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Life Span Developmental Psychology: Help and Review21 chapters | 267 lessons
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Why does Sherlock Holmes always have a pipe in his mouth? What is it with businessmen and fat cigars? Why is Penny Pingleton constantly sucking on lollipops in Hairspray? A possible answer to all these questions may be found in Sigmund Freud's theories of psychosexual development and the concept of oral fixation.
According to Freud, the human personality begins its rapid development immediately from birth and is almost completely determined by the age of five. During this period, development is driven by an instinctual sexual appetite (the libido) that focuses its energies upon particular erogenous zones.
Human beings are, as Freud puts it, polymorphously perverse, meaning that infants will seek to derive pleasure from many different parts of their bodies. Freud therefore divides human development into five psychosexual stages, each one characterized by the erogenous zone towards which the libido focuses its desires. The five stages are the oral, the anal, the phallic, the latent, and the genital. If a desire is either under- or over-satiated during its corresponding developmental stage, fixation can occur.
Fixation is an unhealthy attachment in adult life to one of these erogenous zones, where the adult subject remains 'stuck' in an earlier stage of sexual development. In Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), Freud described fixation as the after-effects of infantile object-choice, an incestuous fixation of his or her libido.
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The oral stage, spanning from birth to 21 months, is when the infant's pleasure centers are situated around the lips and the mouth. The first 'love-object' of this stage is the mother's breast, where libidinal gratification is first granted in the pleasures of feeding. Enjoyment is further sought in the baby's oral exploration of his or her environment, i.e. sticking things in his or her mouth, or in auto-erotic behaviors, i.e. thumb-sucking.
The key developmental experiences of this stage, where the dangers of later fixation are very prevalent, is the process of weaning, the gradual withdrawal of the child from his or her mother's breast and the supply of milk. As well as being the child's first experience of loss, weaning is also a key moment in the human development of self-awareness, independence, and trust. Weaning teaches a child that it does not have full control over its environment and he or she experiences the necessary limit of the self and the pleasure. The duration of this oral stage depends very much on the child-rearing traditions of the mother's society and when it is believed weaning should begin.
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Freud proposed that if there is any thwarting of the infant's libidinal desires in the oral stage, i.e. if the child's breastfeeding is neglected or over-provided, or if he or she is weaned too late or too early, he or she may become orally-fixated as an adult. This oral fixation can manifest itself in a number of ways. It may result in a desire for constant oral stimulation, such as through eating, smoking, alcoholism, nail-biting, or thumb-sucking. It has also been suggested that being overly talkative, gullible, manipulative, or sarcastic can stem from an oral fixation.
Freud argued that whichever of these personality traits an individual was likely to display depends on at what stage he or she was weaned. Weaning a child late could possibly lead to an immature personality as the child has not learned that gratification is not always immediate. If a child is neglected in this first stage, it is possible that he or she may become passive later in life, having learned that gratification is rarely available.
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Many of Freud's theories concerning psychosexual development and fixations are seen as heavily flawed for the following reasons:
Reason #1: They are mostly based on male development, with little mention of female development.
Reason #2: He mainly relies on abstract concepts, such as the libido, which are difficult to prove scientifically.
Reason #3: His research is supported by case studies rather than empirical evidence.
Reason #4: The case studies he did record, are based on adult recollections; he did not perform any case studies of children.
Reason #5: Any actual scientific research that has been done on the effects of weaning on personality development contradict his ideas.
So finally, in answer to the question posed above, it is likely that Sherlock Holmes smokes a pipe because he likes the taste of tobacco and not because he was neglected as a child.
Let's review.
One of Freud's five stages of development, the oral stage, spans from birth to 21 months and is when the infant's pleasure centers are situated around the lips and the mouth. Freud proposed that if an infant in this stage has his libidinal desires thwarted, he can become orally fixated as an adult. This need for constant oral stimulation may manifest itself in a variety of ways including eating, smoking, alcoholism, nail-biting, or thumb-sucking. Freud's theories are seen as heavily flawed due to the numerous holes found in his research and ways of thinking.
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Life Span Developmental Psychology: Help and Review21 chapters | 267 lessons