In The Freudian Psychoanalytic theory, a person's personality is determined during that person's early childhood. Freud's theory is one that goes in a step sort of order. In his theory there are different stages that a person goes through, these stages do not flow, if a person gets stuck in one stage he/she can be stuck in that stage forever. Freud broke his Psychoanalytic theory into five psychosexual stages (although Barron's AP says four), The Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latent, Genital.First is the Oral phase, this happens during early childhood and can stay with a person all the way up through adulthood. During this stage all objects of interest get put into the ...view middle of the document...
This stage is usually over by the time the kid is three.The phallic stage is where the young man or young woman now begins to form a sexual desire. The genitals are starting to develop and accordingly boys form an Oedipus complex and girls form another complex (similar to Oedipus, but I can not remember the name and I am trying to do this without looking in the book). The Oedipus complex causes the young boy to be jealous of his father for the love of his mother. This phase is usually over by the time the child has turned six.As the name suggests the latency phase is a phase where there is a lack of sexual feeling. This phase does not usually stay around much after puberty, unless the person is asexual as an adult which is really rare..The Adult Genital Phase is the last of Freud's five phases. The person's sexual interests arise. This stage goes from puberty until the time of death. It is very general, and the average person will spend most of his/her time in this psychosexual stage.Many neo- Freudian's have questions Freud's basic theories. One criticism is that there is little evidence to actually support his claims, such as the Oedipus complex. It would be very hard to prove if someone has an Oedipus complex, or one thing they themselves would never admit it. The Freudian theory is also criticized for lacking the ability to predict problems, and overemphasizing sex in childhood greatly. Despite the criticisms the Freudian theory has effected psychology and helped to mold it into what psychology is today.
