Reading Freud again, when I am actually supposed to be doing totally different things. Why do we never do the things we are supposed/told to? I am well aware that if I had to do an essay on Freud, I would try my best to find something else to do, even if I quite enjoy his work. I simply dislike doing what others expect me to; therefore, I thought I’d just make some brief points about Freud’s idea of early infancy sexuality. Just to state that I do not necessarily agree with all his theories on this subject, but it never hurts to know.
Why is it that most writings concerning the development of children lack the studies on sexual development? It could be because of the popular view that sexuality first starts developing during the years of puberty, being completely absent during childhood. Even in the case of authors who do happen to mention sexual tendencies in children, they tend to view them as exceptional cases or probably due to the lack of education or mental health. Sigmund Freud considered that the sexual manifestations in childhood were normal types of behaviour that can be understood and have a deep significance and influence in one’s later sexual life. But how applicable are his theories?
In his ‘Three Essays on Sexuality’ work, Freud agrees with Lipschutz when he said that puberty could be considered just a ‘second major phase’ in the sexual life. The maturation of the sexual organs starts from an early age, ‘as early as during intra-uterine life’, puberty being simply a phase of acceleration. Childhood until the beginning of puberty could be considered, as Lipschutz calls it, ‘the intermediate phase of puberty’.
Freud’s explanation to why the matter of infantile sexuality is neglected is because of the ‘infantile amnesia’, experienced by most, which is the process of not remembering one’s own childhood, up to 6 to 8 years of age. Most childhood memories that are remembered are in the state of simple fractions or flashes. Therefore, since children cannot understand the idea of sexuality or the purpose of their sexual acts, and the psychoanalysts themselves do not remember experiencing any, the idea of sexual development can easily be overlooked. On the other side, it is well known that in their childhood one experienced other feelings like happiness, love, disappointment and so on, things that we ourselves cannot remember but are reminded by others who witnessed those stages. And since those types of feelings have a great influence on our development, childhood sexuality can also play a very important part. The impressions are not abolished, but ‘stored’ deep into the unconscious trough the process of repression. As explained by his theory of the mind, the feelings and memories repressed into the unconscious still have a great influence on the conscious part of the mind. Things in one’s past that they probably find unimportant or even forgotten can actually be playing a significant role in the present. Similar would be the case of infantile sexuality.
Freud explains how the sexual development of children divides in three parts (oral, anal and phallic stage) which I will not give detail about at the moment. [If interested, most of his work on this matter is included in his ‘Infantile Sexuality’ essay. OR ask, and I will gladly explain myself].
He considers that sexual excitation of early infancy can often appear later on in life, during childhood, under the form of a tickling stimulus that seeks satisfaction in masturbation, or as nocturnal emissions, a type of satisfaction that does not require any sort of action from the subject. Quoting Freud from his ‘Three essays on sexuality’ work, ‘the reappearance of sexual activity is determined by internal causes and external contingencies, both of which can be guessed in cases of neurotic illness from the form taken by their symptoms and can be discovered with certainty by psycho-analytic investigation’. The external contingencies Freud refers to in this case are the effects of seduction.
His seduction theory refers to children who were treated as sexual objects from a premature age, either from an adult or a playmate, and have been taught how to obtain sexual pleasure from their genital organs: ‘a real sexual act forced on a young child who in no way desires or encourages it … which wounds the child in every aspect of her being’ (Masson). All these experiences are shrouded in the unconscious of the child, and when they try and repeat the sexual experience trough masturbation, a deep feeling of guilt, fear and disgust may arise, manifesting themselves trough different types of neurotic illnesses.
In the case of sexual repression, Carl Jung had a different opinion than Freud’s. Even though he did not totally disagree with the theory, he considered that neurotic illnesses could have other background factors, than simply sexuality. Yes, childhood sexuality could be the case in some instances, but Freud seemed not to ‘grant that factors other than sexuality could be the case. Anything that could not be directly interpreted as sexuality he referred to as psychosexuality’. Jung therefore reached to the conclusion that Freud was probably exaggerating with the sexual repressions. Plus, from very interesting conversations between them two (published by Jung), he got to the conclusion that Freud made sexuality repression a personal matter: ‘that no longer has anything to do with scientific judgement; only with a personal power drive … Sexuality evidently meant more to Freud than to other people. For him it was something to be religiously observed’.
In this instance, making a theory a personal matter can be considered a weakness. Freud admits himself that in his paper on ‘The Aetiology of Hysteria’ he exaggerated the importance of the influence of seduction in a person’s life, stating that he ‘did not know that persons who remain normal might have had the same experiences in their childhood’. However, even here, his idea that most of his patients experienced sexual seductions remains.
Of course, there were times when his theory applied. In his visits to the Paris Morgue, in 1885, he seemed to have seen numerous cases of abused children. In most instances, the fact that they were sexually abused was only revealed after their death, during the autopsy. A certain professor Brouardel and Ambroise Tardieu were often presenting cases of brutally murdered children, linking them to sexual assaults, usually from parents or close relatives. The professors ‘often called our attention to the fact of cruelty and brutal treatment, of which children in particular are victims of their parents, their teachers, in short, of those who exercise over them a more or less direct authority’ (Masson)
It is easier to understand, then, why Freud put such emphasis on child sexual abuse. After witnessing those murder cases, Freud probably started getting personally involved in the matter. It would be logical to think that a sexually abused child will not admit easily that he or she is being molested, because of shame and fear. Therefore, a great majority sadly ended up in the morgue. Plus, Freud experienced quite a few cases of sexual molested patients as well. After insisting with his sexual repressions in some of his cases, certain patients admitted that they were sexually molested in childhood, and therefore their neurotic illnesses became clear.
Freud strongly believes that children are not given enough credit for their understanding of the sexual processes. Most parents would usually refuse accept that their child could have any knowledge of it at all or could even experience different types of sexual pleasures from early years. That is one of the reasons why, for example, in order to satisfy a child’s curiosity about ‘where babies come from’, most parents would tell them different fables, as the one of the stork, that children would most likely receive it with a deep mistrust. The only two things that, in Freud’s view, remain undiscovered for children are the fertilizing role of semen and the female sexual organ. Karen Horney, on the other side, even though she agrees with most of Freud’s theories, has a different view on this aspect. She believes that children instinctively know, from a very young age, the use of the male and female sexual organs: ‘We, just like every animal, are subject to great law of heterosexual attraction’. I would have to totally disagree with her idea however, since I myself agree with the behaviourists’ nature over nurture theory (totally different story).
To sum up, Freud’s theories on the infantile sexuality have, like any other theory, their strengths and weaknesses. There will always be psychoanalysts that agree, or criticise Freud’s work. After all, Freud being a conceptual theorist himself, he makes the data that is, later on, meant to be discussed and criticised by others. Because if it would not be for the criticism, that would mean the data is not good enough to worth analysing.
There … I academically wasted quite a bit of my time.
