Sigmund Freud Commentary On Psychology

Castration anxiety as outlined by Freud is when a boy looks at his mother and realizes she does not have a penis, he views his mom as castrated and thus to him his mother is a warning of his castration. Carol Clover in Her Body Himself and Dumas in Horror and Psychoanalysis have elaborated on this concept in the genre of the horror explaining that castration anxiety is not only fear of penile harm but of one’s power being taken away.

Freud’s theory of personality examined the interplay between the primitive, instinctual urges—the ‘id’; the practical and rational ‘ego’; and the morally attuned ‘superego’; ‘object relations’ refer to the "object" of an instinct”, which is “the agent through which the instinctual aim is achieved”—most often a person and, according to Freud, most often the mother (Ainsworth 1969, p. 1). The psychosexual development theory that Freud launched reduces our behaviour to mechanistic responses to an instinctive need for pleasure fueled by the ‘libido’ and barriers or distortions to the gratification of the libido at various delineated stages of development were responsible for later problems in life (Kail & Zolner 2012, p. 5). Erik Erikson later added depth to the approach by including more humanistic elements to Freud’s stages and including more periods of development (p.

As Freud points out, the purpose and meaning of fetish has been the same for all analysis. In the first place, the term revealed so naturally to him and it was so compelling that she feels that all his analysis on all cases of fetishism will have the same solution. At first, he tips the reader by saying a fetish is a substitute for a penis. However, he feels the reader will be disappointed with his argument and changes his mind fast enough to state that it is not meant to substitute a penis, but an important penis in the childhood which later got lost. In other words, it is normal to be lost at some point in life, but this fetish is normally designed to prevent it from being extinct. To make is clearer, a fetish serves as a substitute for a woman’s penis that one of the little boys believed in and did not wish to lose

. Freud’s commitment to the theory of “Psycho-Sexual” development of the person stems from his own childhood memories. He was born into a family that lived in a small space, with his half-brothers that look like adults and a father that looked like a grandfather. At a very young age he would record his dreams that exposed his fantasies. I believe he was confused about sex growing up that he is confused about his feelings about sex. His commitment to his theory was to decipher what was appropriate for the different stages of life. In order for Freud to make his feelings seem “normal”, he opened up peoples’ minds about the thought of a person and their sexual accumulation.

Freud describes child development as a series of psychosexual stages whereby the pleasure seeking ID becomes focused on certain erogenous zones and this psychosexual energy or libido is the sole force behind human behaviour. He examines how if at any

Sigmund Freud's "Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality", written in 1905, attempted to trace the course of the development of the sexual instinct in human beings from infancy to maturity. This instinct is not simply an animal instinct but is specific to both human culture and the form of conscious and unconscious life we live within it. For Freud sexuality is infinitely complicated and far-reaching in its effects and forms the basis of self-identity and interactions. His Third Essay discusses the transformations of puberty in both males and females. Part four of this essay focuses on the differentiation between male and female sexuality. Freud states in this part that 'as far as the autoerotic and masturbatory manifestations of sexuality

Sigmund Freud is a very known psychologist from the early scholars of the psychology world. One of His most significant outlooks and study was in the sexology field. Sexology had already been constituted as a separate form of enquiry some time before the appearance of Freud’s most important contribution, The three essays on the theory of sexuality (1905) and many of the terms that we tend to identify with Freud, such as libido, component instincts, erotogenic zones, catharsis, autoerotism and narcissism were already in circulation. (Akroterion. 58, 79-96, Dec. 2013) Some have argued that Freud did not acknowledge the contribution of sexology to psychoanalysis sufficiently in his studies and findings. But others may find this statement as overstated. Further in my research you will read how Freud’s work contributed greatly to the sexology dialogue and psychosexual development.

Freud was a renowned and respected theorist who is recognized for his development of personality theories, in fact, many other philosophers followed his beliefs to include Carl Jung. The “ Stages of Psychosexual Development are, like other stage theories, completed in a predetermined sequence and can result in either successful completion or a healthy personality or can result in failure, leading to an unhealthy personality” (Heffner, 2014). The stages of Freud’s theory of Psychosexual Development are the Oral Stage (Birth to 18 months), Anal stage (18 months to three years), Phallic Stage (ages three to six), Latency Stage (age six to puberty), and the Genital Stage (puberty on) (Heffner, 2014).

For us to understand Freud’s perspective, we must look at the structural model and psychosexual stages that he believed to be the driving forces that influences the human behaviour. Freud believed that we have a multilateral mental mechanism that consists of the Id, the Ego, and the Superego. The Id is based on the pleasure principle supplying strength for the development of mental life. The Ego is on the reality principle. It gains control over the primitive demands of the Id while taking in consideration the reality of the situation. The Superego behaves as a moral judge, when the Ego gratifies or tends to gratify the primitive

The castration complex is the unconscious arising fear and anxiousness during psychosexual development from thinking his penis will be removed if he shows a sexual desire towards the mother.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), was an influential Austrian psychologist and the founder of psychoanalysis. Freud went on to produce several theories, such as his theory on psychosexual development, which will be the focus of this assignment. Using the case study of a six-year-old patient, I will discuss the key principles of Freud’s theory on psychosexual development. Including, comprehensive definitions of the concepts used, and the stages of Freud’s psychosexual development. Lastly using Freud’s theory, I will explain how the patient’s current behaviour, could impact her behaviour in adulthood.

“For the concept of the monstrous feminine, as constructed within/by a patriarchal and phallocentric ideology, is related intimately to the problem of sexual differences and castration.” (Creed, 1993, p.2) Creed takes an interesting approach to Kristeva theory of abjection and Freud’s theory of castration and applies it to horror film. Taking Kristeva’s theory of the abject and the archaic mother, she constructs monstrous representations of the abject woman. The monstrous womb which is the representation of mans fear of woman’s maternal functions. “Fear of the archaic mother turns out to be essentially fear of her generative power. It is this power, a dreaded one, that patrilineal filiation has the burden of subduing.” (Kristeva, 1982, p.77) Freud argued that woman terrifies because she is castrated. “Castration fear plays on a collapse of gender boundaries” (Creed, 1993, p.54) She suggests, that Freud misread Han’s fear in the Little Hans and that Han’s viewed his mothers as the castrator not his father, that his mother’s lack of phallus is seen not as a castrated organ but that of a castrating organ. The mother-child border is entangled in the complex and multi-faceted image of the castrating mother. According to Freud, man fears that of the mother as castrated and as that of the cannibalistic all devouring mother. “Construction of a patriarchal ideology unable to deal with the threat of sexual differences as it is embodied in the images of the feminine as archaic mother and is seen as the castrated mother.” (Creed, 1993, p.22) Kristeva suggests that the notion of the castrated women is to ease mans fear of woman, who has the power to psychologically and physically castrate him. The archaic mother as the monstrous womb and the castrating mother can be used as a way of understanding the work of Mona Hatoum and AIne Phillips, both

Nonetheless, the idea of penis envy becomes extremely important when examining Freud’s view on women for several reasons. Freud based the majority of his work on female sexual and personality development around penis envy, and Freud held the view that considered penis envy as natural and universal in all women (Slipp 16). According to Freud, the realization by the little girl that they had no penis was the defining moment in the realization of a female’s sexual identity. In The Feminist Legacy of Karen Horney, Marcia Westkott comments: “In sum, the Freudian concept of penis envy explains all one needs to understand of female behavior” (53). Freud

From a Freudian perspective human development is based on psychosexual theory. From a psychosexual perspective maturation of the sex drives underlies stages of personality development (Shaffer et al., 2010). Ultimately, Freud believed that sex was the most important instinct and any mental disturbance revolved around sexual conflicts that were suppressed from childhood. Furthermore, Freud believed that parents permitting too much or too little gratification of sexual needs led

More specifically, Freud traces the roots of all adult behaviors back to childhood impulses and showed how conflicts related to the development of sexuality in childhood subsequently results in psychopathology or neuroses. (Good & Beitman)