N212: Health Differences Across the Life Span 2

Health Differences Across the Lifespan 2 Study Guide

• Provides synthesis and coordination • Carries out primary autonomous functions • Defends against anxiety The Superego: • Third structure to develop • Self-criticism based on moral values • Self-punishment • Self-praise based on ego ideal • Most functions are unconscious Libido Theory •

©2017 Achieve Test Prep Page 27 of 140 Libido theory assumes that biological “needs” drive behavior • The aim of the behavior is to gratify the drive • Drives are either sexual or aggressive innature • The libido theory explains that the sexual instinct plays an etiological role in the neuroses and that sexual stimulation exerts a predominant force (which is called libido) on mental activity throughout life • The discharge of libido is experienced as pleasure Freud’s Psychosexual Development Oral Stage The first stage of psychosexual development is the oral stage, spanning from birth until the age of two years, wherein the infant's mouth is the focus of libidinal gratification derived from the pleasure of feeding at the mother's breast, and from the oral exploration of his or her environment (i.e. the tendency to place objects in the mouth). The id dominates, because neither the ego nor the super ego is yet fully developed, and, since the infant has no personality (identity), every action is based upon the pleasure principle. Weaning is the key experience in the infant's oral stage of psychosexual development. Weaning increases the infant's self-awareness that he or she does not control the environment, and thus delayed gratification is learned, which leads to the formation of the capacities for independence (awareness of the limits of the self) and trust (behaviors leading to gratification). If there is too much or too little gratification of desire, this might lead to an oral-stage fixation. This fixation is characterized by passivity, gullibility, immaturity, and unrealistic optimism, which is manifested in a manipulative personality consequent to ego malformation. In the case of too much gratification, the child does not learn that he or she does not control the environment, and that gratification is not always immediate, thereby forming an immature personality. In the case of too little gratification, the infant might become passive upon learning that gratification is not forthcoming, despite having produced the gratifying behavior.