Freud in the year 1905 came up with a proposal that the psychological development stages of development. This paper gives a reflection of thoughts on these theories and the thoughts and disagreements that have been developed because of the aforementioned theories. This paper also continues to elaborate how this theory is not based on any type of proof and is falsifiable. The stages were called psychosexual since each stage shows the libido fixation (Shaffer et.al, 43).
The five stages of development as outlined by Freud are as follows;
The oral stage; Freud argues that this is the first stage of development where the libido is centered in the mouth of the baby. This is proved by the fact that the babies find a lot of satisfaction by inserting objects into their mouths to satisfy the libido. Freud relates this in later stages of developments where people try to get satisfaction from smoking and doing other things to get pleasure from the mouth. I disagree with this argument since at the infancy a child is not sexually developed and so finding pleasure from the mouth is a natural phenomenon that cannot be related to libido.
The second stage is the anal stage. At this stage, Freud suggested that a child gets great pleasure from defecating. This theory is true and is very evident in the later stages of development.
The third stage is the phallic stage that occurs between the ages of 3 to 5 years. Sensitivity is concentrated in the genitals also through masturbation. At this stage, I too agree that this a very well defined theory that is noon disputable. This is very true.
The Latency stage formed the fourth stage of development of the theory. At this stage, the libido is dominant and most of the child’s energy is channeled to the acquisition of skills and development in many other extrinsic and intrinsic activities. This stage is also very true from a personal point of view. The only disagreement is that the activities that a child does at this stage may not be directly related to libido (Shaffer et.al, 43).
The fifth stage is the genital stage, which is puberty to adult stage. At this stage, there is a lot of sexual experimentation and a heterosexual pleasure.
This theory, by the fact that all things that Freud talks about are very practical in the real life is therefore un-falsifiable. The stages and the theories behind them are very true and happens in the day to day life.
Work cited
Shaffer, David R, and Katherine Kipp. Developmental Psychology: Childhood and Adolescence. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010. Print.
