What is undoubtedly disturbing to the ‘Freud-bashers’ is how much evidence has accumulated
over the years to say that, in broad terms at least, if not always in detail, Freud’s
observations pretty much stand up so many years later.
The text below will present brief descriptions of the fixations and some of the evidence
supporting them conceptually. It will also look at how these Freudian concepts can
be interpreted in terms of Integrated SocioPsychology.
From a sociopsychological perspective, there needs to be some caution in talking
about stages as though they are rigid; it is better to talk about motivational systems
in people (vMEMES) which emerge and dominate the selfplex in such a way as to give
the impression of stages - though the length of stages and just how one stage is
transitioned to another varies from individual to individual and from culture to
culture. For more of an Integrated SocioPsychology perspective on Freud’s psychosexual
stages, see Psychosocial Development.
Oral Fixations
‘Oral receptive’ is brought on by too much nursing whereas ‘oral aggressive is brought
on by not enough nursing and/or by early weaning. Oral receptive people are often
cheerful, unrealistically optimistic and very self-centred yet can’t bear the disapproval
of others. Through the defence mechanism of sublimation, they may show an interest
in languages, be a compulsive talker and be good at ventriloquism. The language used
to describe overly-dependent people may reflect their orality - eg: ‘leech’. Very
gullible people may be called ‘suckers’.
‘Oral aggressive’ people are often perceived as greedy and acquisitive, envious,
pessimistic, cynical, sarcastic, scornful and contemptuous.
Orally-fixated people often seek gratification through smoking, thumb-sucking, nail-biting
and chewing objects like pens and pencils. A predilection for oral sex is also seen
as an indication of an oral personality.
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needs met - primarily food from the mother/caregiver. Failure of the mother to meet
needs consistently can lead to the development of an oral aggressive type - ie:RED
has emerged in a unhealthy form in the selfplex to compensate for PURPLE’s needs
not being met. Having needs met with the baby having to make little or no effort
to get its mother’s attention equates to the BEIGE-PURPLE harmonic having its needs
met too easily - potentially producing the oral receptive type. Temperament of both
the mother/caregiver and the child will have an effect here - see Caregiver Sensitivity
Hypothesis vs Temperament Hypothesis.
The impact of temperament is perhaps better reflected in Paul Kline & R Storey’s
1977 slant on the oral personality, in which they proposed 2 oral types: ‘oral optimistic’
( a variation on oral receptive) and ‘oral pessimistic’ (a variation on oral aggressive).
Oral optimistic was characterised as having dependency, liking, fluency, sociability,
liking of novelty and relaxation were clustered together as traits. Oral pessimistic
was characterised as having independence, verbal aggression, envy, coldness and
hostility, malice, ambition and impatience clustered together as traits. Kline &
Storey took their lead from the 1948 work of Freida Goldman-Eisler, on which they
based their 2 oral types. However, Goldman-Eisler only provided evidence at face
validity. Aaron Lazare, Gerald Klerman & David Armor (1966), though, found similar
results in a questionnaire using Goldman-Eisler's items - as did Kline & Storey
in their own investigations. Storey (1980) found a relationship between these oral
characters and smoking, food preferences and nail biting.
While there do indeed seem to be ‘oral personalities’ who either over-trust and are,
therefore, overly dependent, or under-trust and are, therefore, aggressive in over-compensating
for lack of trust, relationships between such types and oral activities such as smoking,
nail-biting, thumb-sucking and engaging in oral sex are correlations only. There
is nothing like enough substantive evidence to postulate cause-and-effect.
Anal Fixations
According to Freud, the ‘anal expulsive’ child gets pleasure from defecating whereas
the ‘anal retentive’ gains satisfaction from being able to hold it in until it is
acceptable to defecate. Anal retentive types are often described as ‘tight’. Interestingly,
many swear words reference anal-urinary activities - eg: ‘crap’, ‘shit’, ‘piss’,
etc.
Anal expulsive types ‘performing’ for others - eg: giving presents, donating to charity,
etc - could be seen as sublimations of the wish to ‘perform on the potty’ for parents.
Sculptors, potters and gardeners can all be said to be sublimating the desire to
smear.
Through the defence mechanism of reaction formation, anal retentive types may feel
compelled to give things away or lose them through gambling or playing on the stock
market.
Freud saw the trials and tribulations of the Anal Stage and the stress of potty training
in particular as leading to the development of the Ego with its brief of restraining
the actvities of the Id to avoid unpleasant consequences - eg: parents chastising
the infant when there is an ‘accident’ which stains the carpet. This drive to conform
to external expectations to avoid unpleasant consequences and the loss of acceptance
also characterises much of the PURPLE vMEME’s activities.
In his version of this stage, Erikson points to the building up of self-esteem through
gaining control of the sphincter and other major muscle groups - thus, feeding the
RED vMEME’s need for esteem.
It is possible to interpet the anal expulsive type as resulting from RED rebelling
against the stress of toilet training while the anal retentive type could be the
result of a premature awakening of BLUE to compensate for the failure to PURPLE to
please. We’re a long way from understanding why difficulties at the Anal Stage could
result in one person becoming expulsive and another retentive - but key factors could
include the memes our parents throw at us - ie: just how important they make it that
the child gets it right. Temperament could also play a part: a more Melancholic type
would seem to have a natural potential to be retentive while a more Choleric type
would be prone to the rebelliousness that characterises the expulsive type.
While annecdotal evidence for apparent anal types abounds - especially retentive,
scientific evidence for the existence of ‘anality’ mainly consists of correlations
of ‘anal traits’ that seem to cluster together. Fisher & Greenberg found the strongest
anal trait pairing was between orderliness and meanness. They also correlated obstinacy
with orderliness and meanness - as did Kline (1972) and Jerrold Pollak (1979) - though
not quite as strongly, A knock to Freudian theory is that Fisher & Greenberg could
not find a relationship between anal traits and the stress of toilet training. This
could mean that temperament, rather than experience, plays a greater role in the
development of anal personality traits. However, Richard O'Neill, Roger Greenberg
& Seymour Fisher (1992) found that 'toilet humour' correlated with stubbornness,
stinginess, orderliness. (40 women for were assessed for 3 anal characteristics and
enjoyment of toilet humour, using a standard questionnaire.) This, the researchers
claimed, supported the notion of 'anality'.
Rather interestingly, J Maltby & J Price (1999) assessed anality and political conservatism
in 285 students and found a strong tendency for highly anal students to be politically
conservative. Perhaps more disturbingly, Fisher (1978) found that racial prejudice
based on skin colour could be related to participants' attitudes towards cleanliness
and thrift. Fisher thought this implied that racial prejudice is the consequence
of an unconscious connection between skin colour and faeces. A better explanation
might be that, since PURPLE and prematurely-emerged BLUE, working together, may produce
characteristics of the anal retentive type, then it should be no surprise that anal
retentive can be linked to racial prejudice since PURPLE not-of-our-tribe discrimination
and BLUE’s search for absolute certainties also fuel racism.
The Phallic Fixation
Fixation at the Phallic Stage is often associated with being unable to identify with
an adult - particularly the same sex parent. Fixation at this stage, according to
Psychoanalytic Theory, can result in homosexuality, exhibitionism, impulsiveness,
extreme vanity, authority problems and rejection of appropriate gender roles. People
who appear overly-confident sexually are sometimes referred to as ‘cocky’.
The link with homosexuality centres around the boy having too close a relationship
with the mother, identifying with her rather than his father and, thus, adopting
female behaviours and thinking patterns. However, research has largely failed to
support this. More than 1 in 10 male children in the UK are raised by lone mothers
without any research correlating homosexuality to lack of a male role model. Indeed,
research over the 15-20 years has tended to indicate homosexuality has a strong genetic
and/or biological component - see: Homosexuality: Nature or Nurture?. Interestingly,
though, current thinking does tend to reflect Freud’s contention that we are all
potentially bisexual!
As to other aspects of the phallic fixation, there is a certain logic to Freud’s
idea that you become vain, impulsive and exhibitionistic because, when you masturbate
as a child, you don’t get told enough that you can’t do that so you grow up feeling
you can do anything. Certainly those high on the temperamental dimension of Psychoticism
would express themselves unrestrainedly if not taught through Operant Conditioning
that certain things were not acceptable. However, such an explanation would only
apply to males and to those females with exceptionally high amounts of testosterone
in their systems and it would apply to all impulsive and compulsive behaviours. The
psychoticist explanation cannot be applied to females generally as they don’t have
enough testosterone in their system for such impulsiveness and compulsiveness to
be biologically-based. Social Learning Theory could be implicated here in that we
model the impulsive and compulsive behaviour of others - particularly if the RED
vMEME saw that kind of behaviour as a short-cut to getting what it wants.
While we all know people who would seem to some of the traits said by Freud to be
indicators of a phallic fixation, there is almost no evidence directly linking such
traits to a ‘Phallic Stage’ of development.
Latent Fixations
There are not usually fixations associated with the Latent Stage - probably because
there isn't much going on in terms of psychosexual development. However, there have
been suggestions from some commentators that problems at this stage can result in
difficulty in feeling comfortable with members of the opposite sex, resulting in
avoidance of the opposite sex or conducting sexual activities in an emotionally-detached
or even aggressive way.
As Freud noted, it is very common for boys and girls to separate themselves from
each other in this stage - a tendency noted by Phil Erwin (1998) as first starting
around 3-4 years of age. However, there is little evidence to relate this separateness
to later problems with the opposite sex and sexual relations.
There can be very serious problems in the Latent stage which can shape the entire
direction of a person’s life, as Erickson notes. However, these are associated with
psychosocial issue rather than psychosexual ones.
Genital Fixation
According to Freud, this is the fixation we all should be aiming for: to be in a
state where we are able to love and be loved - to enjoy and sustain warm and loving
sexual relationships. This, in Integrated SocioPsychology terms, of course, is primarily
about the health of the PURPLE and its capacity for adult attachments.
How well we enter the Genital Stage will be influence by how well we journeyed through
the earlier stages. Unresolved issues at earlier stages can hinder people shifting
focus from their own immediate needs to sharing relationships with others in the
Genital Stage.
In conclusion...
Summing up, we can say that Freud’s great powers of observation have given us some
powerful descriptors of character traits. Quite how these traits develop is still
not fully understood. Integrated SocioPsychology can go a long way in complementing
Freud’s explanations for oral and anal characteristics. Freud’s explanation for phallic
types does not really hold up and we are obliged to look for alternative explanations.
