Sexual Stage Development Sigmund Freud’s of Psychoanalysis Theory

15 it is common for a child to be nursed by its mother for several years, whereas in others the stage is much shorter. Sucking and eating, however, compose the earliest memories for infants in every society. This stage holds special importance because some tribal societies commonly found in the Southwest Pacific and Africa, consider the stomach to be the seat of emotions. 21 2 The anal stage After the food has been digested, the residue accumulates in the lower end of the intestinal tract and is reflex discharged when the pressure upon the anal sphincters reaches a certain level. The expulsion of the faces removes the source of discomfort and produces a feeling or relief. According to the theory, the major experience during this stage is toilet training. This occurs by the age of two there may be fluctuations among different societies as to the age in which toilet training occurs, and results to conflict between the id, which asks for immediate gratification of its drives that involves elimination and activities related to it such as handing faces and the demands of their parents. The resolution of this conflict can be gradual and non-traumatic, or intense and stormy, depending on the methods the parents will use to handle the situation. The ideal resolution will comes if the child tries to adjust and the parents are moderate, so that the child will learn the importance of cleanliness and order gradually, which will lead to self-controlled adult. If the parents emphasize on toilet training too much while the child decides to accommodate, this may lead to the development of compulsive personality, extensively concerned about order 21 C. Thompson. Psychoanalysis: Evolution and development. New York: Grove Press 1950 pp. 7-8 16 and neatness. 22 On the other hand, if the child decides to heed the demands of the id and the parents give in, the child may develop a messy and self-indulgent personality. If the parents react, the child will have to comply, but it will develop a weakened sense of self, since the parents were the ones who controlled the situation, not the ego. 3 The phallic stage During this stage of personality development, sexual and aggressive feelings associated with the functioning of the genital organs come into focus. The pleasures of masturbation and the fantasy life of the child that accompanies autoerotic activity set the stage for the appearance of the Oedipus complex. 23 Briefly, defined, the Oedipus complex consists of a sexual cathexis for the parent of the opposite sex and hostile cathexis for the parent of the same sex. The boy wants to posses his mother and removes his father. The girl wants to posses her father and removes her mother. These feeling express themselves in child‘s fantasy during masturbation and in the alteration of loving and in rebellious action towards their parents. The behavior of the three-to five years old child is market to a large extent by the operation of the Oedipus complex, and although it is modified and suffers repression after the age of five. The history and fate of the Oedipus complex differ for male and female. The boy‘s incestuous craving for the mother and his growing resentment toward the father bring him into conflict with his parents, especially the father. He is 22 Michael Foucault. The history of sexuality Volume I. New York: Vintage 1990 pp. 130-131 23 Freud considered that Oedipus complex is one of his greatest discoveries. The Oedipus complex is named for the King Thebes who killed his father and marries his mother. 17 afraid that his jealous father will remove the offending organs. Freud called this condition as castration anxiety which includes a repression of the sexual desire for the mother and hostility toward the father. The sequence of female Oedipus complex is more involved. Firstly, she exchanges her original object, the mother, for the new object, the father. This occurs because the girl is disappointed to discover that the boy possesses a protruding the sex organ, the penis. Then, she transfers her love to father because he has the valued organ she aspires to share with him. Penis envy is the female counterpart of castration anxiety in the boy and collectivity they are called castration complex. 24 In psychoanalysis theory is known that mother becomes the first love object of the baby. Later, the baby realizes that impossible to having the mother as the object love of his libido. Displacement is the solution to avoid this anxiety. 4 Latency phase The latency stage is typified by a solidifying of the habits that the child developed in the earlier stages. Whether the Oedipal conflict is successfully resolved or not, the drives of the id are not accessible to the ego during this stage of development, since they have been repressed during the phallic stage. Hence the drives are seen as dormant and hidden latent and the gratification the child receives is not as immediate as it was during the three previous stage. Now pleasure is mostly related to secondary process thinking. Drive energy is redirected to new activities, mainly related to schooling, hobbies and friends. 25 24 David Mackey. Penemuan baru dalam dunia Psikoanalisis. Semarang: PT Raja Grafindo Persada, 1992 p. 137 25 David Mackey. Penemuan baru dalam dunia Psikoanalisis. Semarang: PT Raja Grafindo Persada, 1992p. 148 18 Problems however might occur during this stage, and this is attributed to inadequate repression of the Oedipal conflict, or to the inability of the ego to redirect the drive energy to activities accepted by the social environment. 5 The genital stage The cathexis of the pregenital period are narcissistic in the character. This means that the individual obtains gratification from the stimulation and manipulation of his or her own body, while other people are catheched only because they help to provide additional forms of body pleasure to the child. During adolescence, some of this shelf- love or narcissism becomes channeled into genuine object choices. The adolescence begins to love others for altruistic motives and not simply for selfish or narcissistic reasons. 26 Sexual attraction, socialization, group activities, vocational planning, and preparations for marrying and raising a family begin to manifest themselves.

3. Anxiety

In 1890s, Freud viewed anxienty as the result of repressed libido which was transformed into anxiety. Thirty years later, he revised his theory to state that the reverse was true – anxiety led to repression. Freud considered anxiety as a consciouly painful experience, which arose from axcitations of the internal organs of the body. 27 Freud made a distinction among three types of anxiety which accor in adulthood: neurotic, anxiety, moral anxiety, and reality or objective anxiety. All 26 Michael Foucault 1990, op cit, p. 142 27 Robert W. Lundin, Personality: A Behavior Analysis London: The Mac Millan Company Collier-Mac Millan Limited, 1969, p. 291 19 had the quality of being unpleasant and differed only in their source. They all shared the main function of acting as a warning signal to the person. It was a signal to his ego who felt the anxiety to do something about it by evading, escaping, overcoming, or buildng up defenses. 28 Neurotic Anxiety results from an id-ego conflict in which the id seeks to discharge an impulse and the ego tries to place reality restraints on the impulse. In neurotic anxiety, the treat came from the id. It could take the form of free floating anxiety, since the person could not identify its source in the unconsciousness. In the free floating kind, the person appeared afraid of his own id. 29 Moral Anxiety is generated by an id-superego conflict in which the id impulse is in opposition to the moral and ideal standards of society. Moral anxiety was experienced by the ego as a sense of shame or guilt and had its origin in the superego, or more specifically, the conscience. The conscience often used this moral anxiety to punish the ego when it had done wrong. The original source of the moral anxiety might have been in the world of reality, in the form of parental threats of punishment. Like neurotic anxiety the threat lay within the personality. And therefore the person could not escape his own conscience. 30 Reality or Objective Anxiety is produced when a realistic, external threat is present, such as enemy troops, automobiles on a freeway, or wild animals. In each case, anxiety is a signal of impending danger. The danger is external and can be dealt with by taking realistic steps to eliminate or reduce the actual threat. This kind of anxiety, commonly interpret as fear. Sudden and intense experiences, called trumatic, childhood dangers, threats of punishment, all have their origin in external reality. 31 28 Ibid 29 Ibid 30 Robert W. Lundin, 1969, op cit, p. 293 31 Robert W. Lundin, 1969, op cit, pp. 291-292 20

4. Defense Mechanism

Defense mechanism is also part of the theory of psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud. It is further explained by Sigmund Freud‘s daughter, Anna Freud. Defense mechanism is a psychological mechanism to defend itself and defense mechanism has a main function to maintain the balance between the internal world and external world of the individual. Defense mechanism is activated when the internal reality demands too much. When external world demands too much, defense mechanism will be activated too. 32 So, defense mechanism as the function of the ego tries to maintain the balance between the id which always tries to seek the pleasure and superego which always tries to use the norms from the eksternal world. There are some defense mechanisms which are explained by Sigmund Freud and Ana Freud, such as: dissociation, denial, projection, displacement, rationalization, reaction formation, sublimation, regression, identification, and intellectualization.

a. Dissociation

There is a difference between repression and dissociation. Repression is the separation between the consciousness and the unconsciousness and dissociation is the splitting of the consciousness into separate compartments. According to John Birtchnell, there are three stages of dissociative process which are proposed by Mollon: ―the fragmenting of a traumatic memory, imagining leaving the body and observing it from a distance, and the splitting of consciousness into a number of separate ego states or mental states, such that what is known or experienced in one state may or may not be known in another.‖ 33 33 John Birtchnell. The Two of Me: The Rational Outer Me and the Emotional Inner. East Sussex: Routlege, 2003 pp. 207-208.