Good Essay About Developmental Theory AND Sexuality Concepts

[Complete Name of Students]
Human sexuality has been one of the most touched concerns of developmental theories from Erik Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development to Sigmund Freud’s Psycho-sexual stages. In this paper, Erik Erikson’s and Sigmund Freud’s theory will be put under evaluation in terms of how much these theories touch on sexuality concepts such as nature versus nurture and human intimacy. Erik Erikson’s theory on the Stages of Psychosocial development explores how human development goes through an eight-stage process from infancy to adulthood. Each stage posits a framework identifying the relationship between age and social needs (Crain, 2011). Every person is biologically and psychologically programmed to pass through all these stages; thereby implying the varying needs as the age increase. Human sexuality, according to the theory, starts to become more influential on the person at the stage of fidelity wherein a person is dealing with identity versus role confusion. This stage is the very critical point for sexual identification and at which a solid establishment of sexuality must be made. At this stage, a person starts to contemplate on what he can become or what he will become. As long as this stage is fulfilled, the person may be led to identity crisis, which may adversely affect the remaining psychosocial development stages. On the other hand, Sigmund Freud developed the Psycho-sexual theory that suggests that human beings are naturally endowed with sexual energy that goes through a five-stage development: oral, anal, phallic, latent, and genital (Freud, 1991). As suggested by this theory, human intimacy becomes more apparent and starts to become an important aspect of human development when a person is developing dormant sexual feelings. Sexual satisfaction is considered as a main objective of this stage. However, when the dormant sexual feelings are not experienced or addressed well enough to establish a solid sexual identity, it results to gender confusion. In the case of nurture versus nature, human sexuality is, in theory, acquired according to Erik Erikson; however, Freud believes that human sexuality is natural and starts from birth. There are recent findings in neurobiology that suggests that human sexuality is hardwired to the brain – a concept that heighted discussion on whether human sexuality is nurture or nature.

References

Crain,W. (2011). Theories of development: Concepts and applications. 6th ed. Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Pearson Education.
Freud, S. (1991). On sexuality. London, UK: Penguin Books.