UNDERSTANDING THE SELF FINALS REVIEWER

PSYCHOSEXUAL DEVELOPMENT
- Theory of Sigmund Freud
- Freud believed that adult personality problems were the result of early experiences in life.
- He believed that we go through stages of psychosexual development
Erogenous Zones
- Erogenous zones are parts of the body that have especially strong pleasure-giving qualities at
particular stages of development

Stages of Psychosexual Development

I. ORAL PHASE
- Because the mouth is the first organ to provide an infant with pleasure, Freud’s first infantile stage
of development is the oral phase.
WEANING PROCESS
- The primary conflict at this stage is the weaning process where the child first experiences the feeling
of loss as a result of losing the physical intimacy of feeding at mother’s breast.
II. ANAL PHASE
- The child erogenous zones are the bowel or bladder control.
III. PHALLIC PHASE
- The genital area becomes the leading erogenous zone.
IV. LATENCY PERIOD
- At this stage, the child represses all interest in sexuality and develops social and intellectual skills.
- attempts to punish or discourage sexual activity in young children
FREUDIAN SLIP
- when a person is speaking and suddenly a word they did not intend to say aloud accidently slip out
Repression
- The most basic defense mechanism, because it is involved in each of the others, is repression.
Whenever the ego is threatened by undesirable id impulses, it protects itself by repressing those
impulses
Reaction Formation
- One of the ways in which a repressed impulse may become conscious is through adopting a disguise
that is directly opposite its original form.
- Acting like you hate someone you really have crush on
Displacement
 - n displacement, people can redirect their unacceptable urges onto a variety of people or objects so
that the original impulse is disguised or concealed.
- The transfer of negative emotion from one person or thing to unrelated person or thing
Fixation
- fixation is the permanent attachment of the libido onto an earlier, more primitive stage of
development.
Regression
- slipping to an earlier stage of development when faced with stress
Projection
- When an internal impulse provokes too much anxiety,
Introjection
- A teenager adopts the style and mannerism of a cinema star
Rationalization
- Making up acceptable excuses for unacceptable behavior