What is the major difference between Freud and Eriksons theories of human development quizlet?

1. Sigmund Freud
2. Psychosexual Stages

Freud's 5 Stages of Psychosexual Development

By Saul McLeod, updated 2019

Freud proposed that personality development in childhood takes place during five psychosexual stages, which are the oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages. During each stage sexual energy (libido) is expressed in different ways and through different parts of the body.

These are called psychosexual stages because each stage represents the fixation of libido (roughly translated as sexual drives or instincts) on a different area of the body. As a person grows physically certain areas of their body become important as sources of potential frustration (erogenous zones), pleasure or both.

Freud's 5 Psychosexual Stages

Freud (1905) believed that life was built round tension and pleasure. Freud also believed that all tension was due to the build-up of libido (sexual energy) and that all pleasure came from its discharge.

In describing human personality development as psychosexual Freud meant to convey that what develops is the way in which sexual energy of the id accumulates and is discharged as we mature biologically. (NB Freud used the term 'sexual' in a very general way to mean all pleasurable actions and thoughts).

Freud stressed that the first five years of life are crucial to the formation of adult personality. The id must be controlled in order to satisfy social demands; this sets up a conflict between frustrated wishes and social norms.

The ego and superego develop in order to exercise this control and direct the need for gratification into socially acceptable channels. Gratification centers in different areas of the body at different stages of growth, making the conflict at each stage psychosexual.

The Role of Conflict

Each of the psychosexual stages is associated with a particular conflict that must be resolved before the individual can successfully advance to the next stage.

The resolution of each of these conflicts requires the expenditure of sexual energy and the more energy that is expended at a particular stage, the more the important characteristics of that stage remain with the individual as he/she matures psychologically.

To explain this Freud suggested the analogy of military troops on the march.  As the troops advance, they are met by opposition or conflict.  If they are highly successful in winning the battle (resolving the conflict), then most of the troops (libido) will be able to move on to the next battle (stage).

But the greater the difficulty encountered at any particular point, the greater the need for troops to remain behind to fight and thus the fewer that will be able to go on to the next confrontation.

Psychosexual Stages of Development