Freud’s Theory of Psychosexual Development

phallic stage lasts for about three years (the stage of the preschooler). During the phallic stage the preschooler, according to Freud, obtains a substantial amount of pleasure from self-stimulation of the phallus. The phallic stage ends at about the age of six.

The latency stage lasts for about six years. It begins at age six or seven and ends at age twelve or thirteen. In effect, it ends when puberty begins. The libido has migrated from the oral to the anal to the phallic zone. Now it goes underground and becomes, to surface appearance, dormant. The libido goes underground not because of a lack of biological maturation, but because of psychological conflict. Freud suggested that the child has a certain amount of dawning sexual desire and tends to make the parent of the opposite sex the focus of this desire. However, due to moral development, guilt sets in and the libido goes into hiding. It is repressed to an unconscious level.

The emotional conflict associated with the child‘s forbidden wish to seek sexual expression with a parent is called the