influence of childhood experiences

• one assumption is the childhood experiences, where Freud believed in five psychosexual stages of development in children, in which the libido is focused on an area of pleasure.
• the five stages are oral, anal, phallic, latent and genital, and how the child develops in these stages will be reflected in their adult personality.
• if a child is frustrated or overindulged during any of these stages, then fixations will occur, leading to problems in adult life.
• for example, a fixation in the oral stage of development could lead to an eating disorder in adulthood, or an addiction such as alcohol or smoking.