Don't be "A-Freud" of Psychology

YES! We finally get to talk about psychology in class! Today's lesson will be a more in-depth lecture about Freud, his ideas about development, and subconscious defense mechanisms.

First of all, Freud believed in the Psychosexual stages of child development, asserting that children were unconsciously sexual with various kinds of stimulation. Freud believed that if a child received too much or too little stimulation in an area of the psychosexual stages, they could become fixated, permanently trying to satisfy their urge for stimulation.

The Psychosexual Stages:

Stage	Focus	Fixation
Oral (0-18 months)	Pleasure centers of the mouth such as biting, nursing, or sucking.	Pleasure seeking activities involving the mouth such as smoking, binge-eating, or chewing gum obsessively.
Anal (18-36 months)	Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination; coping with demands for control.	Anal Retentive- Child becomes controlled and organized. Anal Expulsive- Child becomes disorderly and hoarded.
Phallic (3-6 years)	Pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with incestuous sexual feelings. When girls and boys first realize that they have different genitals and that arousal creates pleasure.	Fixation causes the child to seek a partner that reminds them of their mother or father (Reminiscent Oedipus/Electra Complex)
Latency (6 to puberty)	Dormant sexual feelings. Girls and boys self-segregate by gender. Cooties!	Fixation causes homosexuality.
Genital (Puberty into adulthood)	Maturation of sexual interests	Fixation can cause sex addiction-like tendencies, or lack thereof.

Freud also believed in Defense Mechanisms, unconscious behaviors that our brain does to protect us from something that we don't want to face or don't know how to handle. While the psychosexual stages are really debatable to their validity/accuracy, I definitely see these defense mechanisms in my everyday life. I frequently see these with myself and others around me. It's quite fascinating. 

Defense Mechanisms:

Mechanism	Definition	Example
Repression	Banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness.	Avoiding anxiety-arousing queues that provoke a traumatic memory.
Regression	Individuals retreat, when faced with anxiety, to a more infantile stage	Looking for something that provides comfort, like a parent, sibling, or something that reminds that person of childhood.
Reaction Formation	Ego switches and expresses unacceptable, anxiety-arousing impulses as its opposite.	Being a homophobe or being overtly sexual towards the opposite sex to cope with their homosexual urges.
Projection	People disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others. Hypocritical reasoning.	A criminal and pervert criticizes and accuses an entire ethnicity of being rapists and murderers.
Rationalization	Self-justifying explanations in place of real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one’s actions.	An alcoholic claiming that they only drink to be social.
Displacement	Person shifts aggressive or sexual impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person	A husband beating his wife or kids because he can't take out his anger at work with his boss or co-workers.
Sublimation	Person channels their unacceptable impulses into socially approved activities	Smoking to calm down instead of becoming hostile.