Writer identity and hophead order analysis

1. Freud’s five stages of psychosocial development include the oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. Although Freud did not test his theories empirically, on a conceptual level, these five stages do make some sense. Progression through the five stages is impeded when a person becomes fixated, their libido or drive directed towards self-fulfillment. Tension between what the id wants (especially instant gratification of any desire), and what the superego believes it should have creates neuroses, according to Freud. The ego is positioned like a mediator between the id’s desires and the superego’s restrictions and rules, creating a sense of self based on how one chooses to act upon or suppress desire.

While I believe all of these stages have relevance to all people, some people are impacted by the stages differently. Common lore in psychoanalysis is that oral fixations can lead to oral habits in adults, such as overeating or smoking. Likewise, a person who was anally fixated might retain some anal fixations in adulthood. The adult remains in the genital stage throughout life, postulated Freud, continually driven by sexual urges (McLeod, 2008). I believe that all of these stages can impact sexual identity, too. For example, many people continue masturbating as adults even when they have sexual partners, indicating that they are fixated in the phallic stage. On the contrary, some people progress through what Freud would have considered typical heterosexual and hetero-normative sexual development in the genital stage.

Because Freud seemed biased towards hetero-normativity, and androcentric in his overall approach to psychoanalysis, I do not agree with his view of gender identity and development. Gender is socially constructed. Any person whose gender identity is not normative simply does not conform to social norms; we need to stop framing different gender identities as a problem.

2. Freud tried to show that problems in one of the psychosexual stages could result in dysfunctional behavior later in life. In many cases, this does seem to be true; childhood experiences do leave lingering memories with deeply rooted emotions attached to them. Therefore, the Freudian theory of psychosexual development can be applied to a contemporary society. The post-modern worldview allows for a considerable degree of nuance in the way Freud’s theories are interpreted and applied to each person.
In fact, contemporary researchers have revisited and revised Freud’s theories to synchronize them with postmodern sensibilities and social norms. Tauber (2012), for example, suggests that postmodernism interjects a more optimistic worldview and tenor into Freud’s original theories with “celebration of desire at the expense of reason and sublimation,” (p. 1). Whereas Freud believed that desire was inherently problematic, the postmodern philosopher eschews the notion of an absolute or universal morality.
Personal identity development is another issue where Freudian theory could conflict with postmodernism but does not necessarily need to. If Freud had been alive and developing his theories now, his interpretations of his own findings might actually have been different. Contextual variables are equally as important as the psychosocial universal variables that Freud believed drove human instinct and behavior. Furthermore, postmodernism tends to value cultural diversity and relativism more than Freud, whose theories are only narrowly applicable. Reinterpreting Freud allows modern researchers to avoid dismissing his altogether while still rejecting some of the more controversial elements of Freudian theory.

References

McLeod, S. (2008). Psychosexual stages. Simply Psychology. Retrieved online: https://www.simplypsychology.org/psychosexual.html

Tauber, A.I. (2012). Freud’s social theory: Modernist and postmodernist revisions. History of the Human Sciences 0(0): 1-30.