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Oral stage

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The oral stage in psychoanalysis is the term used by Sigmund Freud to describe his theory of child development during the first 18 months of life, in which an infant's pleasure centers are in the mouth. This is the first of Freud's psychosexual stages.

In Freud's theory, this is the infant's first relationship with its mother; it is a nutritive one. The duration of the oral stage depends on the society; in some, it is common for a child to be nursed by its mother for several years but in others it is much shorter. It holds special importance in some tribal societies where the stomach is considered to be the seat of the emotions. Societies that see this stage as medicinal are commonly found in the Southwest Pacific and Africa, referred to in Hilary Jacobson's book 'Mother Food for Breastfeeding Mothers'.

Oral fixation

An oral fixation (also oral craving) is a fixation in the oral stage of development manifested by an obsession with stimulating the mouth (oral) first described by Sigmund Freud, who thought infants are naturally and adaptively in an oral stage, but if weaned too early or too late, may fail to resolve the conflicts of this stage and develop a maladaptive oral fixation. In later life, these people may constantly "hunger" for activities involving the mouth.

If a child is not fed enough (neglected) or fed too much (over-protected), it may become orally fixated as an adult. It is believed that fixation in the oral stage may have one of two effects. If the child was underfed or neglected, he may become orally dependent and obsessed with achieving the oral stimulation of which he was deprived, learning to manipulate others to fulfill his needs rather than maturing to independence. The overly indulged child may resist growing up and try to return to that state of dependency through crying, acting helpless, demanding satisfaction, and being "needy."

Oral fixations are considered to contribute to over-eating, being overly talkative, smoking addictions, overindulging in sugar, chewing on straws and toothpicks, and even alcoholism (known as "oral dependent" qualities). Other symptoms include a sarcastic or "biting" personality (known as "oral sadistic" qualities). Another indicator is constant nail biting and putting fingers in mouth.

The Freudian oral stage of development is not necessarily in conflict with evidence across the mammalian spectrum that body part sucking, including thumbsucking or the sucking of body parts of adjacent animals, is associated with maternal deprivation or premature weaning in the exterior gestational period. Harlow's monkeys were not only head banging and regressing into autism they were also thumbsucking. The best explanation for thumbsucking is mammalian oral tactile imprinting behaviour which is not easily displaced once the sucking object is fixated. The autonomous functioning of the individual mammalian breast is physiologically complementary to this newborn behaviour viz teat preference, teat territoriality, nipple confusion, teat specificity (Mobbs 1988 MA(Syd)Thesis "Human Imprinting").

Criticism

After Freud presented this theory in 1905, there has been no evidence available supporting the affirmation that extended breastfeeding may lead to fixation in the oral stage, or even further contributing to personality or addiction problems.

Instead, Dr. Jack Newman, a pediatrician specialized in breastfeeding, says that if the child breastfeeds until he or she weans him or herself(usually from 2 to 4 years), he or she is generally more independent, and, perhaps, more importantly, more secure in his or her independence [1].

At least one research tested the hypothesis that the period of breastfeeding would have any impact to smoking habits. The study tried to support Freud’s idea of oral fixation, but was unsuccessful in the process[2].

References

  1. ^ Jack Newman, MD, FRCPC (2005) Handout #21. Toddler nursing. [1]
  2. ^ Raith, E (2003) Duration of breast-feeding and the incidence of smoking. Department of Psychology. Loyola University New Orleans. [2]

<MOBBS, E. J. (1990). Suckling and milk production. Medical Journal of. Australia. 152, 616. PEAKER, M. & WILDE,. C. J. (1987). .../>

See also