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Essay on The Oedipal Years
The oedipal stage was believed to be the last important transforming phase in child development (Michels 1984: 295). Normality and pathology were seen as different at each level. In infancy, normal means having the biological capacity for healthy psychological development; as development proceeds, this quality interacts with experiences that lead to a narrower range of potential outcomes. Pathology results from an inability to integrate what has gone before; normality refers to an individual relatively free of symptoms, flexible in the face of stress, and capable of personal and social happiness and creativity (Michels 1984: 299).
Psychoanalytic theory, in the earliest stages, was linear. While Erik Erikson was heavily influenced by it, he was responsible for introducing a more psychosocial perspective on development, which has clearly shaped the work of most subsequent theorists. It was Erikson who first demonstrated the importance of identifying and understanding the social and cultural variables affecting development, moving theory away from a psychoanalytic orientation.Freud saw the superego as the “heir” of the Oedipus complex. As the child gives up the longed-for love object, the ego promotes identification with the parent of the same sex and repression of sexual longings for the parent of the opposite sex. Since the superego is connected to the id wishes and the ego's sense of reality, it functions both consciously and unconsciously. It can function as both an ally and the master of the ego.
The superego begins to develop at about five years of age and is firmly established between ages nine and eleven. The child identifies with and internalizes the standards, morality, and prohibitions of the parent. The superego is affected by the conscience that alerts the person to what is unacceptable, and includes the ego ideal, which Freud felt represents what is acceptable according to parental expectations and morals.......
