A few of the characteristics that I agree with is the subconscious has a big role in who we are and where we have come from. I think that Jung and Freud even though they disagreed on what the subconscious consisted of I think that it really is a combination of the two, dreams and a collection of images that an individual doesn’t process or even refuses to process.
I don’t agree with Freud that our motives and subconscious is based off of sexual urges. Whether it be repressed or expressed sexuality. I do think that a lot of this came from him having to suppress his sexual urges until he was married, and he wasn’t married until much later. He had to wait four years before he wed Martha. Which in that time was an extremely long engagement without premarital sex. I think this is why he focused on sexual motivations, because he was sexually frustrated for a long time before he got married. Some of his stages make sense in a way, but they are too focused on the sexual side and there are many different things that make up our psychology. I think that Jung had something when it came to dreams, but I don’t think that they are completely reliable because people can interpret ones persons dream in many different ways. What I interpret in a dream may be completely different in how you may interpret the same exact dream.
The stages of Freud’s theory was first the oral stage. Which is with infancy. Babies are driven by hunger and thirst. They are bottle or breast fed. Also at this stage babies learn by sticking everything in their mouths. Freud’s theory says that at about one when a baby is being weaned off they have to grow up. This causes conflict between the id and the ego. Some children resolve the conflict easy and move on the next stage, however some kids have a hard time transitioning. These children want to be mothered and keeping the moths full of desired substances. They are fixated at the oral stage.
The next stage is anal stage. It is about the stage when children are learning to be potty trained. There are some children that readily learn the self-control, others “overlearn” it, and still who fight the stage of being potty trained. So as adults they can remain stuck at the anal stage. Example they take great satisfaction in a large bowel movement. They also may like to make messes including messes of other people’s lives. It also discusses those who have overlearned it may grow up excessively stingy.
The next stage is phallic stage where sexual energy is focus on the genitals. This is usually around the age of 4. Children explore their genitals and may masturbate. Children at this stage tend to publicly play with their new found genitals which was very taboo at the time. At this stage they can have to things penis envy or Oedipus complex. Penis envy is when a girl wishes she had a penis in that time period men held a higher status than a woman. So a girl would wonder why she didn’t have a penis. She would come to terms with her lack of penis by knowing she could grow up and bear children. The Oedipus complex is where a boy is obsessed with the size of his penis. He looks at his father as large in stature and a larger penis. He wants to win love with the size of his penis.
Then there was the Latency period where there was really no psychosexual developments during this time that Freud could make into a new stage it is kind of where a person isn’t sexual yet,