Describe And Evaluate The Psychodynamic Theory Of

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Describe and evaluate the psychodynamic theory of gender development. This essay will describe and evaluate the psychodynamic theory of gender development. The psychodynamic theory of gender development was Freud’s theory of gender development and believes that gender identity is obtained during the phallic stage, the third stage of psychosexual development. It suggests that during the oral and anal stages, the first two stages, the child does not have a gender identity and the child is totally hedonistic driven to seek pleasure to gratify the id’s desires. It is believed that the development of girls and boys only emerges when the child enters the phallic stage; this is where the focus of its libido moves to the genitals. This is where the boys enter the Oedipus complex and start to have sexual desires for their mother. They see their father as standing in the way of these desires and thus creates a hate/ death wish for the father, however at the same time realises that the father is more powerful than he is and starts to fear that if his desires for his mother are found out by his father that he will castrate him, causing castration anxiety. The way the boy handles with this conflict is by identifying and associating with his father to try and become more like him. The boy then starts copying his father, picking up his traits; these newly acquired traits form the boy’s superego and in taking on his father as himself the boy automatically takes on the male gender identity. For girls, this is where they enter the Elektra complex. This starts with the girl realising that they don’t have a penis, thus in turn leads them to believe that they have already been castrated and blame their mother for this castration, Because of this, the girl starts to lust for her father as he has a penis and the girl eventually develops penis envy as she sees herself as
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