Psychosexual stages

Synchrony and Attachment
-Everyone has a NEED to feel an emotional connection to other people.
- An infant is unable to communicate verbally (warmth? security? comfort? food? drink?), so parents have to decipher the infant’s facial expressions and sounds.
- By spending time watching and playing with a baby, parents develop understanding of their moods and needs
- They become engaged in developing synchrony.

Synchrony
Coordinated activity where the parent and infant watch, copy and respond to each other.
In Synchronous play
The child learns to ‘take turns’ with the parent and learns the basic skills of social interaction. (Bremner, 1988)
Attachment
An enduring emotional connection between people that produces a desire or continual contact as well
as feelings of distress during separation. (Berger ,2001)

Attachment is
demonstrated by
Conclusion: this interplay leads to the development of good attachment relationship.

Survival value
Any activity or provision that provides us with warmth, food, air, water, and security is said to have survival value – it encourages the survival of an individual or group.
View points about forming attachment.

Psychoanalytic Theory
about forming attachments.
Sigmund Freud (1935): psyche: the id, the superego, the ego.
During infancy all behaviors are aimed at gaining pleasure and avoiding pain. (pleasure principle)
As we get older, the pleasure –seeking behavior is limited and we choose to behave within laws and moral norms (reality principle)
Those infants who can integrate the reality principle into their psyche will form good close relationships with people around them.

Psychosexual stages
I Oral stage (0-2) – a stage of life when we get sexual pleasure from oral stimulation; e.g. eating and sucking.
Pleasure via mouth – the id is satisfied
Problems: no breast feeding before the developmentally ‘right time’, the child will become traumatized (the id’s demands are not fully satisfied)
Conclusion: if the child feels depressed and anxious during the oral stage, this feeling will affect his attachment to his mother.

II Anal Stage (2-5)
A stage of life where we get pleasure from anal stimulation; e.g. bowel movements.
Sensory pleasure: from toilet activities– the id is satisfied
Problems: weaning the infant from nappies to the potty too early will lead to strong resistance and anxiety.
Conclusion: the distress will affect his attachment to the mother.

III Phallic Stage (5-7)
Stage when we become preoccupied with our genitals and develop a sexual attraction for our opposite-gender parent.

Conclusion: boys and girls develop attachment to include mannerisms and behavior of the same –gender parent.
By copying they induce love and attention from the opposite-gender parent and develop attachment.

Successful completion of oral, anal, and phallic stages leads to strong attachment to both parents and as they get older, they will form healthy, strong attachments in adult life.

Unsuccessful completion:
Fixation: the child unsuccessfully resolves the conflict at any psychosexual stages of development and cannot progress to the next stage as a result.
Personality problems:

Regression -
When stress gets too much you revert to behaviors exhibited at the psychosexual stage at which you became fixated.
Defense mechanisms:

Security theory – types of attachments.
I Secure attachment
Infants often use their mothers as a base for exploring a new environment. They will explore the immediate environment but always keep the mother in sight or know where she is (synchronous activity, happy with reunion)
II Resistant attachment:
Infants show mixed reactions to their mothers and may either approach them or push them away in an unfamiliar situations (show mistrust, blames when reunited)

III Insecure-avoidant:
Mother and child have not learnt to interact through synchronous activities, no signs of missing the parent and actively ignores and avoids her upon reunion.
IV Insecure-ambivalent.
Infants become distressed and cannot be settled by the parent on reunion. It happens when mothers are insensitive to the needs and respond to their needs unpredictably.