Social Work Questions

From the age of 4-5, the child goes through the “phallic” stage in which the genitals become the “pleasure source”. This stage cause boys to experience the “oedipal conflict” and the girls to experience the “electra conflict”. The boy goes through “castration anxiety” in which he fears his father knows about his desires for his mother and is afraid his father will castrate him. The girl, on the other hand, suffers from “penis envy” in which she feels inferior because of the lack of penis.

From the age of 6-puberty, the child goes through a period of “latency” in which all the sexual urges are suppressed. Then from puberty onward, the child goes back into the “genital” stage in which the sexual urges are reawakened and the “pleasure source” is once again the genitals.

This theory has shaped modern day thinking by making people start to define gender rolls at a very young age. Instead of utilizing all colors for little babies, people will distinguish the colors blue as being for boys and pink as being for girls, and so on. They also have the belief that dolls are for girls and toy trucks are for boys, instead of all toys being for all children. Then there is the traditional husband and wife roles where the husband is the “bread winner” and the wife is the stay at home mom who cooks and cleans after everyone.

Compare a period in your life to one of the developmental stages.

When I was between the ages of 0-2, I started sucking my thumb. For the longest time after I got a little older, I would still suck my thumb. According to Freud’s theory, I was in the “oral” stage and developed the oral receptive personality. Although I no longer suck my thumb, I think that the description of the oral receptive personality still applies to me on a certain level because I am often “passive, needy and sensitive to rejection”.

What can happen to a child when he/she is malnourished?

When a child is malnourished, they lose alot of weight, their growth is stunted, they are at risk for experiencing academic and/or behavior problems, and/or they could starve to death.