Hi gang.
Today we're going to go through Freud's psychosexual
theory.
It is a birth to death theory, starts the
day you're born, ends the day you die.
And of course, there's the picture of our
buddy, Freud.
By the way, he was the first one to come up
with a lifespan developmental theory, explaining
why people behave from birth until death.
Yes, there had been investigations into various
aspects of growing at that point.
Freud was the first one to look at the entire
lifespan of a person.
So let's start with the first stage, which
is the oral stage, which is babyhood.
Birth to 18 months-ish, give or take, about
1 and a half.
For Freud, he focused on where people received
sexual pleasure.
And for babies, he said it felt good when
they put things in their mouth.
If the idea of sexual pleasure freaks you
out, that's fine.
Not at all uncommon.
Just think of it this way.
What Freud is focusing on is the parts of
the body that children are mastering.
Here, babies, they do put everything in their
mouth.
In fact, within 15 minutes after being born
here in the States, presuming a normal, healthy
delivery, they try to have the baby feed.
Because if the baby doesn't feed, the baby
doesn't live.
So the oral stage.
Everything goes in the mouth.
The next stage, which is toddlerhood - which
is about 18 months, 1 and a half to 3 years
- Freud said that children received pleasure
through the elimination of the bladder and
the bowel, meaning it feels good to pee and
poop.
Because this is the potty-training stage.
In reality, it's about controlling your own
body, being able to control when you pee,
being able to control when you poop.
And this is a major accomplishment.
You can see from the little boy there on the
right, he is very proud of wearing big-boy
underpants because he is mastering his own
body.
Being able to pee when you want, being able
to poop when you want, not peeing, not pooping
- that's controlling your own body.
The immature genital stage or the phallic
stage, these are the preK years.
So this is 3 to 6.
Children discover that their genitals are
different.
They discover that boys have penises, girls
have vaginas.
And it is just a discovering of the differences.
At the same time, children are also noticing
differences in hair color and hair type.
Children are noticing differences in skin
color.
Noticing differences - glasses, no glasses.
So it's just a discovery of the differences
between human beings, and one of the big differences
between men and female - men and women, excuse
me - are the genitals.
Now the latency stage, middle childhood years.
This is 6 years to the onset of puberty, so
the elementary school years.
This, according to Freud, is not about pleasure
in the body.
This is about learning your gender roles.
Freud says at this stage girls play with girls
in order to learn how to be a girl, like the
picture there on the left with the girls on
the really funky teeter-totter.
And boys play with boys in order to learn
their roles as a boy in society, which is
all the boys over there on that jungle gym.
And if you look at a playground, if you drive
by a playground at recess behind a school,
you're gonna discover girls are playing with
girls.
Boys are playing with boys.
And that's, for Freud, learning your gender
role.
Now the last stage, which starts with puberty
and does end the day you die, is the mature
genital stage, which is like I said, adolescence
to death.
This is when you rediscover you have genitals
and now you want to turn that discovery into
an intimate, physical relationship.
This is where sexual activity becomes involved.
Dating becomes involved.
Marriage and relationships become involved.
And again, this ends the day that you die.
Basically think of it this way - once we rediscover
our genitals in adolescence, we want to try
to share them someone else until we're dead.
I know that probably has a few of you going
"Ugh" thinking over the idea that your grandparents
want to continue to share.
But Freud is right.
It is something that people are interested
in - sharing their genitals - right up until
the day they die.
So, thank you.
Bye.
