Sigmund FREUDS theory and Dental Significance

3.2 The Oral Stage of Psychosexual Development (Birth to
18 months)
For Freud, the oral stage of infancy is a critical period in personality
formation. The centers of pleasurable body movements are the mouth,
lips and tongue. The child regards sucking his mothers breast as the
most pleasurable activity. But conflict ensures when the source of love
or pleasure is terminated i.e. the breast feeding. The child at this stage is
self-centered and pre-occupied with his own needs. He also experiences
common problems associated with fixation as dependent personality
with unnecessary demand for mothering, oral aggressive, and excessive 
oral behaviours such as the compulsive eating, nail biting etc.
3.3 Anal Stage (18 months to 3 years)
This stage refers to the stage when the focus of pleasurable body zone
shifts from mouth to anus, rectum and bladder. The child takes most
pleasurable activities in urinating and defecating. The source of conflict
results in toilet training by the mother. The child develops ambivalent
attitudes as a result of parent’s interference with his activities. The child
also resolves conflict between his need for parental love and his need for
instinctual gratification through the development of life long attitudes
toward cleanliness, submissiveness, orderliness, punctuality etc. The
problems alongside with fixation are hostile and challenging personality
accompanied with adherence to rules, regulations, neatness and
orderliness.
3.4 The Phillic Stage
This stage refers to approximately the age of three to six. The focus of
pleasurable body zone shifts from anus to the genitals (the sexual
organs). The child’s pleasurable body activity results to masturbation.
Another important development at this stage are the Oedipus complex
and Elektra complex.
The Oedipus complex implies that the male child feels sexual love for
the mother and perceives his father as hostile rivalry which leads him to
fear punishment through “castration by the father and eventually called
castration anxiety”. This conflict is resolved by identifying with his
father and repressing his desire for his mother. In female child, Elektra
complex occurs where she feels sexual love for the father and hates her
mother. This leads her to conclude that she  has been castrated and
otherwise feels inferior that finds expression in female, “penis envy”.
A male child patient is more co-operative during dental treatment when he is with mom
and vice versa for a girld child.In this regard, the problems expressed in this stage for
 both male and female children are sexual problems in adulthood (impotence or 
frigidity) homosexuality and failure to handle competitive relationships.
3.5 The Latency Stage (Age of 6 to 12 years)
While anal and phallic stages correspond to pre-primary school years,
the latency stage corresponds to the primary school years in which
children suppress most of their infantile sexual feelings or sexuality andFurther, the boys associate with 
their fellow boys and girls and engage themselves in learning skills and
values etc. This is most co-operative stage for child  if he or she has to undergo dental treatment.
3.6 Genital Stage (12 to 18years)
This stage corresponds to part of senior primary school and junior
secondary schools.
In this stage, the focus of pleasurable activity shifts to the members of
the opposite sex. Both boys and girls experience romantic and emotional
feelings. At this stage, Sigmund Freud postulated that human behaviour
is determined by id, ego and superego personality functions. He
identified the nature  of anxiety as conflicts among ‘id’  – impulses;
superego, demands and ego defenses. Id is that part of mind controlled
by the pleasure principle and will. Id impulses clash with person’s need
to adapt to society. As a child grows he develops the ego and superego.
The ego as the conscious part of the mind acts as a mediator between an
individual’s instinctive id, impulse and external reality. As his ego
develops, the child learns to make compromises between his internal
urges and parental and societal controls. The superego is regarded as
conscience part of the mind that helps children, adolescents and adults to
develop a moral code and ideal behaviour. The ego and superego
develop as parts of the personality as the child goes through
psychosexual growth stages. In the course of a child’s development, the
id, the ego and the superego do not appear simultaneously. The id is
already present at birth. The ego develops as the infants satisfy his needs
with the interaction with the environment. Later years the superego
develops as the custody of the rules and values of environment.
Freud identifies several defense mechanisms which children,
adolescents and adults use to excuse their difficulties or shortcoming
and failure.


Ego Defense Mechanisms
Ego operates on reality principle. According to Freudian theory, ego 
defense mechanisms are activated when an individual confront serious 
anxiety and emotional conflict. They are mental devices used by 
individuals to protect themselves from distortion of reality. The most 
common defense mechanisms are projection, reaction formation,
rationalization, displacement, repression, denial, sublimation and 
regression. These defense mechanisms are used to protect the ego 
children develop as part of personality development.
Projection defense mechanism occurs as an individual ascribes his 
unacceptable behaviour to others, to justify self defense. Reaction 
formation implies that an individual protects himself against recognizing 
aspect of his personality that he would find unacceptable by developing 
the opposite behaviour. For rationalization, an individual exhibits a 
convincing reason for doing something unacceptable. Displacement 
implies that the aggression tendency is redirected to a person. In 
repression an individual exhibits unacceptable impulse driven from 
conscious feelings of anxiety and guilt. Denial or regression occurs 
when an individual protects himself from unpleasant reality by not 
perceiving its existence; while sublimation, denotes where unacceptable 
drives are channeled into socially acceptable or creative activities.