Psychosexual and emotional development in childhood.3) Phallic phase and multiple attachments

Joaquín Díaz Atienza

PHALLIC PHASE 

The phallic phase It begins around the age of three. It is fundamentally characterized by the fact that the partial drives we have been discussing are displaced to the genital organs.

The contents of this post are extracted in a fairly free and summarized way from the corresponding section of the book of J. Bergeret «Psychologie pathologique», This section is recommended reading for anyone interested in this topic, as it describes some concepts that I will not include in this post for purely educational reasons.

1. Psychosexual development

We will briefly explain what urethral eroticism, childhood masturbation, childhood sexual curiosity, and some childhood sexual theories consist of.

• Urethral eroticism. Urethral eroticism arises from the pleasure derived from urination. According to Bergeret, this eroticism has certain characteristics, which we will describe below.

The pleasure of urination can have two meanings: on the one hand, its phallic significance related to sadistic fantasies of causing harm and destruction, and on the other, a more passive "let-flow" position, which reflects an experience of surrender and abandonment in the face of controlling activity. This state of abandonment often manifests as genital self-excitation. It has been observed in psychoanalyzed subjects that there may be sadistic aspects to this urethral eroticization, which can later translate clinically into premature ejaculation.

• Childhood masturbation.

The manipulation of the genitals that the child performs during the previous stages is called primary masturbation. When bladder control is achieved, a dissociation occurs between the pleasure derived from urination and that experienced from the repetitive manipulation of the genitals. The latter is called secondary masturbation.

Secondary masturbation is often repressed by parents, leaving deep unconscious scars and is considered one of the causes of the well-known achildhood memory.

• Childhood sexual curiosity.

This is the phase in which children become aware of the anatomical differences between the sexes. This discovery leads them to ask questions. It is also the developmental stage in which they ask questions and feel curious about the origin of babies, pregnancy, and so on.

The primitive scene This occurs during this phase of psychosexual development and refers to the moment when the child becomes aware of and fantasizes about their parents' sexual intercourse. The primal scene involves a novel awareness that significantly influences the structuring of psychosexual development. The child attempts to formulate an answer to what they observe objectively or fantasize about.

- The identification with one or both parents. It usually occurs in cases where eroticization is passive.

- projection: When the child, from his own aggressiveness, interprets the primitive scene as a sadistic act that is sustained by the hearing of noises, moans, screams, etc., during coitus.

- Feeling of abandonment that can be done upon realizing that he is excluded from that relationship.

- voyeurism.  The term here refers not only to what is seen, but also to what is heard. For Freud, the voyeurism of the primal scene is the source, once sublimated, of the epistemophilia or the need for knowledge. Bergeret says that it is the source "from which researchers or curious people of all kinds are born."

• Theories of infantile sexuality.

The child will try to find answers to everything "new" that they are experiencing. These answers must be satisfactory based on their own libidinal experience and under the control of their drives. They are usually:

– Beliefs about fertilization: by ingestion, through kissing, through urine, through exhibition of genitals, etc.

-Beliefs about birth: anal route, through the navel, by forced extraction, etc.

– Sadistic interpretations of intercourse could be the result of some fantasies that arose during the anal phase, or the result of scenes that he has witnessed.

2. Narcissistic and pregenital characteristics of the phallic phase.

Freud insists that the phallus should not be confused with the penis. The child does not perceive the penis as a genital organ, but as an organ of power. By phallus, we should understand the fantasy by which the perception of the penis provokes in the child a feeling of power. In fact, children perceive parental figures as powerful or weak based on the presence or absence of the phallus.

The phallus is a partial object insofar as the child perceives it as a modifiable organ.

In this phase, children deny the difference between the sexes. The boy denies castration and does not acknowledge the female sex, while the girl does so through phallic assertion.

Ultimately, the castration fantasy is experienced primarily as an attack on narcissistic integrity, which is what the phallus represents. As mentioned, the phallus is not perceived as a genital organ, but as an external symbol of power.

3. The fear of castration.

This refers to the emotional reaction produced by the boy's childhood fantasy of losing his penis, upon the realization of the absence of a penis in girls. While boys experience the fear of losing it, girls maintain the fantasy of acquiring it.

According to Freud, it is a conscious anxiety, "natural, transitory and structuring" of development.

There are differences between boys and girls:

-The child He overinvests his penis, both libidinally through masturbation and insofar as the penis is a narcissistic symbol. Precisely for this reason, it is not surprising that we find exhibitionistic behaviors during this phase.

- The girl It ignores the vagina, considering the clitoris the organ of sexual activity. The transition from clitoris to vagina occurs relatively late (at least by puberty).

After a brief period of denial regarding the absence of a penis, he eventually accepts it, albeit at the cost of a profound narcissistic wound and a feeling of inferiority, both physical and genital. This experience of inferiority is strongly reinforced culturally, an aspect to consider in any educational plan that aims for equality.

MULTIPLE ATTACHMENTS

Does multiple attachment really exist, or is attachment monotropic? (we're talking about the primary attachment). For bowlby It was monotropic, that is, it occurred exclusively with the mother or main caregiver, although it ended up "admitting" multiple attachment in the face of pressure from the feminist movement.

But it is not only Bowlby who privileges motor attachment, also HandIt states that it would only occur with the father in 2% of cases.

It is a controversial topic, especially today, as the traditional family is practically extinct and, therefore, children are exposed to a wide variety of situations about which there is much speculation and little knowledge due to the lack of methodologically sound longitudinal studies. Today, ideology prevails over science regarding knowledge of how attachment is formed and what the consequences are for attachment in these new situations in which newborns grow up.

Secondary multiple attachments

Secondary attachments are truly important. Firstly, because they underpin a child's security, trust, self-esteem, and sociability. And secondly, because we can gain information about primary attachment through how a child establishes secondary attachments.

I've included a slide showing the various models Howes describes regarding multiple attachments. We can see that the models he presents all start from the acceptance of the existence of multiple attachments (Figure 1).

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1. Psychologie pathologique. J. Bergeret and cosl
2. The affective and intellectual development of the child. B. Golse
3. Le premier lien. Theory of attachment. B. Pierrehumbert