According to Sigmund Freud, a psychologist, human personality can be seen to develop in stages with every stage having some pleasure-seeking energy that are focused in a certain area in human development; in his psychosexual development theory, he establishes the following areas in human development:
- Oral stage: according to the theory at this stage, between birth and one year, the child gets pleasure when doing some activities using the mouth, they may scream, chew, suck, or put anything across them into their mouth, this stage defines the reason why there are gullible, passive, talkative among other traits in people.
- Anal stage: at this stage the child gets pleasure when he releases bowels and bladder; it may result to people who are organized, people who are coprophiliac, or defiant people; the degree at which people are able to express themselves is shaped by this stage, it occurs between 1 to 3 years.
- Phallic stage: at this stage, the child is between the ages of three to six years, at this stage, the child gets pressure in his or her gentiles: this stage the child becomes aware of the difference between man and woman.
- Latency stage: this is the stage between six years to puberty, at this stage; the child is more concentrated on character and behavior traits that he or she developed in earlier three stages.
- Genital stage: puberty and adult life, it is the stage that the person feels responsible of his or her actions and is willing to prove that he can do it on its own and a sense of independence runs in the human’s mind.
- Adult stage: at this stage, a person feels the need to bring up his or her own children and gets joy in raising morally upright children (Reisner, 2001).
Freud’s Concepts of Bisexuality & Psychosexual Development
According to the theory, human beings develop their sexual orientation from the exposure and the socialization they have experienced; according to the theory, people are born with some instinctual libido that develops as one grows older. As one develops there are five stages that have different sexual drives and determine the adulthood sexual orientation. The theory suggest that people are not born as heterosexuality, homosexuality, or bisexuality, but they have some elements of either that can be reinforced or weakened by the socialization they experience; however as they grow, they develop some
Describe the childhood experiences that Freud believed contribute to heterosexual and homosexual attractions and behavior in adulthood
The kind of experience that a child has during development influences the sexual orientation and attraction during their adult life; the psychologist strongly argues that human sexual orientation as well attraction can well be defined by the exposure and the life they have had. Some of the childhood experiences that a child gets and are likely to influence his adulthood sex life is the kind of family setting that he or she has been brought up in; for example, children born of single mothers and have a family of girls are more likely to be lesbians while those born in single father family with boys only are likely to be gays. Other experiences include the way a child was handled during development as well as how he had come to believe it’s right or wrong; those children who were molested sexually are likely to have sexuality difficulties (Garcia, 1995).
References
Garcia, J. L. (1995). Freud’s Psychosexual Stage Conception: A Developmental Metaphor for Counselors. Journal of Counseling & Development, 73(5), 498.
Reisner, S. (2001). Freud and Developmental Theory A 21st-Century Look at the Origin Myth of Psychoanalysis. Studies in Gender & Sexuality, 2(2), 97.