during this stage. The goal of this stage is to establish a balance between the various life areas (K. gabrielle, frued’s psychological stages, february 2020).

At this time of my life I was very interested in school, games and social networking. In the past I was mainly focused on developing healthy social and communication skills. But during that process I was able to start many relationships with some of the people just to experience the different feelings in the relationship’s. With that practise I was able to find the right relationship and the type of person that suits me.

Freud believes that at the genital stage is the stage where one’s past is revealed, for example the Scenario above shows that the person is fixated with the phallic stage and may become drawn to having many relationships or gain more pleasure in different relationships.

Reference

1. McLeod, S. A. (2019, july 18). Psychosexual stages. Simply psychology: https://www.simplypsychosexual.html.
2. K Gabrielle. What are freud’s psychosexual stages.(2019 february 20) healthline.com/health/psychosexual-stages.
3. A Agrella. Psychosexual stages. (2016 February 5). prezi.com/h6fntfhv5ei4/psychosexual-stages/
4. PSYCHOLOGY NOTES HQ. Sigmund’s Freuds’s Psychosexual theory. (2018 july 4). psychologynotesshq.com/freud-psychosexual-development/.
5. All PSYCH. Freud’s stages of psychosexual development. (2018 july 29). Allpsych.com/psychology101/sexual-development/.

Human development refers to the physical, cognitive, and psychosocial development of humans throughout the lifespan. Physical development involves growth and changes in the body and brain, the senses, motor skills, and health and wellness. Cognitive development involves learning, attention, memory, language, thinking, reasoning, and creativity. Psychosocial development involves emotions, personality, and social relationships.

human developments are basically a series of age-related changes that happen over the course of a life span. People pass through different stages in a specific order and each stage builds on top of another and we develop capacities through those stages, built upon the previous stage.

Developmental phycologists strive to explain and describe the ways human grow, learn and act as they do and in order to understand how people think, their behavior and feelings throughout their lifespan, many different child development theories were given to explain various aspects of human development.

Theories of human development

• Nature versus nurture theory

In the olden days the theory was that people were either shaped by their environment

(nurture) OR shaped by their biology (nature). The debate of nature versus nurture has been going on for centuries, now we know that our physical characteristics like hair color, height, eye color, and certain diseases are direct results of the genes we inherit from our parents.

• Freud’s Physchosexual Stages of Development

Freud was born on 6 may 1856, an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis. He began his study of medicine in 1873 in university of Vienna. Freud’s work and theories have helped shape views of childhood, personality, memory, sexuality, and therapy.

In his theory of psychosexual development, he believed that phycological development in childhood goes through stages based upon a particular erogenous zone and called those stages psychosexual stages. If these psychosexual stages are completed successfully, the result is a healthy personality and if certain issues are not resolved at the appropriate stage, fixation can occur. Fixation means a persistent focus on an earlier psychosexual stage, the Freuds theory focused on the importance of personality development at childhood so if at a certain stage, fixation occurs than it could have a lasting effect into adulthood.

Frueds physchosexual stages of development are:

1. Oral stage: ( 0 -1 age)

When it comes to oral, the part of the body that the libido is foucused on is the mouth. The infants primary source of interaction occurs through their mouth so the infant achieves gratification through oral activities such as feeding, thumb sucking and babbling

And because the infant is totally dependant on the parents or whoever is taking care of them for food so the infant develops a sense of trust and comfort through this oral stimulation. Now if fixation or conflict occurs in this stage the child becomes less dependant upon the caretaker, so frued believed that fixation at this stage could develop issues with depression and aggression so in their adulthood, an oral type of personality can be noticed in people that smoke or bite their nails, or people that over eat.

2. Anal stage: ( 1- 3 age)

In this stage, the part of the body that libido is focused on anus.

the primary focus is on in controlling the bladder and bowel movements so this can be consired as toilet training. At this stage, the child has to learn to control his or her bodily needs. Developing this control leads to a sense of accomplishment and independence. So parents who utilize praises and rewards for the child using the toilet are encouraging positive outcomes and inappropriate parental responses can result in negative outcomes. Now if any fixations occurs at this stage it can lead to problems as an adult like orderliness and messiness.

3. Phallic stage ( 3- 6 age)

The point of interest in this stage is the genital area.

At this stage, children begin to discover the differences between males and females and becomes aware of sexuality. Frued came up with two important terms in this stage, so he believed that boys begin to feel of wanting to possess the mother and replace the father and named this term the Oedipus complex and the same thing occurs with females or young girls towards their fathers which he termed the electra complex. If fixation occurs at this stage, it can transform into adulthood and cause sexual dysfunction if this isn’t resolved.

4. Latency stage: ( 6-puberty)

During the latent period, the point of interest are suppresses. The stage begins around the time that children enter into school and become more concerned with peer relationships, hobbies and other interests.

The latent periods is a time of exploration in which the sexual energy is still present, but its is directed into other areas such as intellectual pursuits and social interactions. This stage is important in the development of social and communication skills and self confidence

5. Genital stage: ( Adolescence-adulthood)

During the final stage of psychosexual development, the individual develops a strong sexual interest in the opposite sex. This stage begins during puberty but last throughtout the rest of a persons life.

The psychosexual development theory was conceived by Sigmund Freud in which he suggested that everyone should pass through a number of stages during their childhood. Pleasure-seeking urges from children are focused on a different area of the body, which is known as the erogenous zone. Freud (1905) believed that life was built round tension and pleasure. He theorized that there are five stages of psychosexual development; the Oral stage, the Anal, the Phallic, the Latency and lastly, the Genital. (Boundless Psychology). The Genital stage is focused on years of puberty to adulthood. According to Lumen, Freud believed that at this stage there is a sexual reawakening as certain urges from childhood resurface. During the genital stage young persons have the desire to be in sexual relations with persons of maturity. The blind side to this stage is that if you were not fixated at a younger age then you would have a normal adult life, but in the event that you were fixated then you would release these urges during the aforementioned period of your life.

When I was in a vocational institute, immediately after high school, I started dating a young man who at the time was eight (8) years older than I was and living a few blocks from my house. I would normally communicate with him daily over the phone and I made it a top priority to meet him at least three times per week before or after school; at his house or he would come and pick me up in any of his three (3) vehicles. After having conversations over phone and meeting him for a little over a month, I found myself having mixed feelings towards him, I found myself thinking about love and marriage. I would normally sneak out the house or leave school a little earlier just so I could meet him; where we would entertain each other in a sexual way which resulted in pleasure.

At the genital stage there is a reemergence of sexual energy and renewed interest in the genitals.

Adolescents have sexual experimentation and settle down in a loving one to one relationship with someone. (McLeod, 2008). Within this stage sexual feeling is directed to heterosexual pleasure in comparison to self-pleasure in the phallic stage. He believed that the right vent of the sexual feeling in adults was through heterosexual intercourse. This may be prevented by fixation and conflict which may result in sexual perversions.

Adolescents also develop crushes on older adults of the opposite sex and tend to rebel against parents and authority figures. I was only seventeen years old during that phase of my life where I was having strong sexual instinct and desire for a much older person of the opposite sex. Based on the fifth stage in Freud theory, my experience can be supported because it is within this stage that adolescents and adults start to develop sexual instinct for someone of the opposite sex outside of the family. According to Heffner, adolescents direct their sexual desire onto the opposite sex and the primary focus has been pleasure from the genitals. Being disobedient and going out of my way to meet the person is also in support by Freud’s theory where he stated that adolescent’s rebel against parents and authority figure during the genital stage. Eventually, becoming more mature, I realized that it is a normal situation for majority of adolescents and adults to develop sexual instinct for someone of the opposite sex because it is at this stage the period of sexual reawakening where the focus of sexual pleasure becomes a particular someone outside the family. Hence, the reason for my behavior of having great interest in someone of the opposite sex which resulted in me yearning for sexual pleasure. In concluding it can be seen that the events of my late teenage years were primarily linked to the fifth (5Th ) stage of Freud’s theory due to the fact that as mentioned before individuals in this stage tend to gravitate towards persons that are mature or of resemblance to their other-sex parent.

References

1. Fisher, S., & Greenberg, R. P. (1996). Freud scientifically reappraised: Testing the theories and therapy. John Wiley & Son
2. Freud’s Psychosexual Theory of Development. Boundless Psychology. Retrieved from https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology- textbook/human-development-14/theories-of-human-development-70/freud-s-psychosexual- theory-of-development-267-12802/
3. Heffner. (n.d.).Chapter 3: Section 4: Freud’s stages of Psychosexual Development. Retrieved from http://allpsych.com/psychology101/sexual_development/_
4. McLeod, S.A. (2019,July 18).Psychosexual stages. Retrieved from www.simplypsychology.org/psychosexual.html

Do you smoke? Actually, it does not matter. Cigarets are so popular in the contemporary world that almost everyone knows something about it. Smoking has been a cause of disputes and investigations for many years. Of course, it’s important to talk about nicotine and its harm to the human body, but in this essay I want to reveal the topic a bit deeper.

Historians say that in ancient times in the territory of Africa, Asia and Europe, people burned tobacco on bonfires and the smoke had a dizzying effect on them. Some devices for smoking, in particular a tube, whose age dates back three thousand years have been found in archaeological.

During the First and the Second World Wars, soldiers received cigarettes from the government. In the mid-twentieth century, smoking has become very popular. In the fifties, there was an epidemic of lung cancer and no one knew that the reason for this was tobacco. In 1950, 90% of English men were smokers.

Today, worldwide, according to the American expert W. Chandler, there are at least one billion people smoking, consuming a total of up to 5 trillion cigarettes a year. There is another figure: for every inhabitant of our planet, regardless of sex and age, up to 1,000 cigarettes per year are produced.

Tobacco is not listed in the register as a narcotic, but in recent years, scientists are increasingly inclined to think that tobacco smoke acts on the human body like a drug. In 1985, an American scientist of the National Center for Drug Addiction Pennigfield, speaking at a representative forum, concluded: «The role of nicotine in the impulsive need to smoke a cigarette is identical to the role of cocaine». If in the first months and years, smokers are content with a small number of cigarettes, then in the future the act of smoking is fixed in the form of a conditioned reflex, and to obtain the next portion of satisfaction and positive sensations, it is necessary to shorten breaks between smoking and to make deeper puffs.

Several years ago, scientists established that nicotine acts directly on the so-called ‘biological remuneration systems’ located in the central parts of the brain, changing the course of biological reactions in the nerve cells responsible for the subjective sense of comfort. Nicotine enters these parts of the brain within seven seconds after inhaling tobacco smoke.

So how and when it all starts? According to statistics, children most often try to smoke in 5-8 forms. At the age of 16 to 18 years, the number of teenagers smoking in different countries varies from 40 to 60 percent. There are several reasons why children start smoking.The first one is obvious – parents`prohibition. As a result disobedience as a child’s protest. The second reason is based on the principle that smoking is a social habit. Although nicotine addiction plays a key role in long-term smoking, most children start smoking in the company of friends or classmates. Adolescence is characterized by the desire to receive respect and recognition in the reference groups. If such reference group is «nicotine lovers» you in order to belong to them must smoke too. Also, adolescents have a special form of self-awareness, a subjective notion, as people more likely to belong to the adult world. This causes the desire to smoke and as a result show themselves as adults. It is not a secret that children tend to imitate their parents and other adults in their lives. So in a family where at least one parent smokes, it will be difficult to prevent children from this habit.

Freud said that smoking can be compared with the subconscious desire to suck your mother’s breast. According to his theory of psychosexual development, people go through several stages of development: oral (0-18 months), anal (18 months – 3 years), phallic (3-6 years), latent (6-12 years) and genital (of puberty and up to 22 years). The psychosexual development of the child is an adaptation to the environment. The driving forces of this development are innate unconscious instincts and motives. These stages differ from each other in a way of satisfying the libido. At each of these stages a person can get stuck in the development – what is called a fixation. More

specifically, the fixation is persistent human affection to certain objects and goals, phases and stages.The trauma that forms the structure of the oral fixation is the abandonment of the child. The child feels lost and deprived of attention, he lacks physical contact, attention, sometimes food and emotional contact. An adult with this type of fixation is characterized by passivity, dependence and trustfulness (oral-passive) or negativism, the desire to exploit others and sarcasm (oral-sadistic). So smoking according to Freud is a fixation on the oral stage. Also, such habits of chewing of chewing gum, nail-biting, kissing, overeating, drinking alcohol, oral sex, etc relate to this type of fixation. Irritation of the muscles of the mouth gives pleasure such people and soothes them.

According to Freud’s judgment about the constitutional meaning of the lips: when it is increased, people are more prone to sucking. If such a constitutional increase persists, then such children, be- coming adults, become lovers of kisses, tend to perverse kisses (the lips (tongue) of one person come into contact with the genitals of another) or acquire a strong motive for drinking and smoking.

When Freud was talking about Eros and Thanatos, he mentioned that those who can not satisfy their Eros, that means do not get rid of accumulated sexual energy, or do not sublimate, uncon- sciously trying to reach Thanatos as a way of discharging accumulated energy. Smoking is a special form of subconscious self-destruction as one of ways of satisfaction of Thanatos. To prove this the- ory, modern psychologists conducted a survey among smokers. Most people that were asked ‘what will be the consequences of smoking?’ answered with the following: ‘first I’ll start coughing, then my lungs become ill, I will cough up blood, in the end, there will be lung or throat cancer, I can not get out of bed and so on until death».

There is such a stereotype that cigarettes are a way of getting rid of stress. Many of the avid smokers explain and justify their addiction to tobacco with the desire to calm down at a difficult moment, to recover. It is not entirely clear for scientists whether the cigarette removes negative emotions, whether it makes people calm or not. However, it is clear that a cigarette smoked during a period of stress cannot prevent a neurosis. Smoking, in this case, can be defined as a neurotic obses-

sion. After all, a neurotic and a smoker, realizing the senselessness and painfulness of obsession, is not able to get rid of it independently. There is a vicious circle. Neurotic anxiety makes you take a cigarette, smoking turns into an obsession, which, in turn, leads to a neurotic breakdown. This sce- nario does not always happen, but often neurosis and harmful habit of smoking are closely inter- twined.

There is a theory that in the modern world there is a program of making people smoking more. Most often hidden propaganda and advertising of cigarettes are made through the movie and TV series. From the early period of cinematography we can see characters with a cigarette or a cigar in their mouths in many films. We can explain this by the fact that cigarettes were considered harm- less, moreover, they were fashionable. Although, a few decades later, when people were already aware of the harm of smoking, the number of smoking characters in the films were not decreased. It is impossible to imagine a movie where Marlene Dietrich or Jean-Paul Belmondo had not smoked. In the modern world, according to research scientists from the University of California at San Fran- cisco, despite all the prohibitions, the number of scenes with people smoking in the cinema is grad- ually increasing.

There is such a lucky type of people who have no dependence on smoking. They can smoke in the company or at the resort, but they have no permanent desire to inhale tobacco fume. in contrast, there is another type of absurdly dependent. For instance, The main character of the film ‘On my way’ Betty, who discovered that she does not have cigarettes, drove for hours in search of them. Another example is Carrie from the «Sex and the city» television series that cannot survive without cigarets. One of the most ardent smokers in history was Sigmund Freud.

About Freud said that he depended on only two things – the youngest daughter Anna and cigars, and the daughter appeared in his life much later than the habit of smoking. He started to be addicted to cigars in very early age and could not imagine his life without them even when his health or ex- treme poverty demanded it. At the age of thirty-five years, for the first time, heart problems ap-

peared: palpitations, weakness, depression, shortness of breath. The doctor of Freud imposed a strict prohibition on cigars. However, the period of abstinence from tobacco did not last long. Freud com- plained that, excommunicated from cigar smoke, he was ‘absolutely inoperative, just killed». He believed that it was the cigars that caused the ‘colossal intensification’ of his work, that without them he could not write even a single line. He again began to smoke in the usual rhythm and felt relieved. Five years later, sixty-seven-year-old Freud was found to have cancer of the palate. Then there were sixteen years of unceasing suffering. More than thirty complex surgical operations, a rough prosthesis replacing the removed tissues between the oral and nasal cavities, difficulties with speech and eating, constant pain. But all these together did not make him quit smoking. When his mouth no longer opened wide enough for a cigar, Freud unclenched his jaws with a clothespin. Cig- ars were more important to him than his life. Everything turned out exactly according to Freud: be- yond the principle of pleasure, there was an irresistible attraction to death.His death occurred in 1939 in London after a double injection of morphine, made by a doctor at his request. To this day it is one of the most famous cases of euthanasia.

To avoid such terrible consequences, an electronic cigarette was invented fifteen years ago. Chi- nese scientist pharmacist Hon Lik had had a father who smoked a lot and died because of lung can- cer. The scientist, being a passionate smoker too, decided to stop smoking. Suffering from the tor- ment itself and remembering the suffering of a dying father, Hon Lik set himself the goal of invent- ing a device that would make the smoking process less harmful to the smoker and others. As a re- sult, he created a real breakthrough, a whole new culture. Electronic cigarettes and vapes bring 95% less harm to smokers and people surrounding them than usual ones. This device can not be consid- ered a panacea, but still, it has saved millions of people from daily inhalation of tobacco smoke and many harmful chemicals. Of course, many fans of lighting a spark, cannot stand plastic in their mouths and steam instead of smoke. They are still in search of a perfect way to stop smoking. Un- fortunately, such a method does not exist.

Nicotine patches and gum, pills, hypnosis, acupuncture, various books and courses are created to help people quit smoking. They can help, but do not solve the problem. Russian psychologist Mikhail Lobkovsky claims that it is impossible to stop smoking. It’s only possible to CEASE smok- ing! The most important thing is to realize that you do not love smoking. That you have a psycho- logical, psychophysical, emotional, chemical, whatever dependence. From this moment on, each cigarette will be felt to you not as an act of love, but as a forced concession of its dependence.

So what is the difference: when you cease, you do it right away and you do not have dreams about a cigarette, you do not reduce their amount gradually, you are not nervous and you do not ask your family and friends to support you in a severe struggle.You just cease it. «Dear drug addicts! As long as you think that your story is about love – you do not give up smoking, and smoking will not give up you. While smoking is almost the only way for you to self-assert, express yourself and feel free – a neurotic romance with a cigarette will last and kill you».

Summarizing, smoking people are more psychologically dependent on the process of smoking than physically – from nicotine. Most often, people begin smoking at an early age in order to appear more grown-up, gain the respect of friends or show their protest to parents` prohibition. Freud was convinced that smoking is caused by fixation on the oral stage of psychosexual development. A hundred years ago people did not know about the harmful effects of smoking on the body so there was a lot of smokers. Today, scientists have proved the negative impact of cigarettes, but the num- ber of smokers has not decreased. Almost every movie or TV series we see smoking propaganda which particularly affects teenagers. One of the few good news about smoking is the invention of electronic cigarettes that do much less harm. Unfortunately, many people still can not give up smok- ing. There are many different devices and methods that help to stop smoking, but not one of them will be effective until the person himself does decide to cease. And of course, smoking is a very se- rious subject, but even Freud once said: «Sometimes cigar is just a cigar».