Child and

Adolescent
Development
Looking at Learners at Different
Life Stages

EDUC 50
 UNIT 1: BASIC CONCEPTS AND ISSUES ON
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Part I: Introduction

Module 5: Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory

Abstraction
As a person grows, the personality is also formed. Many psychologists present different
views’ about how personality develops.
Erogenous Zone - a specific area that becomes the focus of pleasure needs. This may be
the mouth, anus and the genitals.
Fixation - results from failure to satisfy the needs of a particular psychosexual stage.

Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development

Freud is the most popular psychologist that studied the development of personality, also the
most controversial. According to his theory of psychosexual development, a person goes through
the sequence of five stages of which there are needs to met in every stage. Whether these needs
are met or not does not determine if the child will have a healthy personality or not. This theory
interests others because he identified specific erogenous zones for each stage of development,
specific pleasure areas that become focal points in each stage. If the needs are not met, a
fixation occurs, and as an adult, the person will now manifest behaviors related to this
erogenous zone.
1. Oral Stage (birth to 18 months)
Mouth. During oral stage, the child is focused on oral pleasures (sucking). Too
much or little satisfaction lead to oral fixation or oral personality. This personality nay
be oral perceptive, they have stronger tendency to smoke, drink alcohol, overeat or oral
aggressive, the tendency to bite nails or even use curse words or gossip. These persons
may become too dependent on others, easily fooled and lack leadership traits. They may
also fight these tendencies and become pessimistic and aggressive in relating with
people.

2. Anal Stage (18 months to 3 years)

Anus. The satisfaction focuses in eliminating and retaining feces. A struggle might
exist in the toilet training process when the child retain the feces when asked to
eliminate. Fixation during this stage can result in being anal retentive, an obsession
with cleanliness, perfection and control, or anal expulsive where the person may
become messy and disorganized.
3. Phallic Stage (3 to 6 years old)
Genitals. During preschool age, children become interested in what makes boys
and girls different. They will sometimes be seen fondling with their genitals. Freud’s
studies led him to believe that during this stage, boys develop unconscious sexual desire
for their mother. Boys then see their fathers as rival for his mother’s affection. Boys
fear that their father will punish them for this feeling, thus the beginning of castration
anxiety. These feelings are what Freud called Oedipus Complex.. in Greek Mythology,
Oedipus unintentionally killed his father and married his mother Jocasta.
Psychoanalysts also believed that girls may also have a similar experience, developing
unconscious sexual attraction towards their father referred to as the Electra Complex.
According to him, out of fear of castration due to the strong competition to their
father, boys decides to identify with them rather than fight them. By identifying with
their father, the boys develop masculine features and identify themselves as males and
repress their sexual feelings towards their mothers. A fixation at this stage could result
in sexual deviancies (both overindulging and avoidance) and weak or confused sexual
identity.

4. Latency Stage (6 to puberty [12])

In this stage, sexual urges remain repressed. Children’s focus is the
acquisition of physical and academic skills. Boys relate more with boys and girls relate
more with girls.

5. Genital Stage (puberty [12] onwards)

Stage of sexual urges awakening. In earlier stages, adolescents focus their
sexual urges towards the opposite sex peers, with the pleasure centered on the genitals.
Freud’s Personality Components
He described the personality structure as having three components; the id, ego and the
superego. Each person, the first to emerge is the id, followed by ego and last to develop is the
superego.
The id. A child born is born with the id. It plays a vital role in one’s personality, and as a
baby, it works so that the baby’s essential needs are met. It operates on pleasure principle. It
focuses on immediate gratification or satisfaction of its needs. Whatever feels good now is what
it will pursue regardless of the reality, logicality or practicality of the situation. The id speaks for
what is needed and until it is met. It is not oriented to considering reality nor the needs of others,
what matters is the satisfactions of its own needs and it when it wants something, it wants it now
and fast.
The ego. The child relates more with the environment as they grow, the ego slowly begins
to emerge. It operates using the reality principle, it is awareness that others also have needs to
be met. It is practical because it knows that being impulsive or selfish can result to negative
consequences later, so it reasons and considers the best response to situations. Although if
functions to help the id meets its needs, it always takes into consideration the reality of situation.
The superego. The end of phallic stage, superego develops. It embodies a person’s moral
aspect. This develops from what parents, teachers and other persons who exert influence impart
to be good or moral. It is likened to conscience because it exerts influence on what one considers
right and wrong.

The Three Components and Personality Adjustment

Freud believed that the personality of an individual is formed early during childhood years.
He said that a well adjusted person is one who has strong ego who can help satisfy the needs of
the id without going against the superego while maintaining the person’s sense of what is
logical, practical and real. The ability of the learner to be well-adjusted is largely influenced by
how the learner was brought up. How his needs are met or not. Ego can’t balance everything, if
id exerts too much power, the person can become too impulsive and pleasure-seeking. Likewise,
if the superego is so strong that the ego is overpowered, the person may become too harsh and
be judgemental on himself and others’ actions.
Topographical Model
The Unconscious. Freud said that most of what we go through in ourselves are not
available to us at a conscious level, that most of what influences us is our unconscious. The
Oedipus and Electra complex were both buried down into the unconscious out of awareness due
to extreme anxiety they caused. While they’re in our unconscious, they still influence our
thinking, feeling and doing in dramatic ways.
The Conscious. Freud said that all we are aware of is stored in our conscious mind. It only
compromises a very small part of who we are so that in our everyday life, we are only aware of a
small part of what makes up our personality, most are hidden and out of reach.
The Subconscious. The preconscious or subconscious, a part of us that we can reach if
prompted but is not our active conscious. It is right below the surface but still hidden unless we
search for it, such as phone number, childhood memories or names of friends are stored in our
preconscious.
Because the unconscious is so huge and we are only aware of the very small conscious,
Freud used the analogy of the iceberg to represent it. A big part of the iceberg is hidden beneath
the water’s surface. The water represent all that we are not aware of, have not experienced and
that has not been made part of our personalities referred to as The Nonconscious.

“You cannot bring unconscious material into consciousness except under extreme situations.”
-Sigmund Freud
Defense Mechanisms:
 REPRESSION
 COMPENSATION
 RATIONALIZATION
 INTROJECTION
 REGRESSION
 DISPLACEMENT

Psychoanalysis Method
This methods were used to get into a person’s unconscious mind:

1. Free Association
- Saying what ever comes to mind while relaxed
2. Resistance
- Patient abruptly ends the free association session (headache or stuttering)
3. Transference
- Projects feelings onto therapists (attends to positive and negative feelings towards the
client)
4. Counter-transference
- Therapists projects feelings onto the client
5. Hypnosis
- Alternative way to enter the unconscious mind
6. Dream Interpretation
- Manifest vs. Latent Conten