Theories Of Psychoanalytic And Partification Theory

Freud believed that gender identity was built from our interactions and learned from our environment, but was informed by our biological makeup. His theory of gender identity development is constructed in stages as the child grows older, first the oral stage, then the anal stage, then the critical stage in which the child’s gender identity is constructed called the genital stage. The genital stage requires

The psychoanalytic theory was devised by a psychologist named Sigmund Freud in 1885. He explains that the human mind and body is essentially driven by sex. It controls how one develops and how one functions on a day to day basis. Through their development and growth a child will go through three stages of sexual development: oral, anal, and genital. How they go through these stages or problems that occur during their advancement can cause complications or “flaws” that become prominent later on in their life. Another aspect of his theory is the id, ego and the superego. The id is the selfless part of your brain, it sees the world and all beings as equal. The opposite is the ego, that part of the

'Genital stage' is the last psychosexual which starts at the being of puberty and Freud thought that if the person less fixated then they have become more smoothly during this stage and will be able to negotiate the outcome of the ability to structure a strong heterosexual relationship tat is able to be warm and affectionate and also being able to be to take in love in a unique mature form. The development of the ego defence mechanism is the second critical feature when it comes to early experience. This defence mechanism that is being used helps us to block out experiences that being threaten to overpower

While reading the first two chapters of Freud and Beyond by Mitchell and Black (2016) there were many concepts and ideas by Freud that I found agreeable, however, there were also many things that I did not agree with too, especially, Freud’s idea pertaining to sexuality and children. Which soon became one of his most well known concept, the Oedipus Complex, which is defined as a child’s desire to have genital intercourse with a parent of the opposite sex and how the child learns to fear the parent of the same sex, and how the child sees that same parents as a rival (15). Freud also links the Oedipus Complex with the Stages of Psychosexual development, such as, the oral and anal stage to further explain how the Oedipus Complex is manifested through these stages. Lastly, he incorporates the ego, id, and the superego with the Oedipus Complex and the Stages of Psychosexual development.

During this stage comes the Oedipus complex which in his theory is a significant part of child development. Before the Oedipus stage, there is only the direct relationship between the child and the mother. When the Oedipus stage arrives, the father comes into play (Flitterman-Lewis, 1992, p. 205). The same sex parent becomes a rival for the child because the child desires the parent of the opposite sex, but the same sex parent is in the way. From fear of castration, a boy will repress his desires for his mother and identify with the father and therefore develop masculine traits. The girl realizes she is already castrated and represses her desires for her father and identifies with the mother, causing her to have feminine traits. Although this theory seems sexist, Flitterman-Lewis justifies Freud’s theory by saying that the Oedipus complex signifies the transformation of the child developing its own identity as part of society. She also claims that the fear of castration and the Oedipus complex are “symbols for the way in which a given culture imposes its rules and order on all of us” (Flitterman-Lewis, 1992, p. 206), and that a child develops their identity as a result of these imposed rules.

The psychoanalytic perspective, is the outlook that behavior and personality are effected by the conflict between one’s inner dreams n and expectation of society. Most of this conflict occurs in unconscious, which is outside the knowledge of an individual. Renowned psychologist, Freud established the psychoanalytic theory as an explanation for perplexed phenomena such as the meaning behind dreams, slips of the tongue, and behavioral reflex reactions to stressful situations. The unconscious is a primary focus in psychoanalytic theory due to its typical development in childhood and the ways in which it influences nearly every detail of an individual’s life. The unconscious mind also holds unvented memories and unexpressed urges that make their process into the conscious mind through a variety of different means. However, topographical theory of the mind states that conscious, preconscious, and unconscious serve as motivating forces in human behavior. Corsin & Wedding (2011) define the conscious as mental activity which individuals are fully aware of, preconscious as thoughts and feelings that could be easily brought to mind and unconscious as thoughts, feelings, and desires of which one is unaware of.

In regards to gender, Freud used the term ‘Oedipal Complex’ which hints to the myth of Oedipus who murdered his father and married his mother. This occurs in the phallic stage and refers to one of his more controversial ideas which states a boy’s erotic affection for his mother and conflict with the father as he desires to replace him. To resolve this conflict, the boy must identify with his father and pushes away his mother, and with her, the nurturing, emotional values that she embodies. Vice versa, there is the ‘Electra Complex’ where a girl feels in competition with her mother for her father’s affection, and needs to identify

After this recognition of this dissimilarity, the female believes that she is at a great disadvantage and she resultantly wishes to acquire a penis. The theory also explains that small girls feel sensitive over the lack of a sex organ equal to the boy’s, and holds herself to be inferior on that account. Freud’s describes that “three lines of development diverge from penis envy, one leads to sexual inhibition or to neurosis, the second to a modification in the sense of masculinity complex, and the third to normal femininity” (NLA Ch.5). The usage of this explanation as a way to characterize feminine psychology has spurred many negative criticisms of Freud’s work on female psychology, and most people have now realized that this his theories were very inaccurate.

The third stage of development in Freudian theory is the “Phallic stage”, which starts at the age of three and goes on until the age of six. During this particular stage according to Freud, children are said to take pleasure in their genitals and they also struggle with sexual desires, especially strong desires towards their opposite sex parent (girl desiring her father and boy desiring his mother). This kind of behavior in boys is called as “Oedipus complex”, which according to Freud means that the boys during this stage desire their mother and want to replace their fathers, who are seen to be seeking the mother’s attention, because of this desire the boy is afraid that his father might find out and punish the boy by the process of castration(cutting off the penis) due to which they may develop castration anxiety. And the same desire called “Electra complex” which is the desire developed in girls for their fathers and in the thought of replacing their mothers is discussed during later on by Carl Jung. This stage helps in the development of Superego in life.

Sigmund Freud coined the term Oedipal Complex to describe a phenomenon he observed where the child has sexual feelings of desire for the parent of the opposite gender and has feelings of hostility and jealously towards the parent of the same sex. The child feels as if they are in a competition with

According to Freud’s psychosexual theory, personality develops across 5 sexual stages while Erikson’s develops among 8 social stages. Freud’s theory has fewer stages due to his belief that the last stage of identity develops during adolescence, while Erikson’s theory had more stages because he believed an individual’s identity continually evolved over their entire lifetime (Hoare, 2005). The 5 stages of Freud’s theory: Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency and Genital, will be discussed, compared and contrasted with Erikson’s 8 stages: Trust vs. Mistrust, Autonomy vs. Doubt, Initiative vs. Guilt, Industry vs. Inferiority, Identity vs. Role Confusion, Intimacy vs. Isolation, Generativity vs. Stagnation, and Integrity vs. Despair (Passer, Smith, Atkinson, Mitchell & Muir, 2011). Each stage in Erikson’s theory involves a

The relationship between sex and gender has been evolving over the last century. Theories about what it means to be male or female reached the mainstream with Sigmund Freud’s theory of penis envy, declaring that women are “mutilated and must learn to accept their lack of a penis”. Accepting the lack of penis leads to competition with the mother in order to secure the affections of the male role model, in this case, the father. This competition leads to

Growing up in a hostile and anti semitic environment, Freud had a very confusing childhood. His 42 year old father, who already had two sons, was twenty years older than his mother, whom was the third wife. His two half brothers were old enough to marry his mother, and to make things even more confusing, his Mother had a second son who died six months later while Freud was still very young. Likely as a result of this complicated family dynamic, an idea was planted in Freud’s impressionable young head that ultimately led to his theory of the Oedipus/ Electra complex. The Oedipus complex is the theory that around the age of 3-6, in the phallic stage, boys start to have a lust for the mother, hatred for the father and brothers, desiring to take his father’s spot. Girls experience the same conflict at that age, with a desire for their father, called the Electra complex. Particularly because Freud’s half brothers were so close in age to his mother, it would have been simple for this to radically distort his moral views on inscestual thoughts, and influence him into thinking it was an acceptable concept.

The story of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex helped Freud to help illustrate his theory to the public. In this story, Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother “Slay my father and he dies… fear not that marriage with thy mother” (Oedipus Rex, lines 1000 & 1013). According to Freud, all male children form an attraction for their mother around ages 3-5 during the “phallic” stage of development,. Eventually they learn to repress their sexual desires for their mother because the fearing of being castrated by their father (threats son’s masculinity). However, if the boy doesn’t repress his feeling for his mother “the sexual wishes in regard to the mother become more intense”, and the Oedipus complex will be carried past childhood into adulthood; this makes it very difficult for him to form relationships with other people especially women. In other words, the child will never grow out of this and he will be dysfunctional in adulthood.

Numerically, men and women are equals; men make up 50% of the worlds population, and women make up the remaining 50%, but that is where the equality essentially ends. It is no secret that men and women are different biologically, but the differences between the two genders don’t end there. Beyonce Knowles writes a song describing the differences between what is acceptable behaviour for a man versus a woman, which really sheds some light on the fact that men and women are not seen as equal, and are not held to the same social standards. Looking at this from a symbolic interactionists perspective may help understand why there are differences in acceptable social behaviours between the two sexes. Men and women are viewed differently, not just because of anatomical features, but because of the way each gender has been moulded into specific stereotypes and taught that these stereotypic behaviours are to be upheld. This phenomena is seen even at a young age, in an article found online, 45% of Canadian youth agree that “to be a man you need to be tough” (Baluja, 2011). The same article also explained that 31% of Canadian boys believe women’s role is to take care of the household and family. Structural functionalists may have insight into how these stereotypic roles came about and why they are prevalent even into today’s society. The inequality between the genders does not end there, unfortunately. Gender inequality spills over from social situations and into the workplace, where