Freud, Erikson, Pavlov Freud, Erikson,

Freud, Erikson, Pavlov

Freud, Erikson, and Pavlov: Debating the Stages of Human Development

All of us were children once -- yet psychologists throughout the ages have taken radically different views of the developmental processes through which children become adults. Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic approach is heavily individualistic, emphasizing the relationship of the child with his or her parents. According to Freud, the child proceeds through a series of stages, first beginning in a state of polymorphous perversity, then desiring the so-called 'phallic mother,' and gradually becoming socialized into a state of normal sexuality with a healthy, repressive (but not overly repressive) superego (Stevenson 2008). Freud's later critic Erik Erickson, in contrast, stressed the social component and influence upon human development, and advocated a multi-stage process of human development, in contrast to Freud's emphasis on infant sexuality (David & Clifton 2008). Ivan Pavlov similarly emphasized the early stages of development in his approach to learning; however he stressed the ability of the individual to be influenced by the environment and social conditioning, in contrast to proceeding through universal, internal psychological stages of growth ("Ivan Pavlov," 2008, PBS).

All three theorists therefore acknowledge the potential of individuals to be shaped by their environments, the importance of developmental stages, and the inherently conflicted nature of human development. Freud saw the individual as being impacted by potential conflicts in development that could, for example, arrest the child or adult in a permanent developmental impasse. A person could become fixed in the oral or anal stage of development, for example, if his or her conflict was not resolved (Stevenson 2008). Erikson likewise believed that every stage of development had certain conflicts that must be resolved, and if these social and personal conflicts were not dealt with, the individual would experience psychological difficulties later on. Pavlov likewise, in his model of individuals being 'shaped' and impacted by an external environmental stimulus, and gaining associations in their mind through such connections attempted to illustrate how human learning took place in a step-by-step fashion and could even cause people to do things that they might not otherwise, such as respond to a bell ("Ivan Pavlov," 2008, PBS).

But Freud's multi-tiered stages of development stresses the sexual nature of the evolution of human personality to the exclusion of all other drives, the importance of repression, and the long-term affects of the first five years of life. The fixation on the mother causes the young boy to develop an Oedipal complex, as he desires to kill his father and supplant his father's position, while the girl develops resentment of her mother because she was not born with a penis, and as a result of penis envy, transfers her desire for a penis to a desire for her father. Eventually the boy learns to identify with his father to 'have' his mother, just as the girl learns to emulate her mother to 'have' a penis in the form of a husband and son. The repressive stage of sexual development, which occurs after age five, temporarily arrests this conflict and enables the child to become a fully socialized adolescent and adult later on, with appropriate, non-familial, transferred objects of affection. Erikson, however, stressed that human conflict was never-ending, and suggested that rather than focusing on the conflict of personal identity, each stage of development was marked by a more general conflict of, for example, "trust vs. mistrust" (David & Clifton 2008). Not only the family was involved in these conflicts, and while Freud would suggest that every subsequent conflict in an individual's life is in some way a subliminal transference of the original family romance, Erikson believed that there was no repressive phase, and that different conflicts, some sexual, some asexual, would plague every individual so long as he or she lived in society. For Pavlov, there was less an emphasis on constant, internal conflict and strife, and an even greater stress than Erikson upon the ability of the environment to shape behavior, and by shaping external behavior shape the psyche. Conflict did not occur within the individual, rather it was imposed upon the individual externally by a stimulus, positive or negative associations were given with that stimulus, and learning and development took place as behaviors continued, even in the absence of the original reward or punishment. This learning could be sexual or asexual in nature, and learning took place throughout an individual's lifetime.

All theorists, albeit to different degrees, addressed the complex interaction of cognitive, physical and emotional development on the overall development of the child.

Freud stressed that a child 'learns' the correct sexual and social identity from the conflicts of early childhood, and the way these conflicts are resolved can produce trauma and arrested development, or a normal, healthy attitude towards sexuality. Freud does not deny the importance of physical development, although he is less interested in biology than later theorists. Still, the biologically wired desire to survive and engage in sexual activity, as well as the prepubescent repressive childhood phase seems implicitly integral to his ideation. Erikson's stages are all marked by years which are differentiated by physical as well as psychological and emotional milestones -- the adolescent must deal with sexual desire, as the adult must deal with the stresses of childbearing, and the old must deal with aging (David & Clifton 2008). Pavlov, of course, chronicled the ability of classical conditioning to cause a dog to salivate at a bell, noting how the environmental and emotional aspects of learning affect not just the individual's cognitive faculties, but even the body.