Concept

Genital stage

Summary
The genital stage in psychoanalysis is the term used by Sigmund Freud to describe the final stage of human psychosexual development. The individual develops a strong sexual interest in people outside of the family. The notion of the genital stage was added to the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), by Sigmund Freud in 1915. In order, these stages of psychosexual development are the oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latency stage, and the genital stage. This stage begins around the time that puberty starts, and ends at death. According to Freud, this stage reappears along with the Oedipus complex. The genital stage coincides with the phallic stage, in that its main concern is the genitalia; however, this concern is now conscious. The genital stage appears when the sexual and aggressive drives have returned. The source of sexual pleasure expands outside of the mother and father. If during the phallic stage the child was unconsciously attracted to the same-sex parent then homosexual relationships can occur during this stage. However, this interpretation of the phallic stage, from the following viewpoint, is incongruous with what the primarily understood phallic stage entails. The Oedipus complex, which is one of the most significant components of the phallic stage, can be explained as the need to have the utmost of a response from the parental figure that is the main object of the libido. It must be clarified that it is more often the mother who is giving the gratification in response to a discharge and or manifestation of libido and is therefore the object of the infantile libido—not the father. It is less likely that the subject will have any unconscious sexual attraction to the father because the father is the source of the subject's incapability to possessing the mother: the subject is still focused on receiving attention from the mother. Furthermore, all sexual attraction during the phallic stage is purely unconscious. During the genital stage the ego and superego have become more developed.
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Related concepts (6)
Oedipus complex
The Oedipus complex (also spelled Œdipus complex) is an idea in psychoanalytic theory. The complex is an ostensibly universal phase in the life of a young boy in which, to try to immediately satisfy basic desires, he unconsciously wishes to have sex with his mother and disdains his father for having sex and being satisfied before him. Sigmund Freud introduced the idea in The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), and coined the term in his paper A Special Type of Choice of Object made by Men (1910).
Oral stage
In Freudian psychoanalysis, the term oral stage or hemitaxia denotes the first psychosexual development stage wherein the mouth of the infant is their primary erogenous zone. Spanning the life period from birth to the age of 18 months, the oral stage is the first of the five Freudian psychosexual development stages: (i) the oral, (ii) the anal, (iii) the phallic, (iv) the latent, and (v) the genital. Freud proposed that if the nursing child's appetite were thwarted during any libidinal development stage, the anxiety would persist into adulthood as a neurosis (functional mental disorder).
Phallic stage
In Freudian psychoanalysis, the phallic stage is the third stage of psychosexual development, spanning the ages of three to six years, wherein the infant's libido (desire) centers upon their genitalia as the erogenous zone. When children become aware of their bodies, the bodies of other children, and the bodies of their parents, they gratify physical curiosity by undressing and exploring each other and their genitals, the center of the phallic stage, in the course of which they learn the physical differences between the male and female sexes and their associated social roles, experiences which alter the psychologic dynamics of the parent and child relationship.
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