Editing Psychosexual development (section)

===Phallic stage===
{{main article|Phallic stage}}
[[File:IngresOdipusAndSphinx.jpg|right|thumb|180px|''Oedipus explains the riddle of the Sphinx'', [[Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres]] (c.&nbsp;1805)]]
The third stage of psychosexual development is the [[phallic stage]], spanning the ages of three to six years, wherein the child's genitalia are their primary [[erogenous zone]]. It is in this third infantile development stage that children become aware of their bodies, the bodies of other children, and the bodies of their parents; they gratify physical curiosity by undressing and exploring each other as well as their genitals, and so learn the [[Human anatomy|physical]] (sexual) differences between male and female and their associated social roles. In the phallic stage, a boy's decisive psychosexual experience is the [[Oedipus complex]]—his son–father competition for possession of his mother. The name derives from the 5th-century BC [[Greek mythology|Greek mythologic]] character [[Oedipus]], who unwittingly killed his father and sexually possessed his mother. In the young male, the Oedipus conflict stems from his natural love for his mother, a love which becomes sexual as his libidinal energy transfers from the anal region to the genital. The boy observes that his father stands in the way of his love and desire for possession of his mother. He therefore feels aggression and envy towards his father, but also a fear that his (much stronger) rival will strike back at him. As the boy has noticed that women, his mother in particular, have no penises, he is particularly struck by the fear that his father will remove his penis too. This [[castration anxiety]] surpasses his desire for his mother, so the desire is repressed. Although the boy sees that he cannot possess his mother, he reasons that he can possess her vicariously by identifying with his father and becoming as much like him as possible: this identification is the primary experience guiding the boy's entry into his appropriate sexual role in life. A lasting trace of the oedipal conflict is the superego, the voice of the father within the boy. By thus resolving his incestuous conundrum, the boy passes into the latency period, a period of libidinal dormancy.<ref name=":1" />

Initially, Freud applied the theory of the Oedipus complex to the psychosexual development of boys, but later developed the female aspects of the theory as the ''feminine Oedipus attitude'' and the ''negative Oedipus complex''.<ref name="Freud1991">{{cite book|last=Freud|first=Sigmund|author-link=Sigmund Freud|title=On Sexuality: Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality and Other Works|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G6VlQgAACAAJ|year=1991|publisher=Penguin Books, Limited|isbn=978-0-14-013797-2}}</ref> The feminine Oedipus complex has its roots in the little girl's discovery that she, along with her mother and all other women, lack the penis which her father and other men possess. Her love for her father then becomes both erotic and envious, as she yearns for a penis of her own. She comes to blame her mother for her perceived castration, and is struck by [[penis envy]], the apparent counterpart to the boy's castration anxiety.<ref name=":1" />

Freud's student–collaborator, [[Carl Jung]], coined the term ''Electra complex'' in 1913.<ref>Scott, Jill (2005) ''Electra after Freud: Myth and Culture'' Cornell University Press [https://books.google.com/books?id=83JE6sEFP9cC&dq=%22Electra+complex,+introduced+in+1913%22&pg=PA8 p. 8.]</ref><ref>
{{cite book |last=Jung |first=Carl |author-link=Carl Jung|title=Psychoanalysis and Neurosis |year=1970 |publisher=Princeton University Press }}</ref> The name derives from the 5th-century BC Greek mythologic character [[Electra]], who plotted [[Matricide|matricidal]] revenge with her brother [[Orestes]], against their mother and stepfather, for the murder of their father. (cf. ''[[Electra (Sophocles)|Electra]]'', by Sophocles).<ref>Murphy, Bruce (1996). ''Benét's Reader's Encyclopedia'' Fourth edition, HarperCollins Publishers:New York p. 310</ref><ref>Bell, Robert E. (1991) ''Women of Classical Mythology: A Biographical Dictionary'' Oxford University Press:California pp.177–78</ref><ref>Hornblower, S., Spawforth, A. (1998) ''The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization'' pp. 254–55</ref> According to Jung, a girl's decisive psychosexual experience is her daughter–mother competition for psychosexual possession of her father. Freud rejected Jung's term as psychoanalytically inaccurate: "that what we have said about the Oedipus complex applies with complete strictness to the male child only, and that we are right in rejecting the term 'Electra complex', which seeks to emphasize the analogy between the attitude of the two sexes".<ref>Sigmund Freud, ''On Sexuality'' (London 1991) p. 375</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Sigmund Freud 1856–1939 |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia of German Literature |publisher=Routledge |location=London |url=https://www.credoreference.com/entry/routgermanlit/sigmund_freud_1856_1939 |last=Bishop |first=Paul |date=2000 |editor-last=Konzett |editor-first=Matthias |url-access=subscription}}</ref>

The resolution of the feminine Oedipus complex is less clear-cut than the resolution of the Oedipus complex in males. Freud stated that the resolution comes much later and is never truly complete. Just as the boy learned his sexual role by identifying with his father, so the girl learns her role by identifying with her mother in an attempt to possess her father vicariously. At the eventual resolution of the conflict, the girl passes into the latency period, though Freud implies that she always remains slightly fixated at the phallic stage.<ref name=":1" />

Despite the mother being the parent who primarily gratifies the child's desires, the child begins forming a discrete sexual identity – "boy", "girl" – that alters the dynamics of the parent and child relationship; the parents become the focus of infantile [[Libido|libidinal]] energy. The boy focuses his libido (sexual desire) upon his mother, and focuses jealousy and emotional rivalry against his father – because it is he who sleeps with the mother. Seeking to be united with his mother, the boy desires the death of his father, but the ego, pragmatically based upon the [[reality principle]], knows that the father is the stronger of the two males competing to possess the one female. Nevertheless, the boy remains ambivalent about his father's place in the family, which is manifested as fear of castration by the physically greater father; the fear is an irrational, subconscious manifestation of the infantile Id.<ref>Bullock, A., Trombley, S. (1999) ''The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought'' Harper Collins:London pp. 607, 705</ref> 'Penis envy' in the girl is rooted in anatomic fact: without a penis, she cannot sexually possess the mother, as the infantile id demands. As a result, the girl redirects her [[libido|desire]] for sexual union toward the father; thus, she progresses towards [[heterosexual]] femininity that ideally culminates in bearing a child who replaces the absent [[human penis|penis]]. After the phallic stage, the girl's psychosexual development includes transferring her primary erogenous zone from the infantile [[clitoris]] to the adult [[vagina]]. Freud considered a girl's Oedipal conflict to be more emotionally intense than that of a boy, potentially resulting in a submissive woman of insecure personality.<ref>Bullock, A., Trombley, S. (1999) ''The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought'' Harper Collins:London pp. 259, 705</ref>

In both sexes, [[defense mechanism]]s provide transitory resolutions of the conflict between the drives of the Id and the drives of the ego. The first defense mechanism is ''[[Psychological repression|repression]]'', the blocking of anxiety-inducing impulses and ideas from the conscious mind. The second defense mechanism is ''[[Identification (psychology)|Identification]]'', by which the child incorporates, to their ego, the personality characteristics of the same-sex parent. The boy thus diminishes his castration anxiety, because his identification with the father reduces the rivalry and suggests the promise of a future potency. The girl identifies with the mother, who understands that, in being females, neither of them possesses a penis, and thus they are not antagonists.<ref>Bullock, A., Trombley, S. (1999) ''The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought'' Harper Collins:London pp. 205, 107</ref>