Freud's psychosexual stages

Ever call someone "anal-retentive" or joke about an "oral fixation"? You're quoting Freud. His psychosexual stages claim personality is forged in early childhood as libido (psychic sexual energy) shifts across erogenous zones — and the terms have outlived the theory in everyday speech, which is exactly why they're testable.

Freud proposed five stages. Oral (birth–1): pleasure centers on the mouth — sucking, biting. Anal (1–3): the focus is bowel control; toilet training is the battleground. Phallic (3–6): attention turns to the genitals and the child navigates the Oedipus complex (and, for girls, what Freud termed the Electra dynamic), resolving it by identifying with the same-sex parent — this is where the superego forms. Latency (6–puberty): sexual urges go dormant while the child pours energy into school, friendships, and skills. Genital (puberty onward): mature sexual interest in others emerges.

The theory's engine is fixation: if a child is over-gratified or under-gratified at a stage, libido stays partly "stuck" there, shaping adult personality. Oral fixation → dependency, smoking, overeating; anal fixation → the anal-retentive (rigid, stingy, orderly) or anal-expulsive (messy, defiant) personality.

Relation to later theory matters for the exam: Erikson revised Freud, keeping a stage framework but recasting it as psychosocial (relationships and society) and extending it across the whole lifespan rather than stopping at puberty.

Clinical Pearl: Memorize the order O-A-P-L-G (Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, Genital) with ages, and tie the superego's formation and the Oedipus complex to the phallic stage — that pairing is the single most tested Freud item. Remember fixation = getting stuck at a stage due to over- or under-gratification.