Editing Psychosexual development (section)

== Criticisms ==
===Scientific===
According to [[Frank Cioffi]], a criticism of the scientific validity of the psychoanalytical theory of human psychosexual development is that Freud was personally fixated upon [[human sexuality]].<ref name="Frank Cioffi 2005 pp. 323">Frank Cioffi (2005) "Sigmund Freud" entry ''The Oxford Guide to Philosophy'' Oxford University Press:New York pp. 323–324</ref>

Freud stated that his patients commonly had memories and fantasies of childhood seduction. According to [[Frederick Crews]], critics hold that these were more likely to have been constructs that Freud created and forced upon his patients.<ref name = "Crews 2006">Crews, F. C. (2006). ''Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays.'' Shoemaker & Hoard. {{ISBN|1-59376-101-5}}.</ref>

===Feminist===
{{main article|Feminist views on the Oedipus complex}}
Some feminists criticize Freud's psychosexual development theory as being [[Sexism|sexist]] and [[phallocentric]],<ref name="Johanssen 2021">{{cite book |author-last=Johanssen |author-first=Jacob |year=2021 |chapter=Male fascist bodies – then and now |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C9ZAEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 |title=Fantasy, Online Misogyny and the Manosphere: Male Bodies of Dis/Inhibition |location=[[New York City|New York]] and [[London]] |publisher=[[Routledge]] |edition=1st |series=The Psychoanalysis and Popular Culture Series |pages=28–51 |doi=10.4324/9781003031581-1 |isbn=9781003031581|s2cid=239145248 }}</ref> arguing that it was overly informed by his own self-analysis. In response to the Freudian concept of [[penis envy]] in the development of the feminine Oedipus complex, the German [[Neo-Freudianism|Neo-Freudian]] psychoanalyst [[Karen Horney]], counter-proposed that girls instead develop "[[Power (philosophy)|Power envy]]" rather than penis envy.<ref name="Johanssen 2021"/> She also proposed the concept of "[[womb and vagina envy]]", the male's envy of the female ability to bear children. Some contemporary theorists suggest, in addition to this, the envy of the woman's perceived right to be the kind parent.<ref name="BerzoffFlanagan2008">{{cite book|last1=Berzoff|first1=Joan|last2=Flanagan|first2=Laura Melano|last3=Hertz|first3=Patricia|title=Inside Out and Outside in: Psychodynamic Clinical Theory and Psychopathology in Contemporary Multicultural Contexts|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m457T81-toUC|access-date=19 October 2013|year=2008|publisher=Jason Aronson|location=New York|isbn=978-0-7657-0432-0|pages=229–242}}</ref>

===Anthropologic===
[[File:Wmalinowski trobriand isles 1918.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Bronisław Malinowski and natives, [[Trobriand Islands]] (1918)]]
Contemporary cultural considerations have questioned the normative presumptions of the Freudian psychodynamic perspective that posits the son–father conflict of the [[Oedipal complex]] as universal and essential to human psychologic development.

The anthropologist [[Bronisław Malinowski]]'s studies of the [[Trobriand Islands|Trobriand islanders]] challenged the Freudian proposal that psychosexual development (e.g. the Oedipus complex) was universal. He reported that in the insular matriarchal society of the Trobriand, boys are disciplined by their maternal uncles, not their fathers (impartial, avuncular discipline). In ''[[Sex and Repression in Savage Society]]'' (1927), Malinowski reported that boys dreamed of feared uncles, not of beloved fathers, thus, [[Power (philosophy)|power]] – not sexual jealousy – is the source of Oedipal conflict in such non–Western societies. Furthermore, contemporary research confirms that although personality traits corresponding to the oral stage, the anal stage, the phallic stage, the latent stage, and the genital stage are observable, they remain undetermined as fixed stages of childhood, and as adult personality traits derived from childhood.<ref name="FisherGreenberg">{{cite book|last1=Fisher|first1=Seymour|last2=Greenberg|first2=Roger P.|title=The scientific credibility of Freud's theories and therapy|journal=Medical History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xFwQAQAAIAAJ|year=1977|volume=22|issue=3|page=346|publisher=Basic Books|isbn=978-0-465-07385-6|pmc=1082294}}</ref>

{{Wikinews|Dr. Joseph Merlino on sexuality, insanity, Freud, fetishes and apathy}}