How do boys and girls resolve the conflict of the phallic stage of psychosexual development?

The third stage of psychosexual development is the phallic stage. This stage occurs at around the age of four or five years, just as the superego is developing. The focus of sexual energy is the genital region.

Freud believed that a boy would have natural love for his mother up until this stage, but as the pleasure focus at this stage is the genital region, it was inevitable that this love would become sexual. Whilst these sexual feelings were in the unconscious, a young boy would see his father as a rival standing in his way, and would therefore feel feelings of aggression and hatred towards his father.

At this stage, the boy will have noticed that his mother has no penis. He would then fear that his father would remove his penis. This fear comes about from the threats and disciplines from being caught masturbating by his parents. This castration fear outdoes the desire for the boy’s mother, so those sexual feelings are repressed.

By now, the superego has developed and so there are feelings of guilt and fear, which will be hard to reconcile. So the boy will want to resolve the conflict with his father by ‘becoming’ him, adopting his masculine behavior. Therefore, Freud explains gender development using his psychosexual theory by explaining how boys learn their behaviors from identifying with their fathers as a result of the Oedipus complex. The Oedipus complex also results in the development of the superego, so the boy is able to possess his mother without guilt, hatred and fear for his father. Once this stage is over, the fourth stage of development begins.

Freud was a little less clear for girls in his theory, as he mainly focused on boys. As you would expect, girls learn their behavior by identifying with their mothers, just as boys do with their fathers.

For girls, Freud identified the Electra complex, which begins as a young girl discovers that she lacks the penis which her father, and other men, will have. Her before-natural love for her father now becomes both envious and erotic, and she longs for a penis of her own. She then blames her mother, thinking she is responsible for her castration, and develops penis envy of her father.

The girl will learn her gender behaviors from identifying with her mother, in an attempt to possess her father vicariously, just as boys learn to do with their mothers. Freud said that he didn’t believe girls ever resolve the Electra complex 100 per cent, but are always a little fixated at this stage. However, they will move on to the fourth stage.

If fixated at this stage, a phallic character can develop, which is reckless, vain, proud, self-assured, arrogant and it is very possible that the adult will not be capable of loving another person and entering a relationship.