Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory

Question 1

Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory

Answer 1

Psychoanalysis was the first comprehensive personality theory, that attempted to explain the origins of gender.

Question 2

Pre-phallic Children

Answer 2

• Freud’s theory sees children pass through five biologically-driven psychosexual stages that begin with the oral and end with the genital stage (puberty).
• The phallic stage is when gender development occurs, so all children before the phallic have no concept of gender identity.
• They do not know of or categorise into male and female.
• Focus of pleasure (is the genitals, and children experience the Oedipus complex (males) and the Electra complex (females).

Question 3

Oedipus Complex

Answer 3

• Boys develop incestuous feelings towards their mother. They harbor a jealous and murderous hatred towards their father (who stands in their way from possessing their mother).
• However, the boy recognizes that their father is more powerful and fears he may be castrated, leading to castration anxiety.
• Solving of the conflict involves giving up the love for the mother and identifying with the father.

Question 4

Electra Complex

Answer 4

• Girls experience penis envy and feel like themselves and their mothers are in a fight for the father’s love.
• Develop double-resentment for their mother. Firstly, mother is a love rival and secondly, the mother is blamed for the daughter not having a penis (daughter believes mother castrated her).
• Concept came from Carl Jung who suggested girls over time come to accept that they will never have a penis, substituting penis envy for the desire for a child, and identifying with the mother.

Question 5

Identification and internalization

Answer 5

• Children of both sexes identify with a same-gender parent to resolve their respective conflicts and complexes. Boys take on the roles and values of their father, and girls do the same for their mother.
• Take on board the gender identity of the same-sex gender parent (internalization).
• Second-hand gender identity received all at once after the phallic stage.

Question 6

Little Hans

Answer 6

• Freuds evidence for the existence of the Oedipus complex came from the case study of Little Hans.
• Hans was a five-year-old boy with a morbid phobia of horses.
• Han’s fear appeared to have stemmed from when he saw a horse collapse and die in a street.
• However, Freud’s interpretation was that Han’s fear of being bitten was his fear of castration by his father for his incestuous feelings toward his mother.
• Freud suggested that Hans transferred the fear of his father onto the horse via displacement.